All Over Albany

Brian Dewan: Filmstrips at UAlbany (beep)

Could be both fun and weird, in the good way: Multimedia artist Brian Dewan will be showing a group of his "I-Can-See" filmstrips at UAlbany Friday. Where? In a classroom, of course. (beep)

From Jed Davis, who's helped organized the performance with WCDB and Eschatone Records:

Brian's "I-Can-See" filmstrips are hand-drawn and soundtracked to resemble 20th Century educational filmstrips, complete with "beeps" to indicate a frame advance. Subject matter ranges from over-the-top retellings of Aesop's fables to wry commentary on modern culture. ...

Brian, who lives in Catskill, has presented these filmstrips in New York City at the Whitney Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Galapagos and Pierogi Gallery (which was decorated to resemble a mid-20th-Century classroom for the occasion), in the UK at Modern Art Oxford and the Royal College of Art, in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts, and in Los Angeles at Post Gallery. As far as New York state is concerned, this will be the first time they've been shown north of NYC. (beep)

One of Dewan's hand-drawn film strips is embedded above. It's called "The King of Instruments" -- it's about the organ menace that threatens us all. It's funny. (beep)

Dewan is an artist/musician who's performed, collaborated, or create art for groups ranging from They Might Be Giants to the Blue Man Group to Neutral Milk Hotel. And he and his brother Leon have built a series of electrical musical instruments called, appropriately, Dewanatrons. (beep)

The show starts at 7 pm in Lecture Center 6 on the uptown UAlbany campus. It's free and open to the public.

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