Monday May 19, 7pm
Films by Jean Sousa
With live sound by Sarah Halpern and Rachael Guma
Artist in person — Event in person only
Microscope is excited to present an in-person screening of films by Chicago-based artist and filmmaker Jean Sousa. This will be the first physical screening at the gallery of works by the artist — who previously appeared in an online only event in November 2020 — and will include the projection of several of her works in their original 16mm film format.
The approximately 70-minute program includes a new selection of eight short films and videos made by Sousa since 1977 and culled from her expansive body of work, which also extends to photography and performance art. Sousa’s works, which she describes as revealing “a concern with the physical properties of the medium, text as a formal device, the question of female identity as it relates to common gender tropes, and the experimental possibilities of narrative,” employ various techniques and processes such as alterations in frame rate, inversion of color, animation, and the use of modified cameras. Movement is central to her work, especially that of the human body in space, as recorded by the camera and further deconstructed, analyzed, and reorganized through cinema.
Three of the films on the program — “Film Score for Live Music (aka Pattern Impulse)” (1979), “What Am I Doing Here” (1978), and “The Mermaid” (2020) — will be accompanied by an improvised soundtrack by artists Rachael Guma and Sarah Halpern, using percussive guitar, theremin, and effects. The live accompaniment is a programming requirement for the first of the above mentioned works, which is an abstract hand-painted film entirely conceived to serve as a visual score to be performed live by musicians, with “each graphic symbol representing a particular sound or instrument.” However, Sousa welcomes and often prefers live sound accompaniment for many of her works.
A Q&A with Sousa follows the screening.
General Admission $11
Member/Student Admission $9
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Jean Sousa moved from the East Coast to Chicago in the mid-seventies to pursue an MFA in Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was interested in filmmaking and SAIC had a strong program in film with Stan Brakhage and George Landow (Owen Land) on the faculty. Initially, her intention was to integrate film into live performance, but gradually she began to work solely in film and frequently performed for the camera. Her sensibility combined structuralist form with personal content and a concern for the physical properties of the medium, abstract narrative, and aspects of feminism. Her influences were East Coast and performative, including Yvonne Rainer, Steve Reich, and John Cage. Sousa’s films have been screened nationally and internationally the Image Forum Cinematheque in Tokyo, the Funnel in Toronto, the ICA in Boston, the Cinematheque in San Francisco, the MCA in Chicago, and Microscope Gallery in New York, among other venues. Her work has been included in numerous festivals, including the International Festival of Avant-Garde Film in London, the Festival des Cinémas Différents in Paris, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the Onion City Film Festival in Chicago. She is the recipient of two Artist Fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and a Regional Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Sousa was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2014 and 2017. Sousa has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the MIT Summer Institute for Film, Photography, and Video at Hampshire College. She also served as Trott Family Director of Interpretive Exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago where she curated interactive exhibitions for intergenerational visitors and oversaw a broad range of multidisciplinary programs. As a museum educator, Sousa served as Chair and panelist at numerous national and international conferences including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and the National Gallery of Ireland.
Rachael Guma is a light and sound artist who works with liquid light projection, Super 8 film, Theremin, turn-table manipulations, live Foley, collage, and stop motion animation. She has collaborated with Optipus Film Collective since 2009, and co-founded the liquid light projection group, A Clockface Orange, with Genevieve H.K. She has performed at AXWFF, Anthology Film Archives, Ambient Church, Echo Park Film Center, Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Index Festival, The Kitchen, Long Island Children’s Museum, Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI), Microscope Gallery, Mono No Aware, Morbid Anatomy Museum, Museum of Art and Design (MAD), Northern Flickers, Orphans Symposium, Participant Gallery, Paul Klee Museum, Planet Money Live, RX Gallery, Roulette Intermedium, San Francisco Cinematheque, Transient Visions, UnionDocs, Unseen Cinema, and the Whitney Museum of American Art (in alphabetical order).
Sarah Halpern works with light, voice, performance, text, electric guitar, paper, and installation. Her work has been presented at institutions including Anthology Film Archives, Experimental Intermedia, The Kitchen, The New York Film Festival (NYFF) Views of the Avant-Garde, The Museum of Moving Image (MoMI), The Whitney Museum of American Art (Dreamlands Expanded) and the Centre Pompidou among others. She is a a founding member of the expanded cinema collective Optipus and a MacDowell Colony Fellow.
