February
The Great Ice Cream Robbery Wednesday, January 29 at 7pm Claes Oldenburg at 85 The Great Ice Cream Robbery dir. James Scott, UK, 1971, 16mm, 40 min.
Special introductory presentation by Branden W. Joseph. Co-presented with the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. James Scott, son of pioneering British abstractionist William Scott, created several film portraits of contemporary artists in the 1960s and early 70s. Scott’s intention was not merely to document the artworks themselves, but to merge the artistic practice of his subjects with the possibilities of the moving image. The most ambitious of Scott’s portraits, The Great Ice Cream Robbery (1971) is a side-by-side double projection featuring Claes Oldenburg as he prepares for his retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London. Featuring appearances by Richard Hamilton and Hannah Wilke. preceded by: Pat’s Birthday dir. Robert Breer, US, 1962, 16mm, 13 min., b&w
A day in the country with Claes Oldenburg and the Ray Gun Theatre Players. Includes such classic items as the haunted house, a gas station, ice cream stand, miniature golf, airplane noises and balloons.
Wednesday, February 5 at 7pm University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum WOMEN FILM THE WAR ON TERROR Operation Atropos dir. Coco Fusco, USA, 2006, digital, 59 min. Operation Atropos is a documentary about interrogation and POW resistance training. Director Coco Fusco worked with retired U.S. Army interrogators who subjected her group of women students to immersive simulations of POW experiences in order to show them what hostile interrogations can be like and how members of the U.S. military are taught to resist them. The group of interrogators is called Team Delta, and they regularly offer intensive courses that they call “Authentic Military Experiences” to civilians. The documentary includes interviews with the interrogators that shed light on how they read personalities, evaluate an interrogatee’s reliability, and use the imposition of physical and mental stress strategically. More fundamentally, however, the film shows how interrogators rationalize what they do and how they imagine both themselves and their enemies. Free admission.
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