. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

On Jim Trainor

Our fall 2017 season kicks off this week with a screening of The Pink Egg, the first live-action feature by Chicago filmmaker and animator Jim Trainor.

October 12 – Jim Trainor: The Pink Egg

Featuring his trademark dark comedy and fascination with the natural world, Chicago-based animator Jim Trainor explores the complex and curious lives of insects in his first live-action feature. Casting humans in the starring roles, The Pink Egg follows life-cycles of “The Seven Sisters,” a group of evolutionarily related wasps and bees. Unitard costumes and candy-colored props set the […]

The Presentation Theme: New & Old Films by Jim Trainor

Thursday, November 20, 6pm | Jim Trainor in person! Jim Trainor, The Presentation Theme (2008). Image courtesy of the artist. The work of celebrated Chicago filmmaker and SAIC professor Jim Trainor revels in the world between playfulness and prurience with shaky, line-drawn animations of animals, humans, and their habits. Tonight he presents two new films […]

Robert Breer by Jim Trainor

Check out this 1979 interview with Robert Breer by animator and SAIC Film/Video and New Media Chair, Jim Trainor. It was published in 1980, by the Columbia University literary magazine, Upstart. Download the full interview here.

Stay Tuned! Spring 2018

Happy new year! Conversations at the Edge wraps up another great season. Check out the Fall 2017 season highlights in photos and stay tuned for when we announce our Spring 2018 lineup!

Announcing Fall 2017

We’re excited to announce the lineup for Conversations at the Edge’s Fall 2017 season! Check out the full season details here.

CATE Fall 2017 Season

Conversations at the Edge’s fall 2017 season kicks off October 12! Highlights include the live-action feature The Pink Egg by animator Jim Trainor; a new film performance by Sandra Gibson, Luis Recoder, and sound artist Brian Case; new work by German filmmaker Alex Gerbaulet, a selection of newly restored films by Ana Mendieta, a performance […]

Interview with Karen Yasinsky

Ali Aschman and Jeremy Bessoff in conversation with Karen Yasinsky on the occasion of the screening ‘Fire is a Fact: An Evening with Karen Yasinsky’, a program of short puppet and hand-drawn animations from 1999 to 2012. Ali: When Jim Trainor introduced you last night at Conversations at the Edge, he described your work as […]

The Animated Films of Adam K. Beckett

Thursday, October 26, 2006, 6pm Curator Jim Trainor in person! The young animator Adam K. Beckett created a handful of vivid, astonishing films in the early 1970s, but died tragically at the age of 29 at the peak of his creative frenzy. Based on an innovation he called the evolving cycle—whereby an animated image grows […]

Soft Science

Thursday, February 2, 2006, 6pm Curator Rachel Mayeri in person! Some of the most astonishing art projects exist behind laboratory doors. This collection of video-curiosities, curated by filmmaker Rachel Mayeri, brings together work by artists and scientists in experiments with ebullient nanogears, tethered flies, and the ever-elusive idea of Reason. It Did It (2000, Peter […]

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