The films of Chicago-based filmmaker/graphic artist (and co-director of Chicago’s Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation) Alexander Stewart are variously energetic and animated and oddly geological. They flirt with the legacies of structural film and psychedelic cinema while adding significantly to the obscure traditions of the hand-drawn animation and film-as-abstract-graphic-art. Revealing an obsessive fascination with gradual accumulation of marks and movements and with self-imposed challenges and limitations, Stewart’s films press against their own boundaries and reveal glistening grace under pressure.

This screening presents Stewart’s collective works (2006–2014) including: Errata, an abstract animation made using photocopiers; Crux Film (with Lilli Carré), an animation focusing on balance and attempts at stasis; two pieces representing Stewart’s recent work with musicians — What I Want — (score by Sam Prekop of The Sea and Cake) and Power (a music video for Chicago band Disappears) and Fort Morgan, a complex and sprawling dream work which transforms the titular structure—a star-shaped brick fort near Stewart’s hometown on the Alabama Gulf Coast—into a mysterious work of outsider earth art. The Battle Of The Stand-Stills, 100 Foot Pull, 4000 Frame Throw (Pitchin’ Machine), Peacock, Very Similar To (with Peter Miller) and Crusts also screen.

Limited edition DVDs available at the screening! Alexander Stewart in person.