Mayhem, sex, battles, romance, war, dreams, and abstract works that reflect the many facets of human behavior and habitats of the night. Inspired by Patti Smith’s recording “Because the Night,” Catherine Forster of LiveBox in Chicago has curated a program of short works that gives our audience the opportunity to view the latest video art with an international approach.  Featuring contemporary experimental video works that you might not be able to see otherwise, this touring program will show works from Chile, Japan as well as the U.S.  Artists featured in the program include: Caleb Engstrom, Fabienne Gautier, Paulo Fernandez, Christina McPhee, Midori Sakuraï, Pierre St-Jacques, and Michael Szpakowski. 

LiveBox , a non-for profit space, utilizes Chicago and its neighborhoods as gallery, bringing new media art to the people of Chicago. LiveBox also seeks collaborative relationships with like-minded galleries and museums to create new media events. 

The Films:

Somnio
Paulo Fernandez (Chile), 1:37 min, 2008
Somnio is an experimental video project that explores the audiovisual construction using the body as medium. Framed by the theme of sleeping, Somnio explores physiological and dreamlike dimension through kinetic visual and sound encounters.
Paulo Fernandez is a young multimedia artist from Chile. He is a prolific and consistent artist in his delivery of original and compelling videos.

Outside the Portico or An Exploration Into the Night Time of Wilderness
Caleb Engstrom (USA/Iowa), 2008, 1:28 min
Improvised video performance (mess around) that took place outside the Portico Gallery in Iowa City, Iowa. The work is a study on the nature of behavior, when stripped of time and responsibility. To quote actor and director, Alan Alda, "You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition". This is an exploration into the nighttime of wilderness.
Caleb Engstrom lives in Iowa City, his art practice includes video, sculpture, installation and music (he is a songwriter), and curation. His body of work that draws upon ideas of labor, tests of will, and the ephemeral. More on Caleb Engstrom...

Project for a Grey Dress
Pierre St-Jacques (USA/NY), 12:30 min, 2005
The piece is very loosely based on Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel "Project for a Revolution in New York". A woman in her apartment is getting ready to go out, she is ironing her grey dress. A man comes up the stairs, presumably to meet her but this is not certain. The basic central theme is of desire, desire for the other and also for the self.
Pierre St-Jacques' latest projects "clouds and raindrops" and "token of my affection" explore themes with an emphasis on how individuals construct themselves and their worlds. Pierre has recently showed at AIM24 at the Bronx Museum of Art, The Studio in Armonk New York, The Knitting Factory in New York City and Real Artways in Hartford. More on Pierre St-Jacques...

Salt
Christina McPhee (USA/LA), 9:00 min, 2004
Post San Simeon earthquake nightmare and reflections on San Andreas Fault salt bed. SALT is born of the 6.5 magnitude San Simeon earthquake of December 2003. The night of the quake, McPhee recorded mass media’s take on the destruction – television’s six o clock lineup. Amid dismal reportage, an antagonist appears, taking recordings and drawing in the dry salt of Soda Lake.
Christina McPhee McPhee’s current practice involves creating topologic site explorations in layered suites involving on-site photographs, video, drawing, and interactive new media. She is involved with the poetics of traumatic memory in landscape performance. More on Chrstina McPhee...

αθδ(alfa / thta / delta)
Midori Sakura, (Japan/France-Paris), 5:54 min, 2008
αθδ is the 9th video in the series DNA, inspired by the electroencephalography (EEG). The video captures a night of insomnia through abstract imagery coupled with alpha, beta, theta and delta waves. Beta waves are the states of normal waking consciousness; alpha waves are detected during periods of waking; theta waves appear with drowsiness; and delta waves during periods of deep sleep associated with dreams.
Midori Sakuraï is Japanese and lives and works in Paris-Montreuil (France).  Since 1996 she has been working in media arts primarily in performance art. In 2005 she began exploring video and video installation that is her primary medium today.

Corps
Michael Szpakowski (UK/London), 3:48 min, 2007
'Corps' was shot in a single winter night in London from just after people quit work until late. London becomes a dance as in "corps de ballet", and a study of the individual human body within this -"corps".
Michael Szpakowski is an artist, composer & educator. This year his short film ‘Incident’ was awarded the main jury prize at the Pocket Films Festival at the Forum des Images in Paris, France. He is composer & video artist for Tell Tale Hearts Theatre Company & a joint editor of the online video resource DVblog. More on Michael Szpakowski...

NIGHT WALK
Fabienne Gautier (France/Paris), 5:00 min, 2004 Color Super 8 to DV, 7 min.
An improvised walk through Paris at night. Exercise in color and abstraction emanating from the citys ethos.
Fabienne Gautier lives and works in Paris and deploys multiple mediums in her art practice, including photography, video and film. Her work has been shown internationally in galleries and festivals. Her short “Night Walk” has been awarded Best International Film at the 2006 Delta International Film and Video Festival USA. More on Fabienne Gautier...

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