“Men and Dust”: Breath That Kills
posted January 16, 2014
Miners have been dying from varieties of pneumoconiosis since they have been shuttled via mine elevators to toil in shafts thick with dust that, once it sufficiently scars the lungs, suffocates its victims. In 1940, Sheldon Dick bore witness to the plague in his "Men and Dust."
SPEAKING IN PALINDROMES
posted January 6, 2014
Caylin Smith asks Thomson & Craighead (Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead) about their goals in repurposing "found" online data and video to create artworks for the Digital Age. How are they using online networks and social-information vehicles. And how are they handling the tricky business of preserving "born digital" audio-visual art works?
“The Daughter of Dawn” Will Never Go Dark
posted January 4, 2014
After "The Daughter of Dawn" was shot in Oklahoma during the summer of 1920 and then released in October of that year, it was shown only a few times — in Los Angeles, Kansas City, Tulsa, and a handful of other cities— but then seemed to have disappeared. Now, rediscovered, it has been restored and honored with a national guarantee of preservation in perpetuity.
The 1966 March on Cicero, A Step Towards Equity
posted January 2, 2014
"Cicero March," an eight-minute, black-and-white film from 1966 that depicts the fraying of African American patience with the slow redress of racial inequity, is among 25 films that the Library of Congress last week selected for permanent preservation.