By Way of Today

Cameron Gibson and Kyle Schlie
2016

By Way of Today is an expanded soap opera produced by Cameron Gibson and Kyle Schlie. Equal parts genre study, fan fiction and mundane sci-fi, it is a series like many and unlike none. Episodes “air” irregularly and in various forms such as video, script, rehearsal, live broadcast, commercial, installation and animation.

bywayoftoday.com

Airing March 21 – 31, 2016

As part of The Set Speaks

twinskin performance at Links Hall, 2016. Image by Heather Halbert.

“I have been probing language, making toys and playing with my friends. Over the course of this week I will continue to do just as we please. Please join me for language explorations with collaborator Jory Drew, new work from collaborative music-based mystery twinskin and a live-broadcast class from Rashi of Woman Untamed.” -AR

SCHEDULE:

MONDAY, March 14

Photo installation (Assembled 5-6 pm)

TUESDAY, March 15

Word Games w/ Jory Drew (6 pm – TBD)

WEDNESDAY, March 16

Word Games w/ Jory Drew (6 pm – TBD)

THURSDAY, March 17

Day Work by twinskin (9 am – 11 am)

FRIDAY, March 18

Rashida Khanbey (Rashi) of  WomanUntamed – live streamed morning class (10 am – 11 am)

SATURDAY, March 19

Word Games w/ Jory Drew (6 pm – TBD)

SUNDAY, March 20

Night Work by twinskin (8 pm – TBD)

Looping video works when not live:

Hiba Ali
Postcolonial Language Segment2: Commercial, 2013-2015, 1:30
hibaali.info

NIC Kay
body hack, 2015
soft + cunt, 2016 4:11
nic-kay.com

Camille Laut
Il Faudra Combler La Distance, 2015, 11:04
vimeo.com/camillelaut

Yani Aviles
Blowing in the Wind, 2015, 2:04
yaniaviles.com

A.j. McClenon
the more you are, 2013, 12:17
ashleyjmcclenon.com

Elena Tejada-Herrera
INTIMACY, 2016, 3:38
tejadaherrera.wordpress.com

Emily Schulert
3 Dancing Girls, 2015, 00:23 Loop
Secret Garden, 2015, 00:21 Loop
emilyschulert.wordpress.com

Jeffrey Chance
DuMaCaNaNa, 2016, 1:05 Loop
cargocollective.com/jchance

Amina Ross
If Today Never Gives Up In Me, 2015, 1:54 Loop
A Bridge, [A Black,] A Barrel, A Back, 2015, 6:24 Loop
Raw Footage #2, 2013, 00:44 Loop
White Rat, 2013, 00:56 Loop
aminaross.com

Amina Ross is an undisciplined artist fascinated with the abstraction and manipulation of visual and written language. As of late these interests have led to an exploration of PLAY as both a site of inquiry and a critical mode of making. Amina’s practice consists of image-making, writing, performance, and installation strategies.

Jory Drew is an artist whose practice relates the conjunction of thought and vision, as they relate meaning, to pattern and repetition. Drew abstractions work to outline this confusion, of image over meaning or use over function, with the playful nature style.

twinskin is a collaborative project by Joelle Mercedes and Amina Ross. “Twin skin” colloquially refers to the contours left behind after the birth of twins. Amina and Joelle would like to tuck away in this skin-sheath for a bit, there is sanctuary in this site of the underbelly. twinskin’s love of text, color, material and sound articulate a longing, a strangeness, a place between the skin one shows the world and the body that one inhabits.

Rashida KhanBey (Rashi) is creator of Woman Untamed, a sensual dance fitness class created to help people feel strong, sexy and sensually alive in their bodies.

Airing March 14 – 20, 2016

As part of The Set Speaks

#NewGlobalMatriarchy

Stephanie Graham and Maya Mackrandilal
2016

The Goddesses are back, and they’re not happy. They find themselves in a world that has forgotten the radical abundance of women, forgotten our fierce, warrior insides. They’re back, ready to fuck shit up, to take pride in the limitations of their human form—eager for sex, money, decadence, violence, love, community, and power. They will raze the earth with the righteous fire of their anger and build a new one from the ruins: a culture of abundance, radical justice, and balance.

For #NewGlobalMatriarchy, Stephanie Graham and Maya Mackrandilal will present a series of performances and events that imagine radical black femme futures. The two will perform as ancient goddesses who have become incarnated in contemporary US-hegemonic culture, a world of reality television, instagram celebrity, and hyper-sexualization. By inhabiting the visual language and logic of consumerism and voyeurship, the goddesses infiltrate imperialism on its home turf, imbuing the mundane and familiar with moments of radical imagination. What does it mean to be a strong woman with friends in a culture that can only imagine female sexual competition for the ever-elusive “good man”? How can we construct narratives that sabotage a culture that devalues black life, the labor of women, and commodifies queer desire? Is it possible to seduce the oppressor into relinquishing his power?

Graham and Mackrandilal will be joined by collaborators from a wide range of Chicago creative communities, including FEMelanin, a women of color identified theatre collective, and a reprisal of AudioGraham, a one-night music video festival. Programming will also include an international assortment of artists, poets, and collectives submitting work via video and participating in discussions via online video-chat services.

mayamackrandilal.com
missgraham.com

Airing March 7 – 13, 2016

As part of The Set Speaks

the strangest gathering since the destruction of the Tower of Babel

Adela Goldbard
2016

Films, photographs, maps, drawings, building and cooking will transform the studio into a set where late XIX century collides with contemporary Chicago. The project was prompted by the book “The Devil in the White City” and will stage archival research and ethnographic explorations of Jackson Park. This work will dig into the immanent exoticism and colonialism of a show of spectacle such as the World’s Columbian Fair of 1893 and into the influence that private institutions like the University of Chicago (est. 1890) can have in the (mis)configuration of a community.

adelagoldbard.com
youtube.com/adelagoldbard

Airing February 29 – March 6, 2016

As part of The Set Speaks