Streaming Now…
May 3–July 31, 2023
James Adamson & Ingrid Wasmer from Knox College in partnership with Associated Colleges of Illinois
May 4–June 30:
Monday–Friday: 8–10pm
Saturday: 7–10pm
July 1–31: TBA
April 13–June 30, 2023
Kenny Schachter in partnership with Expo Chicago
Monday–Friday: 4–8pm
Saturday: 1–7pm
March 22–June 30, 2023
Unicorn in the Garden
by Jonathan Monaghan
Monday–Friday: 8–10am & 12–2pm
Sunday: 1–7pm
Special Event…
Temporal Biomes: An immersive soundscape performance by JaNae Contag and Ryan Black
Wednesday, June 14th & Thursday, June 15th
11:30am–1:30pm
Lobby of 150 North Riverside Plaza
Performance artists JaNae Contag and Ryan Black present Temporal Biomes, an original experimental soundscape project commissioned by the 150 Media Stream. Their performance transforms the personal and shared architecture that defines corporate office spaces through imaginative, evolving sound. Temporal Biomes invites viewers to slow down in their day-to-day lives, and spend time immersed in a sonic journey that navigates through imagined forests, deserts, coral reefs, outer space, and beyond.
DAY 1: June 14th
1. Jungle Waterfall
2. Ocean Depths
3. Server Farm
4. Circuit Board
5. Glistening Cave
DAY 2: June 15th
1. Arctic Tundra
2. Temperate Forest
3. Coral Reef
4. Future Ruins
5. Saturn’s Rings
Take the sounds with you and continue to listen by scanning the QR code.
The Moog Mother-32 synthesizer is generously provided by Synth House Chicago Museum.
James Adamson & Ingrid Wasmer from Knox College,
in partnership with Associated Colleges of Illinois
“Full-quieting” by James Adamson & Ingrid Wasmer (under the mentorship of Tim Stedman) explores the evolution of artmaking within mass visual culture, with a combination of paint-on-glass animation, claymation, and video elements. The animated sequences’ fervent viscerality underscores the physicality of an intuitive artmaking process, while the video elements document this process, depicting various stages of creation. James Adamson and Ingrid Wasmer’s self-recorded videos simulate the aestheticized self-documentations of artistic processes commonly seen in social media. Full-quieting explores the dysmorphic effects of such performative documentation on the artist and viewer with the repetition, saturation, and distortion of the piece’s video elements. Ultimately, Adamson and Wasmer’s work acts as both an intimate reflection on the relationship of an artist to their practice as well as a critical musing on the evolving nature of this relationship in a culture of digital consumption. The project was selected as the winning proposal for the 150 Media Stream Contest for Digital Art in Chicago, in partnership with Associated Colleges of Illinois.
To learn more about the project and 150 Media Stream’s educational initiative, read Knox College’s article here.
James Adamson is a multimedia artist from Elk Ridge, Utah, based in Galesburg, Illinois. He is a Junior at Knox College studying Studio Art, Graphic Design, and Computer Science. His artistic practice primarily includes ceramic and multimedia sculpture, painting, graphic design, and drawing. He is a member of X Visual Arts Journal at Knox College and the Editor of the 2023 issue.
Ingrid Wasmer is a multimedia artist based in Chicago, IL. Ingrid graduated in 2022 from Knox College with a B.A. in Studio Art and Psychology. She works primarily with painting, drawing, and printmaking, interested in exploring themes of memory and perception. Currently, Ingrid is collaborating with Lily Lauver, poet & manager of Prairie Moon Press, Galesburg, IL, on a book project Cherry Prairie Mary Seminary, set to release in the early summer 2023.
Tim Stedman is a graphic designer, artist, and educator. He earned his MFA in graphic design at UIC School of Design in 2011. Stedman is Assistant Professor of Art at Knox College—a private liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois. His primary teaching focus is design and new media. He also teaches in various interdisciplinary initiatives including a distinctive program in entrepreneurship known as StartUp Term. Prior to completing his formal education and advanced degree, Stedman worked in Los Angeles as a music executive, art director, and designer. His work has received numerous awards including a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package.
Kenny Schachter in partnership with Expo Chicago
Chicago is, was, will be… by NYC based artist Kenny Schachter is an immersive video installation created with Artificial Intelligence and commissioned by 150 Media Stream. The work features a hypothetical vision of Chicago as it might have appeared in prehistoric times, collaged with manipulated depictions of the city at present, and theoretical depictions of its appearance in the future. The images will be commingled with ChatGPT machine learning-generated text based upon the lyrics from the 1964 song, My Kind of Town (Chicago is). The looping video will combine text and images to create a forward-looking remix that covers a wide spectrum of history and popular culture, put through the blender of artificial intelligence, which will define much human activity in the digital renaissance we are living through. Project assistant: Caspar Gabriela.
This project is part of the Expo Art Week and will be on view at the 150 Media Stream until June 30th, 2023.
Kenny Schachter in conversation with Bianca Bova, Friday, April 14th at 150 N Riverside Plaza.
New York-based writer, curator, and artist Kenny Schachter has been working within, and reporting on, the art world for more than 30 years. As a longtime columnist for Artnet.com, he provides wry dispatches on the economics, characters, and trends of the art market. His own work—spanning sculpture, digital art, music, and video—has been exhibited in New York, London, Vienna, Miami, and Basel. An early evangelist for NFTs, Schachter has lectured on the subject at Yale University and the Hirshhorn Museum, and curated NFT-based exhibitions in Cologne and London.
Unicorn in the Garden by Jonathan Monaghan
Unicorn in the Garden is a mesmerizing 3D-animated dreamscape that interweaves ancient mythological symbols with contemporary elements. Inspired by the iconic medieval Unicorn Tapestries, the artwork reimagines the tapestries as a hypnotic collage that invites the viewer to explore and decode the layers of symbolism and meaning embedded within. The piece’s intricate attention to detail and the seamless interplay between the historical and the modern create a dynamic and immersive experience that challenges our perception of time and history while exploring the rich visual language of myth and storytelling.
The piece’s intricate attention to detail and the seamless interplay between the historical and the modern create a dynamic and immersive experience that challenges our perception of time and history while exploring the rich visual language of myth and storytelling.
Drawing inspiration from disparate sources such as ancient mythologies, commercial architecture, and corporate logos, Jonathan Monaghan creates a mythical world where the boundaries between nature and technology are subverted in fantastical and often satirical ways. Monaghan adopts the glossy, computer-generated aesthetics and techniques used in video games and advertisements. While this familiarity provides an accessible entry point, the works also probe the viewers’ anxieties about the digital landscape and its potential consequences. Through his critical reflections, Monaghan challenges us to confront our relationship with technology and its ecological impact.
“Traditionally, mythological stories have been born out of a desire to understand humans’ relationship to the natural world and are deeply connected to the human psyche. Fantastical and otherworldly visions of mythical creatures sometimes offer the best channel to understanding the complexities of human nature and the inhabited world. Today, in the midst of an often dehumanizing technological experience, my work aims to answer the question: what would a contemporary mythology look like?” —Jonathan Monaghan
Monaghan’s work has been exhibited at the Sundance Film Festival and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue Italia, and The Washington Post.
Visit jonathanmonoghan.com to learn more about Jonathan Monaghan’s work.
Streaming Next… Selina Trepp
Follow 150 Media Stream
#StreamOn