(Near) extinct technologies make sound visible in this program of shorts that delve into ideas of knowledge, memory, and communication. On a Chladni Plate, a device that marked the birth of acoustics, grains of sand, moving like Busby Berkeley dancers, form intricate patterns in response to changing sound frequencies, their shapes recalling the utopian quest for a “pure,” onomatopoeic alphabet. Wax cylinder recordings combine with modern scientific instruments to animate a text by Rainer Maria Rilke on the possibility of hearing the dead by playing their skulls with a gramophone needle. A histrionic voice-over, translated into a wave of small flames on a Ruben’s Tube, provokes unexpected associations, from the biblical burning bush to various acts of ventriloquism in pop culture...

The program title Kaleidoscopic Visions was inspired by P. Adams Sitney’s description of Saul Levine’s unique style of shooting and cutting as "...fused with the kalei­do­scop­ic fury of mem­o­ry...”. The program selects films by Saul Levine from 1973 to 2011. The films represent roughly three of Saul’s major formal approaches to the small gauge formats of Regular 8mm (presented as a digital transfers and a 16mm blow up) and Super 8mm (presented in Super 8mm and 16mm blow ups).

Filmmaker Saul Levine will be in Chicago for the Screening! Q & A following the Program!