Streaming Now…
Laura Harrison
and Lilli Carré
Overheard in the Underworld
Nov 14, 2024 – Apr 27, 2025
Nov 14–Dec 30, 2024
Monday–Friday: 7-10pm
Jan 2–Apr 27, 2025
Monday–Friday: 11am–2pm
Saturday: 1–10pm
Leopoldo Goûtin in partnership with Povos Gallery
SWARM
Oct 3 – Dec 31, 2024
Monday–Friday: 4–7pm
Thursday November 14, 2024: 2–5pm
Klaus in partnership
with MAS Context
Welcome to Tribuneville:
An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been
Jun 17 – Dec 31, 2024
Monday–Friday: 11am–2pm
Saturday: 1–10pm
Thursday November 14, 2024: 8-11am
Overheard in the Underworld
“Overheard in the Underworld” is a collaborative animated installation of a subterranean world of metamorphosis, grief, and reflection. Created as a poetic response to The Descent of Alette, a book-length feminist poem by Alice Notley.
With the poem as their starting point, Laura Harrison and Lilli Carré created a series of interlaced, hand-drawn animated scenes, responding to specific imagery and scenarios found in Notley’s words, improvising on these moments in their own hand. Beginning with a subway ride into surreal and unfamiliar depths, the piece takes a circular journey through tunnels of the flesh and the mind. A shape-shifting woman protagonist confronts shadow selves and power structures in pursuit of healing and transformation, moving from despair to revolt and renewal.
ANIMATION STILLS
SPECIAL EVENTS
Lunchtime experimental soundscape performance with musicians
JaNae Contag and Ryan Black
Thursday November 14th, 12–1pm
Lobby of 150 N. Riverside Plaza
Commissioned by the 150 Media Stream, the performance is in conversation with “Overheard in the Underworld” by artists Laura Harrison and Lilli Carré. The performance also explores the 150 N. Riverside building’s site, construction, and architecture in a series of sonic movements through the use of live instruments, sound samples, and readymade objects.
Public reception of “Overheard
in the Underworld” by Laura Harrison
and Lilli Carré
Thursday November 14th, 6–8pm
Lobby of 150 N. Riverside Plaza
During the reception, the two animation artists will speak about their work and do a reading from Alice Notley’s poem “The Descent of Alette”. Following the reading, artists Chris Sullivan and Curtis Oren will perform improvised music on seaboard and saxophone.
RSVP here.
LILLI CARRÉ
Lilli Carré is an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, working primarily in experimental animation, print, and ceramic sculpture. Recent works focus on perceived misbehaviors, bodily communication, and the grotesque. She is particularly interested in the open-ended possibilities and histories of the animated body – simultaneously physical and virtual, free of expectations or fixed form.
Lilli’s films have screened worldwide in festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Annecy, 25FPS, EMAF, New Chitose, Guanajuato Film Festival, and Ann Arbor. She is the co-curator of the Eyeworks experimental animation screening series held annually in LA, Chicago, and NY since 2010.
She has created over 100 handmade artist books, zines, and comics over the years, and several of her graphic novels have been published by Fantagraphics. Exhibitions of her drawing, animation, and sculpture have included a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and her work has been supported by artist residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Bemis Center, and a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Lilli currently teaches in the Experimental Animation program at CalArts.
LAURA HARRISON
Laura Harrison is an animation artist using unorthodox painterly techniques in her animation practice to push the boundaries of experimental storytelling and pull apart themes such as feminism, trauma, and mortality. Her animations focus on marginalized social outcasts with their own sub cultures. These fringe characters provide a focal point for her concerns with diaspora, transhumanism, gender, the loss of touch in an overwhelmingly visual world and the power of the microscopic.
Films like “Lingerie Show” (2015) and “Little Red Giant, The Monster That I Was” (2017) helped to earn her several awards and fellowships, including a Macdowell residency, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and the Illinois Artists Council Media Arts Fellowship in 2023. Her latest film, “The Limits of Vision” (2022), explores a trapped housewife’s preoccupation with dust. Her films have shown at various festivals internationally including The New York Film Festival, Ottowa International Animation Festival, Animafest Zagreb, Eyeworks, Florida Film Festival, GLAS, Chicago International Film Festival and many others.
Laura is currently an Assistant Professor in the department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
SWARM
Every autumn, a miracle happens. A monarch butterfly born in Canada flies more than 3,000 miles across North America. It does so over land it has never seen, in the reverse direction of the streams of humans traveling steadily north. It’s destination: the rainforest of Mexico. It is a journey filled with peril. Many will never make it, and those that do will never return. No butterfly among them has ever made the journey before, and none will again. In the hands of artist, writer, filmmaker Leopoldo Goût, the tale of the monarch butterfly’s migration from North America to the Mexican town of Contepec gets the immersive, you-are-there treatment. Each monarch butterfly was hand-painted by Goût, then brought into 3D space in collaboration with multimedia artist Matt Bruinooge.
An epic struggle for survival that is also a story of astonishing beauty and marvel is told in an immersive video installation. A groundbreaking work of I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-seeing poetry, SWARM is also a drama about a great migration that explores the value of community, environmentalism, and, ultimately, transformation. The first in a series of installations, SWARM will expand to include holographic projections, volumetric television, music, scent and other visual sensorial technologies, enveloping room-sized installations blurring the lines between vision and experience; the real and the virtual.
LEOPOLDO GOÛT
Leopoldo Goût is an artist, writer, and filmmaker who works across mediums to capture the ephemeral: an abstract and figurative clash with memory and humanity, with chaos. Born in Mexico City, Goût grew up among poets, musicians, explorers, activists, filmmakers, scientists, and visual artists. Their stories and ideas inspired Goût, who quickly became part of that community. He embarked on numerous artistic pursuits: painting, drawing, sculpture, filmmaking, digital art, soundscapes, performance, and more. “I want to emulate and echo that fleeting moment when you wake from an intensely vivid dream, but immediately those images and senses start to dissipate,” Goût says. “I believe my work lives in that ephemeral space. Now you see it, now you don’t.” What may at first appear random, without any form whatsoever, is in reality a carefully crafted, unique perspective on what it means to be conscious. All his projects, including award-winning films, TV shows, and novels, influence each other in unexpected ways. Goût’s perspective is a confluence of the modern and ancient, order and disorder, and speaks to a wide audience. He lives with his family in NYC and has studios in NYC, Mexico City, and Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. His work has appeared in galleries and museums throughout the world, including The West Collection of Pennsylvania, The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, Galeria Museo of Bogotá, Colombia, The Dikeou Collection, The Pritzker Collection, Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, Sandra Gering, Jack Tilton, and PS1.
SPECIAL EVENT
Public Reception
SWARM
October 2, 2024 8–10pm
Lobby of 150 North Riverside
Welcome to Tribuneville:
An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been
The hand-drawn animation, installed on 150 Media Stream’s giant media wall, features sixty of the most inventive building designs entered in the famed 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower architectural competition, as well as flying machines, elevated walkways, monorail tramways, and other fantastical details dreamed up by the artist.
“The iconic design and location of the 150 North Riverside Plaza is a perfect backdrop for this installation that celebrates the exuberance of Chicago architecture,” said Yuge Zhou, video artist and curator of 150 Media Stream. “I’ve been following MAS Context’s incredibly deep and provocative programs over the years and I’m excited to partner with them to present Klaus’s beautiful animation to our community. Klaus’s work is a unique and meticulous reconstruction of history with tantalizing glimpses of a wonderous Chicago. The scale and structure of the 150 Media Stream feels like an ideal platform to envelope the viewers with his worldbuilding.”
“Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been” was first conceived during a 2022 conversation between Klaus and Iker Gil, founder and editor-in-chief of MAS Context, about the upcoming 100-year anniversary of the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition. Feeling it a shame that such a display of architectural imagination remains mostly unknown, Klaus took it upon himself to recover his favorite among these unbuilt entries and imagine a Chicago that could have been.
A first version of “Welcome to Tribuneville,” both in flat-drawing form and as a short video, premiered at “Chicago Tribune Tower Competition at 100,” an event organized by MAS Context in November 2022.
In Fall 2023, a version of the work was published as a cartoon in Spanish architectural magazine Arquine #105: “Mediations.” Arquine is actually Mexico’s leading architecture magazine. “Welcome to Tribuneville” has now been drastically expanded for its upcoming large-scale installation at 150 Media Stream.
“Since their inaugural work in 2017, 150 Media Stream has presented remarkable artwork by local, national, and international artists, and their media wall will provide a perfect venue to bring this exciting work to downtown Chicago at such an epic scale,” said Gil. “Having worked with Klaus on a number of projects over the past decade, I can’t wait to share his imaginative vision for what Chicago could have been a century ago with the broader Chicago public.”
Read a new feature about the installation on WTTW “A Cartoonist’s Immersive Vision of What Chicago’s Architecture Could Have Been Is on Display in One of the City’s New Icons” by Daniel Hautzinger.
ABOUT THE TRIBUNE TOWER INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF 1922
Back in June 1922, the Chicago Tribune launched an international architectural competition for the building that would house its new headquarters with the ambitious goal of constructing “the most beautiful office building in the world.”
“Welcome to Tribuneville,” 2024. © Klaus. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
With a $50,000, $20,000, and $10,000 prize for first, second, and third place respectively, plus a previous fee of $2,000 paid to ten firms that had been invited to submit their designs, the competition was an unquestionable success that earned it a place in the official history of architecture. As much an architectural competition as a publicity stunt for the newspaper, “The International Competition for a New Administration Building for the Chicago Tribune” was part of a massive campaign that generated worldwide press coverage, attracting 263 entries from twenty-three countries, which would then be published in a book and featured in a travelling exhibition. Beside the winning entry by John Mead Howells and Raymond M. Hood, and Eliel Saarinen’s proposal—a second place that many felt should have won—the competition attracted designs from some of the most prominent architects of the time, both within the US and from the international scene. Some of those architects submitting their tower designs included Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, Bruno Taut, Max Taut, Jan Duiker, and Ludwig Hilberseimer.
Other than the built proposal, the proposals by Loos and Gropius and, perhaps, Saarinen’s design, most of these designs have been lost to the collective imagination.
This parade of inventive proposals ranges from the beautifully elegant to the hilariously wacky, from the neo-Gothic to the Beaux Arts, from hyper-ornamental Art Nouveau to beautifully crafted Art Deco, spiky Expressionism, and naked functionalism.
“Welcome to Tribuneville” asks, what if all the entries to the Tribune Tower Competition had been built?
“Welcome to Tribuneville,” 2024. © Klaus. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
KLAUS’S “WELCOME TO TRIBUNEVILLE” WINS FIRST PLACE, PRACTITIONER IN RIBAJ’S ANNUAL DRAWING COMPETITION!
Excerpt of the RIBAJ announcement highlighting the comments from the jury:
“Chia-Yi Chou was fascinated by ‘the way he’s brought all of them together, and more, to tell the story of a moment of architectural history—all rendered as if it’s real but which is in fact a work of complete fiction.’
Jan-Carlos Kucharek called it a ‘Soanic pasticcio in drawn form,’ to which Sarah Wigglesworth added that the piece can be understood ‘in the historical context of JM Gandy’s painterly efforts to represent the pantheon of Soane’s built and unbuilt works.’
Knut Ramstad appreciated how ‘it’s not just about the level of detail of the drawing but the layering of the Chicago story that leaves you able to study the drawing for hours.’”
You can read more about about the award here.
KLAUS
Klaus is an architectural cartoonist active since the early 2000s. Focused on the critique of the architectural star system, the revision of the radical visions of the ’60s and ’70s, and the reinterpretation of the icons of architectural history, both within the discipline and the media, his cartoons have been published in magazines such as Architectural Design, Architectural Review, Arq, Arq’a, eVolo, Clog, Conditions, Domus, Harvard Design Magazine, J–A Jornal Arquitectos, MAS Context, STUDIO, The New City Reader, Volume, as well as several books. He has been a regular contributor to German magazine Uncube (“Numerus Klausus,” 2013–2016), A10: New European Architecture (“Interchange,” 2014–2016), and Arquine, where he writes and illustrates his section “ArquiNoir” since 2013. His work has been exhibited in cities such as Naples, Venice, Santiago (Chile), Mexico D.F., and Chicago, among others. In his other life he is also Luis Miguel (Koldo) Lus Arana, Associate Professor in the Theory and History of Architecture at the University of Zaragoza, where he teaches and writes about the intersections of architecture, media, and popular culture.
https://klaustoon.wordpress.com/
Klaus Toons (@klaustoon) / X
MAS CONTEXT
MAS Context shares ideas and facilitates discourse about urban design and the built environment. Deeply rooted in Chicago but with a global reach, MAS Context nurtures an inclusive community of creative thinkers across disciplines who are interested in the future of cities.
Over the past fifteen years, MAS Context has collaborated with 775 architects, designers, artists, and writers across a variety of mediums and platforms in addition to its topic-based journal, including books, online publishing, public events, oral histories, exhibitions, and site-specific installations. These platforms allow for varying speeds, formats, engagements, audiences, and outcomes. All content is archived online and available for free.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Lecture
Welcome to Tribuneville
October 10, 2024 at 6pm
Society of Architectural Historians
During this event, Luis Miguel Lus Arana will talk about the background and development of the installation and its historical framework, his scholarly research on architecture and the history of visionary urban design in popular media, and the relationship of both with his two-decade long cartooning work under the pseudonym “Klaus.”
Public Reception
Welcome to Tribuneville
October 8, 2024 6–8pm
Lobby of 150 North Riverside
Reception for “Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been” with architectural cartoonist Klaus. Attendees will have an opportunity to watch the installation at 150 Media Stream and listen to a panel discussion between architectural cartoonist Klaus and Iker Gil, founder of MAS Context.
CREDITS
Based on the illustration and short video ‘Welcome to Tribuneville: 100th Anniversary of the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition’ by Koldo Lus Arana (Klaus) and Andrés Jiménez-Lobera. Presented at the event ‘Chicago Tribune Tower Competition at 100’; MAS Context Fall Talks, November 21, 2022.
Concept, drawing, storyboarding and direction: Luis Miguel [Koldo] Lus-Arana aka: ‘Klaus’ (@klaustoon).
Animation, sound, and editing: David Rubioma Motion Graphics Design.
Featuring a selection of 60 entries submitted to the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition (1922) and published in The International Competition for a New Administration Building for the Chicago Tribune MCMXXII.
Marion Harris: After you’ve gone, composed by Turner Layton with lyrics by Henry Creamer. Victor Records, 1918.
Mildred Hunt: A shady Tree, composed by Walterd Donaldson, conducted by Paul Whiteman. Victor Records, 1927.
Featured architectural works by: Eliel Saarinen · Dwight G. Wallace · Bertell Grenman | Edward Shepard Hewitt | Hellmuth & Hellmuth | Mead Walter | Chas H. Bebb · Carl F. Hould | Glenn Brown & Bedford Brown | Albert Randolph Ross · John Sloan | John Wynkoop | Frank Fort | Franklin James Hunt | Bliss & Faville | Alfred Morton Githens | J.L. Baker | William Berg | I. N. Phelps Stokes | Samson, Dodd & Pierpont | Dennison & Hirons | William Drummond | Frank Herding · W. W. Boyd, Jr. | Douglas D. Ellington | Alfred Dellheimer · Steward Wagner | Paul Gerhardt | Mathew L. Freeman | Erich J. Patelski | Frank O. King | Gaar C. Williams | Carey C. Orr | Walter Burley Griffin | Einar Sjostrom · Jarl Eklund | Henri Georges Chassagniole | Honoré Monestel | Adolf Loos | Walter Gropius · Adolf Meyer | Heribert Freiherr Von Luttwitz | H. W. Kruger · Hermann Zess | Gerhard Schroeder | Max Taut | Bruno Taut · Walter Gunther · Kurz Schutz | Heinrich Mossdorf · Hans Hahn · Bruno Busch | Ludwig Koloch | Meischke & Schmidt | D. F. Slothouwer | D. A. Van Zanten | Bernard Bijvoet · Jan Duiker | H. F. Mertens | A. van Baalen | F. H. Douw van der Krap | Giuseppe Boni | Saverio Dioguardi | Pino Vittorio | Antonio Galiffa | Lippincott & Billson | James Salmon | Pedro Guimón Eguiguren | Rafael González Villar | Anonymous architects.
Streaming Next… Techspressionism:
Colin Goldberg // Renata Janiszewska // Karen LaFleur // Jan Swinburne
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