Apr 3, 7:00 PM: Prefiguring Immediacy: Video Art by Mako Idemistu

Idemitsu Mako is a pioneering media artist, beginning her practice in 1960s California, and advancing the definitions of television art in 1970s Japan. Working with key figures in the west coast feminist art movement and the burgeoning Tokyo video scene, Idemitsu developed a visual lexicon of intertextual, mise en abyme frames known as Mako-style. Idemitsu activated the domestic television set within melodrama household scenes, using this ubiquitous yet unassuming frame to expose the repressed subconsciousnesses of Japanese women. Concurrently surrealistic yet burdened with the realities of patriarchal expectations, the subtle resistance of Idemitsu’s televisual frames are captivating and horrifying. This program features Idemitsu’s seminal experimental film and televisual video works, charting her explorations of feminist thought and her close attention to the power of media. Starting with Inner-Man (1973, 4 min.), Idemitsu’s lifelong struggle with dualistic gendered experiences is manifested, juxtaposing the performed femininity of a traditional Japanese female dancer and a free-spirited, nude, Caucasian improvisational dancer. In three key Mako-style works, Another Day of a Housewife (1977, 10 min.), Hideo, It’s Me, Mama (1983, 27 min.), and Kiyoko’s Situation (1989, 25 min.), Idemitsu explores the distinct struggles of Japanese housewives at different stages of their lives. Q&A with Art History graduate student Toby Wu and CalArts PhD candidate Wakae Nakane. Presented by South Side Projections, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago with generous support from a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Date: April 3, 2022
Time: 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

See:https://southsideprojections.org/2022/prefiguring-immediacy-video-art-by-mako-idemitsu/