Streaming Now…
Nov 17, 2022–Apr 23, 2023
Monday–Friday
12–1:30pm, 4:30–10pm
Wednesday, Dec 7th: 4:30–10pm
Saturday & Sunday
1–7pm
Holiday hours may vary
Deborah Jack in partnership with MCA Chicago
Sept 13, 2022–Jan 31, 2023
Princess Mhoon & Deeply Rooted Dance Theater
LoVid:
Tali Hinkis & Kyle Lapidus
Paul Hertz &
Christopher Walczak
Deborah Jack in partnership with MCA Chicago
In conjunction with the exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today at the MCA Chicago, 150 Media Stream is proud to present a new installation by Deborah Jack, one of the MCA exhibition artists. This installation entitled “…wonder at the heartbreak and reassemble the fragments of shattered symmetries, until…” is a brief meditation on power that exists in the quiet moments of the natural world. It investigates how altering our speed and proximity to nature can impact us. Deborah Jack uses flora and the sea as metaphors for trauma and healing. The power lies in the in-between spaces where the water meets the land and in the resistance of a petal.
Deborah’s work at the Forecast Form exhibition at the MCA Chicago is a 7 channel video installation entitled “the fecund, the lush and the salted land waits for a harvest…her people… ripe with promise, wait until the next blowing season”. This piece incorporates video and still images. It uses Dutch archival videos of colonial footage of labor in a salt pond and juxtaposes it with the lush flora of the land. This is in keeping with the artist’s practice of looking at the history of extraction capitalism, as experienced in smaller landscapes.
“My work explores the relationship of the natural world to memory, personal and cultural. The hurricane, the sea, the shore, the land and the flora all play a role in creating memorials. In these narratives I’ve created a seasonal memorial. These works of mine are cycles of memory. The title to the installation for the 150 Media Stream is based on a quote from the poet Derek Walcott, ‘Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.’ This was taken from his Nobel essay, Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory. So in the title I was considering the notion heartbreak, that can be the aftermath of the fracture not as tragedy but as a place of wonder. How the Caribbean has transcended and shown how the archipelagic gives us an alternate world view. That the fragment is poetic and therefore expansive. The footage of the work was shot on the island of St. Martin on both the French and Dutch parts. It is a celebration of the poetic of the waves interacting with the shore. That the sea with its troubled history also feeds and nurtures. The flowers, a symbol of beauty and strength, are from the Grand Poinciana or the Flamboyant trees. They are known throughout the Caribbean region, but can also be found in Asia, Africa. The sea brought these seeds over in the hill of ships or perhaps in the braids of the enslaved. The poetic of this duality, the awful and the beautiful, is place of inspiration for my work.” —Deborah Jack.
Deborah Jack is a St. Maarten and Jersey City based multi-disciplinary artist whose work is based in video/sound installation, photography, painting and text. Her work engages a variety of strategies for mining the intersections of histories, cultural memory, ecology and climate change, while negotiating a global present. Her work will be featured in the upcoming Fall 2022 exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990’s-Today at the MCA Chicago. Group exhibitions include the Perez Art Museum of Miami exhibition The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Contemporary Caribbean Art, Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago. Her work has been exhibited at the 2014 SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Jersey City Museum, and TENT Rotterdam. Her work has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, Frieze, Art Burst Miami, and the New York Times. In Fall 2021 Deborah Jack: 20 Years was presented at Pen + Brush in New York City. Deborah is currently a Professor of Art at New Jersey City University.
Princess Mhoon & Deeply Rooted Dance Theater
Since our earliest human civilizations, we have recognized the power of color to move and affect us. As reflected in our natural environment our primal color associations remain and are deeply powerful, while others are relatively new and exciting. Color is a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and even influence physiological reactions.
In an exciting new media project entitled Color In Motion, the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project will feature Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in a dynamic physical exploration of color. Designed and choreographed through the creative lenses of award winning Director & Choreographer, Princess Mhoon, with special guest choreography by Nicole Clarke-Springer, Artistic Director of the Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. This creative team and dancers will take the viewer on a journey demonstrating the power of color in motion and the inspiring world in which we live.
“Greeted by the audience with an affectionate exuberance that swelled to roars of laughter and approval … performed with Deeply Rooted’s signature attention to detail, lithe technical skill, and dramatic nuance.” — Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
“Princess Mhoon, Top African American Female Choreographers You Should Know” by Huffington Post
Princess Mhoon
Credits
Princess Mhoon: Director & Choreographer
Nicole Clarke-Springer: Guest Choreographer
Deeply Rooted Dance Theater: Dancers
Stonewolf Productions: Filming Editing
Co-Commissioned by: The Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts & Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project
Strategic Program Manager,
The Chicago Black Dance
Legacy Project
Princess Mhoon is a choreographer, director, producer, educator, and scholar recognized in 2015 by HUFFINGTON POST as one of 26 Female Choreographers “You Should Know” and Dance Magazine’s 2006 “Top 25 to Watch” in the world for the Women’s Choreography Project titled This Woman’s Work. Mhoon is a second generation artist and entrepreneur who has set her sights on enhancing the artistic landscape of the Nation’s Capital. In 2016 she was invited to participate as one of the region’s leading dance leaders by First Lady Michelle Obama during her Celebration of Black Women in Dance; she also served as a panelist for The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans during Women’s History Month and acknowledged by the administration as Black GirlChange Maker. With work commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the DC Jazz Festival, Princess Mhoon has been called “A visionary of her generation.” She is the Founder and Director of the Princess Mhoon Dance Institute with locations in DC and Maryland.
In recognition of the critical issues facing the field of Black dance and the importance of its continued survival, the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project fills the need for a dance service organization in Chicago that partners directly with Black dance companies to strengthen their financial and operational capacity, ensuring the long-term survival of their work. Developed through a partnership between the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at The University of Chicago and Tracie D. Hall, Director of The Joyce Foundation’s Culture Program, this initiative leverages the strategic resources of the Logan Center and UChicago to facilitate access to funding, support dance programming and training, and provide key administrative support to eight Chicago-based Black dance companies. The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project aims to serve as a local and national model for collaborative strategies to strengthen the Black dance field as a whole. The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project celebrates the national impact of Black dance in the performing arts and addresses the historic inequities in arts funding by providing critical financial and operational support to local Black dance makers.
Deeply Rooted Dance Theater reimagines and diversifies the aesthetics of contemporary dance by uniting modern, classical, American, and African-American traditions in dance and storytelling. Through its uncompromising pursuit of excellence, Deeply Rooted demonstrates the transformative power of art and beauty through dance education, performance, and cultural enrichment in Chicago and on the world stage. Deeply Rooted is rooted in traditions of American and African-American dance, storytelling, and universal themes that spark a visceral experience and ignite an emotional response in diverse audiences worldwide. Deeply Rooted collaborates with nationally renowned choreographers, across the spectrum of modern, ballet, and African dance, to reflect contemporary voices.
LoVid: Tali Hinkis & Kyle Lapidus
LoVid’s Hugs on Tape series started as a series of animations for Instagram during winter 2021 at the height of the Covid shutdown. LoVid felt a sincere urge to connect with loved ones from around the world and create images of the body that represents closeness, emotional presence, and touch. Huggez-Vous is the first public art commission in the Hugs on Tape series produced for 150 Media Stream.
This work includes animated spontaneous hugs by members of the 150 N Riverside building’s community. LoVid spent a day in June 2022 filming tenants and visitors hugging friends, colleagues, or strangers. Each animated hug was created with LoVid’s unique analog-digital process utilizing handmade audio/video synthesizers and digital animation software. All the patterns and colors in Huggez-Vous are made exclusively with hardware, analog synthesizers.
Huggez-Vous shines a light on the visceral need for physical contact in the pandemic era, filling up the screen with colorful human interactions that distribute bursts of joy.
Thank you to all who participated:
Yuge Zhou / Zach Moore / Bart Drozd / Emily / Eliana / Mathilda / Drew Sandler / Molly / Matt / Tara / Boris / Jessica / Mandi / Alex / Joanna / Teddy Mcnaughton / Brittney Epstein / Maria / Lauren Ha / Nathan / Eric Benedetti / Becca Flynn / Haley Allen / Funmi / Sanemi Jain / Tara Shinde / Jenna Kim / Marty Caserio / Amy / Rafael Carreira / Alexa & Derek / Geoffrey / Gabe & Steph Labovitz / Gabi Gold / Juliana / Christie Ponsot
LoVid was established in 2001 as a collaboration between artists Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus.
Their work has been exhibited internationally including among others: Honor Fraser Gallery, Postmasters, bitforms, Marquee Projects, And/Or Gallery, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, Real Art Ways, BRIC, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Mixed Greens Gallery, The Science Gallery Dublin, The Jewish Museum, Daejeon Museum, Smack Mellon, Netherland Media Art Institute, New Museum, and ICA London.
LoVid has performed in venues including: The Parrish Museum, Issue Project Room, River to River Festival, Lampo Chicago, Tectonics Festival, Museum of the Moving Image, MoMA, The Kitchen, Siskel Theater Chicago, and International Film Festival Rotterdam.
LoVid’s projects have received awards, residencies, and grants support from: Wave Hill, NY Hall of Science, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Graham Foundation, UC Santa Barbara, Signal Culture, Cue Art Foundation, Eyebeam, Harvestworks, Wave Farm, Rhizome, Franklin Furnace, Turbulence.org, New York Foundation for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center, Experimental TV Center, NY State Council of the Arts, and Greenwall Foundation. Their works have been reviewed at Art in America, The New Yorker, Bmore Art, Hyperallergic, Garage, and NYLON, and published in, Handmade Electronic Music (third edition), Emergence of Video Processing Tools, PAJ (Journal for Performance And Art), Maker Magazine, Leonardo Music, among others.
Paul Hertz & Christopher Walczak
“Campos/Temporales” is a computer- generated animation by artist Paul Hertz with music by composer Christopher Walczak. Hertz and Walczak developed the piece through a collaborative process.
Live musical performance at 150 N Riverside Plaza, on the evening of Friday, September 30th.
The opening reception musical performance was dedicated to the artists’ mutual friend, late composer Stephen Dembski—live music was composed by Walczak for a quartet of improvising musicians: Eric Mandat on clarinet, Emily Rach Beisel on saxophone, Jason Roebke on bass, and Chris Butler on percussion, with electronic sound by Walczak.
Paul Hertz is an independent artist, printmaker, and curator who works with algorithmic processes. He taught for many years at Northwestern University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His curatorial work includes three shows for the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, notable among them the glitch art group show “GlitChicago,” and at Northwestern University’s Block Museum the historical survey of digital printmaking “Imaging by Numbers”. Hertz has exhibited his archival pigment prints and interactive installations at numerous international media festivals, conferences, and symposia. A glass mural by Hertz welcomes visitors to the lobby of the National Science Foundation. Created in collaboration with composer Stephen Dembski, the VR installation “Fools Paradise,” toured international venues (2017–2020). His latest work is an intermedia animation with music by composer Christopher Walczak, Campos / Temporales, for 150 Media Stream. Hertz’s FLOSS software is available on github (ignotus-mago) and the Processing.org website. He lives and works in Chicago.
Christopher Walczak is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he serves as instructor, music theory coordinator, director of the annual Outside The Box new music festival, and maintains the Center for Experimental Electronic Music. He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in composition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2013 he earned his doctorate from Rice University. He has studied with composers Gunther Schuller, Stephen Dembski, Joel Naumann, Laura Schwendinger, Shih-Hui Chen, Richard Lavenda, Pierre Jalbert, and Arthur Gottschalk. His music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by numerous orchestras and ensembles of national and international acclaim. Christopher has been nominated for a fellowship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters on four occasions. His solo piano work Dark Blue Etude was premiered in Carnegie Hall by pianist Andrew Staupe. Christopher’s repertoire includes works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles of various sizes, full symphony as well as chamber orchestras, and music for computer. As a music theorist, Christopher specializes in transformational networks, synthetic tonal systems and innovative analytical approaches.
Streaming Next… Jonathan Monaghan
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