LITERATURE + LECTURES

Aurora Picture Show, in a co-presentation with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Radical Light Book Tour and Screening Series,  Sunday, November 20, 2PM and 5PM. Curator Steve Seid, Filmmaker Scott Stark, and Film Scholar Michael Sicinski in Attendance. Location: Museum of Fine Arts Brown Auditorium, 1001 Bissonnet.

Celebrating the publication of their book Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000, the Pacific Film Archive launched an ambitious 25-part film/video series summarizing the creative outpouring of one of the nation's most active media communities. Alternative film and video from San Francisco and its nearby environs has historically drawn on a rich arts scene of poets, visual artists, composers, and technology innovators which accounts in part for the cross-fertilized nature of much of this work.

In partnership with MFAH Films, Aurora welcomes Steve Seid, Video Curator at the Pacific Film Archive (PFA) in Berkeley for two screenings of works from these Bay-Area filmmakers, as well as a book sale and signing.

At 2PM, the series begins with Procession of the Image Processors. Advances in the media arts occur when the challenge of realizing an image requires another medium’s uncanny capabilities: film chains bollixed, optical printers nudged, the merger of chemistry and electronics. This screening includes films by Hy Hirsh, Edward Silverstone Taylor, Scott Bartlett, Skip Sweeney, Loren Sears, Philip Greene, Stephen Beck and Warner Jepson

From 3:45-4:45PM, the MFAH will host a reception that includes a book sale and signing. The book retails for $29.95.

Finally at 5PM, the program closes with Landscape As Expression, which features films that explores and reflects the wonder and cinematic character of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay area. This screening includes films by Miles Brothers, Dion Vigne, Bruce Bailie, Abigail Child, Scott Stark, Lynn Marie Kirby and Ernie Gehr.

Steve Seid is a film/video curator at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. He has presented hundreds of programs highlighting experimental media, as well as feature films. Seid co-curated the Ant Farm retrospective which toured museums throughout the United States. He also curated the Robert Flaherty Seminar and the Stan Brakhage Symposium among others. Through the PFA, Seid has worked on numerous preservation projects, including the videoworks of Paul Kos, William Wegman, Ant Farm, and the artists of the National Center for Experiments in Television.