Summer Wars

Have you ever done math so hard that your nose bled? Summer Wars, a Japanese animated film, is about a young boy who goes on vacation to meet his friend’s family and finds himself accidentally enabling an evil AI to overtake the internet. This boy, Kenji Koiso, is a math prodigy, and, as with most young geniuses, is shy and nervous around girls. He receives a message on his cell phone that is a string of digits. He manages to decrypt it in a single night, thinking it is an amusing puzzle. In so doing, he inadvertently allows an AI to take over not only his account, but a variety of other online functions. To take back the internet from this AI before disaster hits, Kenji must use pure math to decrypt numerical sequences at break-neck pace, hence causing a nosebleed.

The internet in Summer Wars, called Oz, is basically an ultra facebook on which people store all their information, conduct their business, and run their jobs. This means that not only is credit card information on the internet, but also launch codes to nuclear missiles and global positioning systems for satellites. So, if a hacker with bad intentions were to access this site, he could disrupt all aspects of life, from traffic signals to medical information to defense. Which of course happens.

Oz

Oz is a wildly colorful, neon pastel-on-white wonderland of wacky animal avatars. The entire space is reminiscent of Takashi Murakami‘s work, blending cuteness, commercialism, and manga to create a coherent alternate reality. In it any function that one would ever conceive to do online can be done. This includes martial arts sparring, which ends up being a venue for attempting to take down the evil AI that overtakes people’s accounts. A note about this AI: it was created at “a robotics school in Pittsburgh,” and bought by the US government. It was never meant to be evil, it just got out of hand.

Luckily, by visiting his friend’s family’s house in the countryside, Kenji coincidentally is in the same house with the creator of the AI and the coolest fighting rabbit avatar owner that Oz has to offer. Said owner is about 11 years old, but can type really quickly.

The film does not entirely center around Oz, it mainly centers around the family, which has come together to celebrate the 90^th birthday of its matriarch. The family consists of men who are vocal but passive, and women who are assertive, yet spend much of their time and energy in the kitchen. While the women remain unaware of the imminent devise of the Earth, the men find a way to get a supercomputer into their house, and play video games in such a way as to save the world.

This outside world, although visually not as fantastic as Oz, is nonetheless more compelling for its ability to

Reality

contain stories, conflict, depth and food. The film does not explore people’s actual lives getting taken over by the internet, but rather their virtual lives, namely, the information over which they have power. All the numbers and codes with which a person is associated, from his bank account to, say, the access codes to the city sewer authority computers, if one is the head of the sewer authority, are all kept in Oz. Although a person’s identity can’t be overtaken, his function can be assumed and abused. The repercussions reverberate in the actual world. This abuse is made visual by having the AI, whose avatar is a tattooed warrior, knock around the pieces of graphs, topple dominoes with points of data, and rearrange plates containing the commands to traffic signals. Luckily, there are young math geniuses and computer gurus to save the day.

Summer Wars is playing at the Harris Theater through January 19^th.

Tiny Furniture

The worst thing that can happen to a person after graduating college is to have to enter the adult world. Luckily, this is not always necessary. One can always move back in with her mother, provided that her mother is really cool, lives in New York City, and is rarely home. It also helps when mom has a stocked wine cabinet and a freezer full of frozen appetizers.

Tiny Furniture stars Lena Dunham as Aura, a young woman who has just graduated college in Ohio and has returned to New York with no idea what she is going to do with her future. She stays with her mother for a few weeks as a stop-gap measure before her friend moves to town and they can get an apartment. But living with her mother is the perfect opportunity for her to “figure things out,” meaning hang out with fascinating yet unsavory people. Her best friend from when she was a young child, Charlotte, lives in the neighborhood, and they quickly develop the sort of obsessive friendship that causes Charlotte to be jealous of all Aura’s other friends. Aura also falls in with the two types of men all women should avoid, egoists and men who quote Nietzsche.

Wrong guy type 1

Charlotte helps Aura get a job as a day hostess at a restaurant, a job that entails taking reservations and flirting with the chef. This chef is the sort of guy that high school girls fall in love with. He is intense and interesting when you’re around, but he doesn’t actually care about you. He is likely using you for your drug connections, as a back-up if his girlfriend dumps him, or just someone to kill time with at work. He makes plans and breaks them. Instead of seeing him as the egoist he is, Aura spends her time analyzing and justifying his every word and action.

Wrong guy type 2

Meanwhile, a young video maker she met at a party is staying with her. He has a hit youtube channel, where he stars in videos in which he rides a toy horse and quotes Nietzsche. She met him at a party, invited him to see a movie, and found out that he was broke. So of course she invited him to stay in her mom’s house with her while her mom was away. He, too, is using her for her hospitality. And he’s the sort of bad guest who complains and makes suggestions. When the cool mom returns home, her greatest gripe is that this man who is staying in her house is not even sleeping with Aura.

Throughout the movie, Aura seems to become more childish, and relies more and more on her mother. She convinces herself that her mother needs her, so she decides to stay in her mom’s home rather than get her own place. Meanwhile, her sister writes bad poetry that wins awards, and makes cutting yet true observations about Aura’s lifestyle. Aura doesn’t seem to find herself like she had wanted, but to lose herself in a sea of people who have conflicting expectations of her. She makes poor decisions about who to please and how to please them. She tells Charlotte how everyone in Ohio was so sweet and serene, how they baked for fun, but how they didn’t ‘get it.’ It seems that her years away from cruel, self-absorbed people has caused her to remain naïve and easily manipulated. Yet, she is funny, observant and lovable, and ultimately relatable.

Tiny Furniture is playing at the Regent Square Theater through January 13th.

Lisa Platt

Lisa Platt began her artistic career in 1998 with paper mache. She also worked with sculpture, and focused on making sea creatures and mermaids. “I am a mermaid,” she says. In 1998, she took some of her work to the PCA shop and they took it on.

Mosaics are now her main focus. She creates her own tiles, fires them and paints them, then arranges the tiles, often around found objects, such as rescued wood. Her works are diverse, some focusing on sea creatures, and some showing urban landscapes. Her work “Yellow Submarine” is an example of objects integrated with her handmade tiles. In this work, her submarine is surrounded by water made of Youghiogheny stained glass.

Other pieces of hers focus on city life, such as her piece entitled “Our Town.” In it is depicted a building with “a crazy lady with a big head. That’s me.” The building also contains a transvestite couple, as well as “a single mom with four kids, a fish and a bird.” On the top of the picture is the night sky, and people dancing on the roof. “It’s Pittsburgh”

The “crazy lady” represents Lisa because she is a landlord, as well as an artist and a teacher. She has taught workshops on mosaics, as well as art camp for mosaics. This winter, she is offering a class on paper mache at the Center for the Arts.

Lisa’s work can be seen around the city. She created the mosaic that wraps around the stingray tank at the zoo. She also has a large mosaic at Children’s Hospital. This mosaic features the hospital, the countryside, the city, and the zoo. “It turned out cute.” The mosaic contains, “doctors, nurses, birds, giraffes, monkeys.”

She describes her pieces as whimsical, and this characterization can be seen in a work she made for a former fellow at CMU. He commissioned her to create a work of art to thank his colleagues. She made the pieces with CMU’s mascot the Scottie dog, as well as the CMU seal, and plaid. Each of the four parts represented a different season, and for each season the Scottie dog had on different attire. For winter he had a winter hat, and in summer sunglasses.

“A lot of artists represent themselves in different ways. My interest is to lighten it up. My intent is to make people smile and be happy. I crack myself up all the time.” Her work gets people smiling, from her large mosaics to her ornaments. She sells ornaments of fat cats with whiskers. People bring these ornaments up to the register in both hands, looking at the little faces and smiling.

Lisa was born in Pittsburgh, but moved to Florida in 1979. There she had a variety of jobs, including manager of a ship store in the marina and working on a fishing boat, on which she was the only girl. “They did challenge me,” she says of the experience. Her time in Florida is part of what inspires her love of sea creatures and mermaids.

Other factors have also influenced her art. “I grew up around a wonderful family.” Her dad was a creative writer, and friends of her family were photographers, painters, furniture makers, and people who made money with their crafts. They were “a bunch of bohemians.”

Lisa worked at the zoo for 16 years as the operations manager; she was in charge of the gift shop, restaurant, catering, and special events. She was also responsible for hiring, scheduling, and tracking 150 seasonal employees each year. “My strength is I am good with logistics.” The job was intense and rewarding. It was hard to make the transition from employee to self-employed artist. At the time she made the change, she was managing 10 buildings, working full time and making art. “I couldn’t do it all. I had to back off from something.” It took time to get “used to not going to work everyday for someone else.”

Of the PCA she says, “I love the Center. I took classes there as a kid and young adult in ceramics.” She would especially like to thank Jen Carter, the PCA Shop Manager. “She’s so devoted to the program, which features some of the nicest work I’ve seen in one place. She;s a good, strong manager, lovely person, and talented.”

Of life as an artist,“this is the best time of my life now,” she says.

Visit the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts to view Lisa’s work.

Ron Donoughe

Ron Donoughe is a Pittsburgh artist known for his plein air method. He finds outdoor locations in and around Pittsburgh, sets up shop, and paints outdoors. Once he has created his painting, he brings it into his studio to create a larger version. He began his outdoor paintings years ago because he “wanted to do work directly from life in an honest way.” He is interested in light and shadow, as well as how colors change over distance.

When he had begun painting, the work he was doing was “clever. It felt like jumping through intellectual exercises,” and did not involve “experiencing the landscape.” He refers to this as “drawing from the interior rather than the exterior.” He switched to the plein air method because the plein air works were “more honest. They felt true to who I was.”

Donoughe comes from a large family and had seven siblings, one of whom is his identical twin. They grew up in the country, surrounded by cows and chickens, “immersed in the landscape.” During his youth he had a variety of jobs, including landscaping and grave digging, which he did with his twin. The graves were hollowed out with a back hoe, but he and his brother had to climb in with shovels to even them out. “It was a crazy job, but the undertaker always tipped well.” They also had a job that involved catching chickens in the chicken coup, which Donoughe describes as “character building.”

When he began outdoor painting, he painted rural landscapes in all seasons. He has since “warmed up to the urban landscape.” Nowadays he paints both urban and rural landscapes. With his twin brother he owns his parents home, which he frequently visits, finding locations in the area to paint. He also paints every day in Pittsburgh. “It’s part of my routine. I go out looking for subject matter. Something will stop me and call out to be painted.” In his urban paintings, he strives to “give voice to areas of Pittsburgh that don’t get a voice visually.” These days he has been painting in Garfield, Lawrenceville, and Braddock.

At the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Donoughe is currently selling his smaller paintings that he completed while outdoors. His winter paintings are some of his most famous for the way they show the play of light, shadow and color on snow. He has paintings from every season in both rural and urban environments.

For more of his work visit his website at : http://www.donoughe.com/ or go to the PCA shop.

http://www.pittsburgharts.org/shop_index.php

3 Rivers Film Festival to Feature Local Films

The Three Rivers Film Festival features films by and about Pittsburghers.

On Friday November 19^th at 9:15 at the regent Square Theater, Mt. Pleasant will play. This film is based on the short story by local author Jim Daniels. The film features a young man who assumed that escaping his home town of Detroit would solve his problems and change his life for the better. College, however, is not quite that simple, and he falls into self-destructive behavior to allay his anxieties. The film takes place over a weekend in Pittsburgh in which the young man confronts himself and his defunct worldview. The film will be preceded by Steeltown’s 2009 Film Factory competition winners, Anywhere But Here, and Roll The Dice.

On Saturday, November 13^th at 7:00 at Melwood, The Electricity Fairy will play. This film documents and examines America’s relationship with fossil fuels. The film covers the controversy over creating a coal-fueled power plant in Virginia, and connects that local issue with the national energy debate. The film mixes documentary footage with old educational films and links past policy to our present conditions.

On Saturday, November 13^th from 1-6 pm, a symposium entitled Movies And Violence: A Love Affair will be held at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. The symposium will feature screenings, presentations and discussions exploring the allure and omnipresence of violence in film. Violence is not limited to horror and action, but is a key feature in slapstick humor, in drama, and in cartoons. Violence ranges from a box office draw to a key plot point. Its ever presence on the news implies that violence in itself tells a story. Violence is visceral, and it connects the viewer to the film emotionally and physically; violent scenes are often the most memorable parts of films. Watching violence is thus different than watching other films, because the body participates, not just the mind. Violence on television is like the distilled essence of sport, the catharsis of sudden pain, which is disturbing but psychologically necessary. Rather than sitting around the campfire or in the pub, telling stories of war or the hunt, we watch those stories, safely, and vicariously suffer or proclaim ourselves victorious.

On Friday, November 12^th at 10:00 at the Regent Square Theater, SYNC’D II will be playing. The show features locally made silent films from a variety of genres. The films will be accompanied by live music by Black Yodel and Bigg Slurpp, a Pittsburgh band.

Go to 3RFF.com for further descriptions and listings.

Anxiety and Redemption at Melwood Galleries

Anxiety and Redemption, a collection of photographic works by Kerry Skarbakka,
will be in the Filmmakers Galleries from November 5th through December 5th.
The show is a combination of two series, The Struggle to Right Oneself and
Fluid. The Struggle to Right Oneself is a series of photographs in which Skarbakka
is falling, often from trees, through windows, or off of high cliffs and bridges.
Fluid is a response to global warming, showing surreal underwater images,
many of which are of Skarbakka himself, fully dressed in suits, looking anxious,
helpless or drowned.

Filmmakers interviewed Skarbakka about his upcoming show, and the symbolism,
history, and craft of his art.

Anxiety and Redemption captures the feelings of angst and helplessness that
have been predominant in our culture for the past decade. “Falling is a provocative
metaphor for loss of control,” says Skarbakka. His pictures capture “despondency,
all that pressure we put on ourselves as a society just to live.” The images are
about “the act of losing control, of giving up control,” and the consequences
thereof.

The pictures he creates are not altered;everything is shot on location, often
from great heights. He uses ropes, rigging, and landing pads, but has
nonetheless been hurt multiple times in the process, once even breaking a rib.

Many of his photos are serendipitous.”If I come upon a place that I feel may be
interesting, I infuse my body within the scene with plausibility,” making it look
“as real as possible.” “Some are just going for it, and some are controlled.” If he
finds an edifice or natural precipice that looks right for his series, he sets up and
is “in and out quick and fast.” His art is guerrilla, and he doesn’t always have
permission to shoot in the place he is shooting. “The cops have only come once,
” when he was jumping off a billboard by the interstate north of Chicago.
The police were concerned about the activity, but more importantly, about
his large 4 x 5 camera, which they mistook for something more sinister.

The underwater shots are planned out in advance, and involve scouting areas
underwater. The deepest he has photographed was 100 feet, off the coast of
Honduras. With a team of divers, he dives, shoots, then places himself in the
scene and shoots again. He wears gear to get to his location, but casts it off
for the pictures, so that the image is of a man in land attire underwater.

Skarbakka started creating the images for Fluid before the Indonesian tsunami
and before Katrina. The underwater shots represent “the silent result of things,”
and are “more of a warning.” Global Warming may not always cause us to be
physically underwater, but we will find ourselves helpless in an inhospitable
environment.

Skarbakka grew up on a farm in Tennessee in a Pentecostal family. “The fear of
Death was used for control. If you died impure, you were likely to go to hell.”
In 1999, his mother died, and he used his portfolio of her death as his portfolio
for graduate school. His upbringing and the death of his mother caused him to
think about “transcendence, death, rites of passage,” and experiences that are
“transformative,” themes that have been present in his work since the beginning,
and have intensified over the last decade.

“September eleventh was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was an emotional,
serious time. The world changed, and I needed to make serious, sophisticated art”
His works focused on the anxieties that were no longer internal, but shared
throughout the culture. He combined that “bundled energy,” along with his love
of rock climbing, martial arts, acting, and sculpture, and placed them into a 2
dimensional surface. For this reason, Skarbakka’s work is physical, visceral, and,
although made of stills, has a strong sense of movement.

Although the fear and despondency that resulted from September eleventh have
affected his works, none of his photographs reference that day. They are
symbolic of the feeling of loss of control, on both personal and societal levels.
His work has, however, been misinterpreted in the past. One of his photographs
shows Skarbakka falling past a window of the Museum of Contemporary Art in
Chicago. The making of this photograph generated publicity, and many
journalists came to report on the scene. One journalist who was not present for
the shooting claimed that Skarbakka was imitating people falling from the Twin
Towers. This story gained traction, and was put in the Sun Times and the Daily
News without the papers doing any fact checking. The story spread to Brooklyn,
where Skarbakka was living, and caused him to be the victim of death threats and
hate mail. Mayor Bloomberg called his work “nauseatingly offensive.” He had to
grow a beard and disappear from the public eye. The furor has mostly calmed down,
especially since Skarbakka’s appearance in April on the Today Show, where he was
able to “put to peace” the situation. “My work is about crisis in general, not a
particular crisis.”

Anxiety and Redemption will be on exhibit in Filmmakers Galleries through
December 5, 2010. Kerry Skarbakka will be giving an artist talk on Thursday,
November 18 with a reception from 5:30-8:00 and the artist talk at 7:00 pm
in the gallery. Admission is free.

Orlando

The 1992 film Orlando, based on the eponymous novel by Virginia Woolf, is playing at the Harris theater through the 23rd.

In the film, Orlando, at the time a young man and lover of the old queen, is told by Queen Elizabeth I to stay young forever. He does so, and, in the process, has a variety of the sort of intense and short lived relationships of a young man. As a man, Orlando feels that his passion for a woman is reason for him to possess her. The women in his life tend to disagree, leaving him heartbroken. He falls not only for women, but also for poetry. When he turns to poetry as an outlet for his youthful intensity, he discovers that his feelings, though intense and universal, are trite and laughable when translated into rhymes. There is a certain ennui associated with immortality, and a sense of endlessly waiting for the future, which is said to be brighter and grander than the base and tedious present.

Orlando becomes an ambassador to Constantinople, and, despite the city’s intrigue and beauty, remains seemingly unphased, even when nearly killed in a conflagration. It is in Constantinople that, after sleeping for 11 days, Orlando wakes up as a woman. She takes this in stride, perhaps due to her having lived such an unnaturally long life already. Of course, the simple fact of being a woman changes her relationship with society. She is at risk of losing her home, an isolated castle in the British countryside, and is proposed to by men who claim that marrying them would be the best way to avoid insolvency and homelessness. At the time in history when she became a woman, it was illegal for a woman to own property, so marriage to a wealthy woman was a business opportunity for the men of her day.

Orlando wasn’t just a woman, she was a beautiful woman, and beauty comes with its own set of problems. Men adored her, and wanted to possess her for that reason, much like she had wanted to do when she was a he. Beauty also involves the maintenance of beauty, which in Victorian England involved a staff of cosmetic and clothing engineers. Being a woman wasn’t a simple fact, it was a process.

When we discuss women’s history, we see a progression toward freedom and self-determination, with each generation gaining more ground, yet each stage in the process being lived by different women. The joy of Orlando is that the gradual liberation of women is experienced by the same woman over hundreds of years. She seems to be waiting for the time when she can be treated as an equal to men, when she can retake her home, raise children, and dress herself without an entourage of handmaidens.

This time does eventually come, and toward the end of the movie we see Orlando driving, which, in 1928 when the book was written, was a symbol of liberation for women. The movie ends in the 1990′s, rather than the 1920′s, but brings to modernity the elegance and calm that run throughout the entire movie.

Divided Sky, by Michael Sherwin

Michael Sherwin’s exhibit Divided Sky is on display at the Melwood Gallery through October 17^th.  A reception will be held on September 30^th from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, at which Michael Sherwin will discuss his art.

Filmmakers interviewed Michael Sherwin on August 31^st about his art, his process, and this current exhibit.

A variety of series created by Sherwin explore the theme of the change inherent in nature. “Everything is in a constant state of change,” he says. “It’s what connects us all. Even the inanimate, at the microscopic level, is changing.” Everything is in “a perpetual state of entropy. Cars, computers, buildings are all alike.”

The interaction of art and science is a theme in many of Sherwin’s works. Art and science overlap in that “artists and scientists are fascinated by wonder and mystery and the natural world.” The main difference is that “scientists are seeking answers; they aren’t content until they get answers.” Whereas, “artists are asking questions, presenting questions to the viewer to come up with their own answers. My work is about the mystery.”

A variety of scientific insights have influenced Sherwin’s work. One of his compilations is a set of arrows from the parking lot of a mall. They are all clearly of the same species, but no two are exactly the same. This relates to evolution and the nature of animals and species that is greatly different from our platonic common sense about the categories of life.

Another major theme in Sherwin’s work is the connection between the macroscopic and the microscopic. Instances of such connections include his work Minor Planets, in which he photographs small rocks against a black background, causing them to look like asteroids and planets. “Deliberately placing clouds with bubbles from waves” is another way in which he deals with this theme. He visually compares the tangible with the inaccessible. “There is just as much going on in your backyard, just as much mystery and fascination, as in the solar system.” Sherwin calls it “the cosmic in your backyard.”

One influence on this way of thinking is his young daughter. “Her relationship with the natural world has infused my work.” The childlike wonder of a world in which everything is new and moving, mysterious and intriguing, is apparent in his art. Sherwin is also interested in the Butterfly effect, “the causal relationships between separate things. The web of relations.”

Some of Sherwin’s works involve the appropriation of videos and images from webcams. This is due to his “fascination with the everyday and the ordinary. Webcams are designed and intended to be objective instruments for scientific purposes.” However, often, “objectivity fails” when they are “recording an abstraction.” As an example, Sherwin cites his work entitled True North. This work consists of images from the webcam situated at the North Pole. “The true North Pole is under water, so the camera is placed on a floating chunk of ice. It is bombarded by extreme weather and can only photograph three months a year. Sometimes the camera is hanging from its mount, or caked in ice. Every few minutes to an hour, an image is transmitted. It is of no real use to scientists.” However, it has an aesthetic appeal. “To me it is really attractive. I have a visceral response to the abstraction.”

Currently on display at Filmmakers’ Melwood Gallery is Divided Sky, a work which includes the combination of photographs by Sherwin of the sky with appropriated images from webcams and the internet. One piece of the work is entitled In The Clouds and contains photographs of the sky that are broken up by Facebook status updates. The sky represents the universality of human experience, and the appropriated images from the internet represent the divide that our technology creates between ourselves and the natural and social world we all inhabit. “Webcams, youtube, internet, social media, and technology have divided us from the natural world, separated us from each other.” The title works “literally for some pieces,” because the sky is overlaid with grid or text. Sherwin says of the work, “it symbolizes the feeling I have about our society and the effect media has on us.”

Sherwin chooses to draw his his images from webcams that depict abstractions. This way, “the viewer has to work,” and can participate in the artistic/scientific processes of observing phenomena and asking questions.

Included in the exhibit are three books derived from Google image searches. Sherwin googles phrases in quotations and collects the images that emerge. When performing the searches, he has an intent, but not an exact vision of what the final outcome will be. The work arises based on the images that are out there on the internet. These books are “commenting on human society’s relationship to the natural world.” In so doing he shows a variety of subjective visions of what we tend to consider objectively describable phenomenon.

The internet has changed our sense of place, time, and physical mapping. According to Sherwin, this is both positive and negative. It has upped our connectivity, but “the process of connecting via wires has separated us from our desperate need for physical connection.” Although Google Earth is an excellent educational tool that gives us perspective on our planet, “it has taken away from our internal compass. The more we rely on GPS and maps, the less independent we are, the more automated we are by machines and technology.” Sherwin says he is as guilty as anyone of this reliance. “I don’t mean to critique society because I am an active part of it. I want to explore.”

American Independents: An Interview with Kyle Stevens

“Any contemporary study of independent film should start with Cassavettes,” says Kyle Stevens, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, who will be teaching a class at Filmmakers in the Fall Semester entitled “American Independents: Cassavettes, Todd Haynes, and the Coen Brothers.”

Stevens’ class will cover the history of independent film, using these three filmmakers as case studies to illuminate the economics, aesthetics, and techniques of independent film. Cassavettes was the first modern filmmaker to work outside of the system, and to create “new forms of narrative” that challenge the expectations of viewers. He “pioneered the style,” bringing in new ways of filming and acting and incorporating improvisation, allowing his films to “capture the present moment.”

Stevens finds Haynes an exemplar of independent film because he “made us rethink ways we watch,” particularly the way we watch women, and how we identify with characters.

The Coen Brothers are the models of modern independent film. Stevens asks, “how independent are they if they are winning Oscars?” Yet they have their own style, and he lists one of their movies as among his favorites.

Stevens feels that independent films are accepted by the mainstream because “we enjoy having our expectations played with.” As life gets more complex, we are able to accept, and we often desire, “more complicated forms of storytelling.” Independent films are better suited to deliver this than mainstream films based on stock narratives. They also “speak to our senses of identity,” and are likely to deal with issues such as race and sexuality, which are of interest to a wide audience.

Stevens’ plan for the class is to have students watch films, cogitate, then spend class time analyzing and discussing. Themes that are of particular interest to Stevens are the ways people interact, the ways they present themselves, and the politics of identity. These topics, among many others, will be discussed in the class.

When asked about his favorite independent film, Stevens noted that he had recently seen the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man,” which he likes because it is “deeply funny” and, unlike other Coen Brothers movies, not cynical. It accomplishes being “sincere, but not trite.” In particular he is fascinated by the prologue, and says he “can’t wait to discuss it with the students.”

Paper Politics

Paper Politics , on display at Space gallery until October 24th, 2010 , is an exhibit of grassroots political posters from around the world. The images depict and react to political and social issues of the past ten years. The messages are of solidarity, revolution, and empowering communities and individuals against capitalism and war.

Topics of the posters range from war to evictions, pollution, genocide, Abu Ghraib, women’s issues, health care, transgenic foods, and labor history in Pennsylvania.

Many images play on corporate imagery, essentially uncoopting youth culture from corporations. One shows the McDonald’s arches upside down, reminiscent of the upside down flag, a symbol of maritime distress.

One striking image shows Jesus driving an SUV that is equipped with a rocket launcher.

Many posters show images from war, or from the streets, accompanied by facts or quotes.

Why must these images be put on posters and hung in community spaces? These are images that are not shown in the mainstream media because they show an America that many are uncomfortable with.

Let’s take a minute and talk about our current national discourse. What images and ideas are given to the people? What facts are presented? What phrases are repeated? Our national discourse tends to involve one person or organization proposing legislation. An opposing group claims that said legislation is being ‘shoved down our throats.’ In order not to seem too overbearing, the legislation is nixed. If a party or organization makes unpopular legislation, blocks popular legislation, or suffers from corruption, they take some other story and blow it up into a media frenzy. The media reports on the emotions of people, and facts are left at the wayside. So, if you want to present information and images about the world we live in, a world with an undercurrent of violence, a world with poverty, unchecked capitalism, war, genocide, greed and weapons, what can you do? You can make a poster and hang it in a public space. Space has a collection of hundreds of such posters, many of which show real images accompanied by facts. All the posters show what we the people are concerned about, and what the media doesn’t address.

Let’s talk about what ideas are considered unacceptable in mainstream America. Marxism is taboo. It seems heretical to many Americans to say that workers should own the profits of their labors. One American mantra is that the rich create jobs, and should thus profit heavily and be taxed lightly in order to incentivize them to create more jobs. I apologize for using the nasty word ‘incentivize’. The fact that that word even exists shows a fundamental believe that people only do things in order to reap a tangible reward.

In America, another entrenched thought is that we are all at the will of the economy. The economy is our ultimate boss, the force that shapes our lives more than any other, and one we cannot control, but can only mildly affect. However, as the posters at Space point out, the economy is a social construct that exists because enough people believe in it to make it manifest. It should not control us. We should control it. If we, as a nation, decided that poverty must be ended, we could end it. We could improve housing, distribute healthy food, and give everyone health care. But these things, although doable, are seen as impossibilities in a capitalist economy. The poster makers at Space are angry about this situation, but also hopeful that given a sea change of opinion, this circumstance can be changed.

Another common notion is that war can make the world better. People are killed because of their political beliefs, or because they happen to live in an area governed by people with unsavory political beliefs. It seems obvious that guns cannot bring peace, but somehow that is not part of our national discourse. The media argues how many guns and tanks are necessary to secure an area for democracy, but no talking head ventures that zero might be the ideal number.

The posters in the Space Gallery present images that address these issues. They represent ideas that so many of us agree with, but that are never presented in the mainstream. Seeing these images is refreshing, engaging, and provocative. The best advice I can give you is to turn off your TV, never turn it back on, and go out into the world and see what ideas are floating around in our free, shared, public space.

Space gallery is free and open to the public.