New Chicago Studies article!
Media burn represents Chicago with innovative online archive on Thursday, May 6 at Film Studies Center
It was 1970, and Sony’s Portopak had just become the video camera of choice for a growing number of Chicago’s underground filmmakers. When Judy Hoffman wanted to interview garbage collectors, waitresses and aldermen to capture the images and sounds of a “different city” than what was shown on television, that camera made it possible.
“It was called Guerilla Television,” Hoffman, now a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago, explained. “You couldn’t get anything seen on TV that wasn’t produced in a studio, but we started playing around with this new technology … to change how film was produced and received.”
Much of this independent work would be in danger of vanishing, Hoffman says, if not for Media Burn - a project to share the city’s most valuable independent films for free online. Hoffman sees Media Burn’s archive, which boasts hours of footage with city luminaries and everyday citizens - among them the legendary author and radio broadcaster Studs Terkel - to be a resource to students and researchers studying Chicago’s intricate cultural and political history.
Results of Media Burn’s six-year online archiving project will be shared with the University on May 6 at 7:00 p.m. in the Film Studies Center in a presentation called Representing Chicago: Experimental Video and Television at the Media Burn Archive. In addition to screening videos from the collection, the presentation will walk viewers through the Media Burn digital archive and discuss the particular role media plays in making Chicago’s people, politics, and culture accessible.
“The type of work you find in this archive doesn’t exist anywhere else—it’s totally unique. This is because it was done on a medium that was very looked down upon,” says Hoffman, who is using the archive to teach a spring course on Chicago’s film history.
Sara Chapman (AB 04), Executive Director of Media Burn Digital Archive, echoes this sentiment: “The type of work that came out of this movement is not easy to categorize. It does not at all resemble the feature-length documentary movies that are distributed in movie theaters, featuring voiceovers and archival photos or anything like that. The work is often very personal, and it is usually made by a small group of people, maybe a single individual or maybe a handful of people.”
But the material is extensive: Famed Alderman Vito Marzullo; former owner of the White Sox Bill Veeck; eight of the working-class men and women interviewed for Studs Terkel’s book Working.
And then there is Studs Terkel himself, who donated his own collection to Media Burn. Hoffman and her collaborator Tom Weinberg, Media Burn’s president and founder, shot him after their final Working portrait was finished. Hoffman describes the experience of working with Terkel as “tremendous,” as he flowed easily between the roles of mentor and subject.
“He respected people, and was thoroughly passionate about social justice.” Pair that independent spirit with a revolutionary new form of videography, she says, and: “There were no rules. We were about making [our own] rules, and making change.”
That particular film made it onto PBS. But Hoffman insists that what remains of the footage she and other independent filmmakers shot throughout the 1970s would not be available without Media Burn’s extensive efforts to digitize and share the work.
According to Chapman, the archive houses over 6,000 videotapes in total, and spans 40 years of video work from all over the world, including footage of the U.S. invasion of Panama and illegal art collectives in Moscow, Russia.
“Over one-third of the collection has a direct connection to Chicago, whether documenting the early video movement here, the arts, politics, or daily life,” she adds. “Nowhere else can students find these kinds of portraits of our city and its people, politics, and neighborhoods.”
Representing Chicago: Experimental Video and Television at the Media Burn Archive will be at the Film Studies Center (Cobb 307) on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 7 pm. For reservations, call (773) 702-8596.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
You Are Here
One image stands out among fourth-year Cela Sutton’s Orientation Week memories: a black-and-white photo of the Checkerboard Lounge, a famous South Side spot for jazz musicians in the mid-1970s.
Sutton has been thinking about that jazz club a lot lately.
The photomontage was part of You Are Here, a documentary about the University of Chicago’s historic relationship with its neighboring communities that has been shown to incoming students since 2006. Now, Sutton has been tasked with researching and producing a sequel to the film with the goal of introducing students to the issues that shape their new community.
Sutton is partnering with Ben Kolak, AB’06, the creator of You Are Here, to produce the updated documentary, to be called You Are Here Too. The pair will follow the structure Kolak created in his original film by selecting case studies to exemplify larger social and political issues, from urban education to health care.
Just as photos of the historic jazz club illustrated a story about the complex struggles facing community development leaders, Sutton plans to produce a broad picture of life on the South Side that addresses current matters, from the developments at Harper Court to the birth of the Logan Arts Center.
“The original version of You Are Here has a superb historic perspective and ends with one current example of University of Chicago involvement in the community: one charter school,” according to Wallace Goode, Director of the University Community Service Center, who is Sutton’s project manager.
“Since then, we’ve added three more charter schools, we have doubled our number of Community Service RSOs, we have established the Woodlawn Collaborative and developed Chicago Studies—these are just a few examples of how the University has in the last four years expanded its civic engagement within the city of Chicago.”
To cover this range of topics, Sutton said she is dividing the film into four areas: education, health, community development and the arts.
“We’re trying to make each [story] transition into the other. You Are Here ended with a snapshot of one of the Charter schools, so we’re opening up with the charter schools and the Urban Education Institute,” she said.
The film will touch on local arts organizations such as the Hyde Park Art Center and the Little Black Pearl, as well as the University’s decision to build the new South Campus Residence Hall in Woodlawn, the neighborhood directly south of campus.
This means interviewing everyone from Vice President for Student Life Kim Goff-Crews to Wardell Lavendar, the self-described “Mayor of Woodlawn.”
Sutton is rising to that challenge.
“My main goal is to show a balanced piece, and a key piece that wasn’t in the first documentary was the student leaders who are involved in these issues,” Sutton said. She says Project Health and Art Should, both RSOs that work with community members, will play important roles in the film.
“Most students who come here aren’t from Chicago, or even from Illinois, and especially not from the South Side, which is totally different from any other part of Chicago,” Sutton explained. “We want students to take advantage of living in such a diverse and interesting place.”
Sutton has been thinking about that jazz club a lot lately.
The photomontage was part of You Are Here, a documentary about the University of Chicago’s historic relationship with its neighboring communities that has been shown to incoming students since 2006. Now, Sutton has been tasked with researching and producing a sequel to the film with the goal of introducing students to the issues that shape their new community.
Sutton is partnering with Ben Kolak, AB’06, the creator of You Are Here, to produce the updated documentary, to be called You Are Here Too. The pair will follow the structure Kolak created in his original film by selecting case studies to exemplify larger social and political issues, from urban education to health care.
Just as photos of the historic jazz club illustrated a story about the complex struggles facing community development leaders, Sutton plans to produce a broad picture of life on the South Side that addresses current matters, from the developments at Harper Court to the birth of the Logan Arts Center.
“The original version of You Are Here has a superb historic perspective and ends with one current example of University of Chicago involvement in the community: one charter school,” according to Wallace Goode, Director of the University Community Service Center, who is Sutton’s project manager.
“Since then, we’ve added three more charter schools, we have doubled our number of Community Service RSOs, we have established the Woodlawn Collaborative and developed Chicago Studies—these are just a few examples of how the University has in the last four years expanded its civic engagement within the city of Chicago.”
To cover this range of topics, Sutton said she is dividing the film into four areas: education, health, community development and the arts.
“We’re trying to make each [story] transition into the other. You Are Here ended with a snapshot of one of the Charter schools, so we’re opening up with the charter schools and the Urban Education Institute,” she said.
The film will touch on local arts organizations such as the Hyde Park Art Center and the Little Black Pearl, as well as the University’s decision to build the new South Campus Residence Hall in Woodlawn, the neighborhood directly south of campus.
This means interviewing everyone from Vice President for Student Life Kim Goff-Crews to Wardell Lavendar, the self-described “Mayor of Woodlawn.”
Sutton is rising to that challenge.
“My main goal is to show a balanced piece, and a key piece that wasn’t in the first documentary was the student leaders who are involved in these issues,” Sutton said. She says Project Health and Art Should, both RSOs that work with community members, will play important roles in the film.
“Most students who come here aren’t from Chicago, or even from Illinois, and especially not from the South Side, which is totally different from any other part of Chicago,” Sutton explained. “We want students to take advantage of living in such a diverse and interesting place.”
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Pulse: Making Farmers’ Markets More Accessible
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
Published: April 10, 2010 in the New York Times.
A Woodlawn farmers' market has been accepting Illinois food stamps for double their value, and now it is helping three more markets to do the same.
Related
Only 3 of Chicago's 39 farmers' markets had the system needed to process the stamps, which in Illinois are redeemed using debit cards called LINK cards, because most of the markets accept only cash. The Woodlawn market at 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue was the only one to double the cardholders' buying power, said David Rand, a farm forager for the city and the Green City Market.
Dennis Ryan, the Woodlawn market's manager, is taking his LINK system to the Englewood, Lawndale and Bronzeville farmers' markets for their May openings. The program at all four markets is being paid for by a grant from the Wholesome Wave Foundation.
For these South Side neighborhoods, "there are very few if any options to purchase fresh produce," Mr. Ryan said. "We have to make sure it's financially accessible to everyone."
Published: April 10, 2010 in the New York Times.
A Woodlawn farmers' market has been accepting Illinois food stamps for double their value, and now it is helping three more markets to do the same.
Related
Only 3 of Chicago's 39 farmers' markets had the system needed to process the stamps, which in Illinois are redeemed using debit cards called LINK cards, because most of the markets accept only cash. The Woodlawn market at 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue was the only one to double the cardholders' buying power, said David Rand, a farm forager for the city and the Green City Market.
Dennis Ryan, the Woodlawn market's manager, is taking his LINK system to the Englewood, Lawndale and Bronzeville farmers' markets for their May openings. The program at all four markets is being paid for by a grant from the Wholesome Wave Foundation.
For these South Side neighborhoods, "there are very few if any options to purchase fresh produce," Mr. Ryan said. "We have to make sure it's financially accessible to everyone."
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Learning From the Pros
My latest article from the College Page
Evan Garrett can’t help but feel a little starstruck.
His dormitory, Max Palevsky Commons, is just steps away from Court Theatre, one of Chicago’s most critically acclaimed theater companies. And as a Theater and Performance Studies Major, Garrett has been given an inside view of the theater world from Court’s directors and dramaturges.
Garrett’s theater studies are about to get even better.
He and five other undergraduates have been selected to perform a never-before-seen short play by the award-winning playwright Tony Kushner in a staged reading on April 8. Kushner will be on campus to discuss the play, But the Giraffe, and his other works, as part of the ArtSpeaks fellowship program and speaker series on April 6.
In the meantime, Garrett is taking a class on Kushner and rehearsing around the clock under the guidance of University Theater staff and Court Theatre directors, including Court’s celebrated artistic director Charles Newell.
According to Heidi Coleman, Director of TAPS, UT owes Kushner’s upcoming visit to its strong partnership with Court Theatre.
“These kinds of collaborations really come out of the ideas that bounce back and forth between UT, TAPS and Court,” Coleman explained. Newell and UT’s staff “really make it a priority to come up with projects that we might both be interested in.”
Coleman says that the partnership between Court Theatre and UT is a natural, given the theaters’ locations and resources. Still, it is rare for universities to regularly collaborate with professional theaters to this degree.
“It’s all about the relationships for us. Charlie [Newell] is invested in students in very real relationships, not just lip service,” Coleman says.
Garrett agrees. “To have an hour and 20 minutes where the artistic director of Court is directing you is amazing. There are not that many places in the world where you get a critically acclaimed director and such an acclaimed playwright working with undergraduates,” he says. “That’s exactly what is happening with But the Giraffe.”
Garrett especially appreciates the connection he’s been able to establish with Newell and Court Theater via a class he took in winter 2010: The Theatrical Illusion: Corneille, Kushner and the Baroque, co-taught by Newell and Prof. Larry Norman. The course coincides with a run of Kushner’s adaptation of Corneille’s L'Illusion Comique at Court.
Newell says the class he is co-teaching is a rare opportunity for students in the College to work closely on a theater production with professional artists. “Not only are we talking about the coming theater production, but the students have been visiting the rehearsal hall and working with the actors in the company,” he says. “Hopefully this will inform and challenge and inspire students in their own work at UT.”
According to Newell, Court Theatre had a long history as Hyde Park’s only community theater until it became a part of the University and later a professional company in the mid-1970s.
“Jump to 2010, and [with] the collaborations we have been able to form with TAPS and the extraordinary activity going on at UT,” Newell says, and Court has found a variety of opportunities to bring students through its doors to watch rehearsals, and speak to actors and directors. “But the Giraffe is just one of those win-win cross-pollination opportunities that Court and UT have been finding.”
Garrett, for one, regularly takes advantage of Court Theater’s discounted student tickets, and tries to tie what he’s learned from their productions to his own work whenever possible. Court’s Radio Macbeth, for example, serendipitously aligned with a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth on campus last year.
Garrett was taking a class at the time taught by Kate Peterson, a dramaturge at Court. Peterson introduced him to Anne Bogart, director of the reimagined Macbeth production. He has also attended Court Theater rehearsals, most recently with his class on Kushner’s works.
“It really speaks well to the University that we are able to do this,” he adds. “We hear about the Nobel-prize winning physicists all the time but not so much about the arts; UChicago is really working hard for the arts.”
Evan Garrett can’t help but feel a little starstruck.
His dormitory, Max Palevsky Commons, is just steps away from Court Theatre, one of Chicago’s most critically acclaimed theater companies. And as a Theater and Performance Studies Major, Garrett has been given an inside view of the theater world from Court’s directors and dramaturges.
Garrett’s theater studies are about to get even better.
He and five other undergraduates have been selected to perform a never-before-seen short play by the award-winning playwright Tony Kushner in a staged reading on April 8. Kushner will be on campus to discuss the play, But the Giraffe, and his other works, as part of the ArtSpeaks fellowship program and speaker series on April 6.
In the meantime, Garrett is taking a class on Kushner and rehearsing around the clock under the guidance of University Theater staff and Court Theatre directors, including Court’s celebrated artistic director Charles Newell.
According to Heidi Coleman, Director of TAPS, UT owes Kushner’s upcoming visit to its strong partnership with Court Theatre.
“These kinds of collaborations really come out of the ideas that bounce back and forth between UT, TAPS and Court,” Coleman explained. Newell and UT’s staff “really make it a priority to come up with projects that we might both be interested in.”
Coleman says that the partnership between Court Theatre and UT is a natural, given the theaters’ locations and resources. Still, it is rare for universities to regularly collaborate with professional theaters to this degree.
“It’s all about the relationships for us. Charlie [Newell] is invested in students in very real relationships, not just lip service,” Coleman says.
Garrett agrees. “To have an hour and 20 minutes where the artistic director of Court is directing you is amazing. There are not that many places in the world where you get a critically acclaimed director and such an acclaimed playwright working with undergraduates,” he says. “That’s exactly what is happening with But the Giraffe.”
Garrett especially appreciates the connection he’s been able to establish with Newell and Court Theater via a class he took in winter 2010: The Theatrical Illusion: Corneille, Kushner and the Baroque, co-taught by Newell and Prof. Larry Norman. The course coincides with a run of Kushner’s adaptation of Corneille’s L'Illusion Comique at Court.
Newell says the class he is co-teaching is a rare opportunity for students in the College to work closely on a theater production with professional artists. “Not only are we talking about the coming theater production, but the students have been visiting the rehearsal hall and working with the actors in the company,” he says. “Hopefully this will inform and challenge and inspire students in their own work at UT.”
According to Newell, Court Theatre had a long history as Hyde Park’s only community theater until it became a part of the University and later a professional company in the mid-1970s.
“Jump to 2010, and [with] the collaborations we have been able to form with TAPS and the extraordinary activity going on at UT,” Newell says, and Court has found a variety of opportunities to bring students through its doors to watch rehearsals, and speak to actors and directors. “But the Giraffe is just one of those win-win cross-pollination opportunities that Court and UT have been finding.”
Garrett, for one, regularly takes advantage of Court Theater’s discounted student tickets, and tries to tie what he’s learned from their productions to his own work whenever possible. Court’s Radio Macbeth, for example, serendipitously aligned with a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth on campus last year.
Garrett was taking a class at the time taught by Kate Peterson, a dramaturge at Court. Peterson introduced him to Anne Bogart, director of the reimagined Macbeth production. He has also attended Court Theater rehearsals, most recently with his class on Kushner’s works.
“It really speaks well to the University that we are able to do this,” he adds. “We hear about the Nobel-prize winning physicists all the time but not so much about the arts; UChicago is really working hard for the arts.”
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