Performing the Night Sky and The Incredible Shrinking Man

Performing the Night Sky: Heavenly Bodies, Microcosms and the Moving Image
A century before Georges Méliès’s Le Voyage Dans La Lune, the night sky was performed by colorful moving images, voice, music and projection.  Featuring digital reanimations of the Adler Planetarium's mechanical astronomical lantern slides, a collaged soundtrack, and Terri Kapsalis in the role of the lecturer, this performance evokes a poetic encounter with the infinite.

Terri Kapsalis (Chair, Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) is a founding member of Theater Oobleck and has performed in 15 Oobleck productions.  Her writings have appeared in such publications as Short Fiction, The Baffler, Denver Quarterly, new formations, Public, and Lusitania.  Her most recent publication is Jane Addams’ Travel Medicine Kit (Hull-House Museum).

Artemis Willis (Ph.D. candidate, CMS, University of Chicago) works on the international history, practice and culture of the magic lantern.  Her films have screened at the MFA Boston, the Brooklyn Museum and Anthology Film Archives.  She has curated magic lantern shows at Film Society of Lincoln Center, the National Gallery of Art, and the Freer and Sackler Galleries.
(Artemis Willis, 2013, projected performance, 20 minutes)

The Incredible Shrinking Man
Scott Carey (Grant Williams) seems to have it all: a good job, a beautiful wife, and a house in the suburbs.  But when this 1950s Everyman is exposed to a strange combination of radiation and insecticide, he begins to shrink uncontrollably.  After medical science can find no cure, the problems of shrinking prove greater than finding clothes that fit and having to stand on tiptoe to kiss his beloved.  The Incredible Shrinking Man showcases the cinema’s unique capacity to manipulate scale visually and viscerally, from the construction of oversized props and décor to special photographic effects that pit Williams mano-a-spider in the film’s thrilling and iconic climax.
(Jack Arnold, 1957, 81 min)

Visions of Scale: Magnification, Duration, Perspective, Projection
A 2-part film series developed by CMS Ph.D. candidates Matt Hauske and Junko Yamazaki, presented in conjunction with the Department of Cinema and Media Studies 2013 Graduate Student Conference, Visions of Scale: Magnification, Duration, Perspective, Projection, taking place at the Logan Center on April 5-6.