Monday February 15th at 6:00pm, the Department of Media Study’s PLASMA (Performances, Lectures, Screenings of Media Artists)​​ will feature a presentation by Chris Stults, Associate Curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and a conversation about Cinetracts 20​, a recent film project commissioned by the Wexner.  The Zoom Meeting ID for the lecture series is 959 5554 2975. Email paigesar@buffalo with PLASMA2021 in the subject line for the password.​

Chris Stults has been an associate curator in the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Film/Video department since 2002. Planning visits and events with filmmakers such as Joe Dante, Yance Ford, Kirsten Johnson, Kelly Reichert, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, he has organized hundreds of screenings, festivals, and retrospectives with a focus on documentary and experimental film. In 2012, he curated the touring series Cruzamentos: Contemporary Brazilian Documentary, the largest North American film survey on the topic and, along with Genevieve Yue, he co-curated the 2016 Flaherty NYC series “Wild Sounds,” exploring films about gender and voice. His writing has appeared in ArtForum, Cinema Scope, Film Comment, and the Viennale catalogue, among others.

Stults was one of a team of three curators who commissioned Cinetracts ’20, a web-based film project comprised of 20 short works by an international slate of contributors including: Natalia Almada (Mexico/San Francisco, CA), Tony Buba (Braddock, PA), Charles Burnett (Los Angeles, CA), Tamer El Said (Egypt/Germany), Akwaeke Emezi (Nigeria/US), Su Friedrich (Brooklyn, NY), Kelly Gallagher (Syracuse, NY), Cameron Granger (Columbus, OH), Christopher Harris (Iowa City, IA), Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation, WI), Karrabing Film Collective (Australia), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/Germany), Gabriel Mascaro (Brazil), Rosine Mbakam (Cameroon/Belgium), Natasha Mendonca (India), Sheilah and Dani ReStack (Columbus, OH), Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (Puerto Rico), Cauleen Smith (Los Angeles, CA), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand), and Želimir Žilnik (Serbia).

The initiative was inspired by Cinétracts ’68, a radical project in which French filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker responded to the political uprising in Paris of May 1968. Wexner Center Film/Video curators David Filipi, Jennifer Lange, and Chris Stults invited artists to capture “the zeitgeist in your own backyard,” in hopes that a global portrait would emerge from this index of diverse locales. The project was launched in 2019, supported by a 2019–20 Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, and called upon both established and emerging filmmakers to participate.

As always, PLASMA lectures are free and open to the UB community and the public.​ Email paigesar@buffalo with PLASMA2021 in the subject line for password and/or additional information.

I hope to see you tonight (Zoom ID: 959 5554 2975).

UB Department of Media Study’s PLASMA 2021 Schedule:

Monday February 15 Chris Stults – Cinetracts ‘20
Monday February 22 Stephanie Rothenberg
Monday March 1 Jon-Sesrie Goff
Monday March 8 Rebekah Rutkoff on Lillian Schwartz
Monday March 15 Adam Khalil
Monday March 22 Jason Geistweidt – Performance and Lecture
Monday March 29 Girish Shambu
Monday April 5 Jenson Leonard / @coryintheabyss
Monday April 12 Ekrem Serdar
Monday April 19 Sindhu Thirumalaisamy
Monday April 26 Gregg Bordowitz
Monday May 3 PLASMA CINETRACTS Screening

Brief remarks addressed to the students who are enrolled in PLASMA as a credit-course will begin at 6:00PM sharp. As a result, the guest lectures often begin a little later than 6:00. It should be noted that Jason Geistweidt’s performance on March 22nd will begin at 6:00pm sharp.

PLASMA is sponsored by the University at Buffalo’s Department of Media Study and funding is provided by the the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The series is curated by Dr. Paige Sarlin, Assistant Professor of Media Study, in collaboration with Liz Park – UB Art Galleries and Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center.

For more information: https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/media-study/news-events/plasma.html​​