Exposure Series at WKCTC's Clemens Fine Arts Center combines film and human body through projection

Presentation to focus on art of Kristen Reeves

Paducah, KY (10/31/2019) — The next Exposure Series presentation of the 2019-20 season for West Kentucky Community and Technical College's Clemens Fine Arts Center will focus on the art of Kristen Reeves, whose creativity brings film and the human body together.

The Expanded Cinema of Kristen Reeves, which is free and open to the public, will be held on the Clemens Center stage November 9, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Reeves will share her interdisciplinary multimedia projects that provide a spectacular canvas to develop inquiries into media-as-performer. Her expanded cinema work looks more critically at representation, bodily exploitation, structures of power, and gets as close as possible to the high-wire act of being human.

"I had an unique experience of being photographed for medical research as a child. The discovery of these images at an early age introduced me to media's power to act in lieu of a human body," said Reeves. "The camera had transformed me into an unfamiliar media body which could travel and perform in places unseen. Reversing the logic I believe the found and crafted media bodies I now stage give a truly human performance."

Playing her tower of projectors to the timing of a prerecorded soundtrack that pivots around international versions of "You Don't Own Me," Reeves meditates on the materiality of the body and the struggle to achieve personal sovereignty within its bounds. Her cinema presentation is built on 27, 10-second 16mm film loops constructed from optically printed found footage and direct laser-animation techniques.

Reeves has shown her interdisciplinary work internationally in museums, galleries, theaters, art events and festivals. Her media performances include multi-projector expanded cinema performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The MAC at The Green Zone in Dallas; and international festivals such as Experiments in Cinema in Albuquerque. She has collaborated on over 20 multimedia theater, dance, and music performances staged in venues such as Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, Pierogi Gallery's The Boiler in Brooklyn; Rhode Island's Granoff Center.

She is the programing director for That One Film Festival in Muncie, Ind. Currently she is an assistant professor of art at Ball State University where she can be found laser cutting 16mm film and managing her always-expanding projector collection.

To learn more about Kristen Reeves, visit reevesmachine.com. For more information about her November 9 presentation in the Clemens Center, contact Todd Birdsong at todd.birdsong@kctcs.edu or 270-534-3213.

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