Celluloid Synchronized

Roger Beebe, a professor of film and media studies at the University of Florida and some kind of crazy genius, mounts multi-projector screenings of his film projects. Each individual screen adds to the perceptual whole of the work, while Beebe runs back and forth between projectors, syncing the images and building an experience he calls “expanded cinema.” He deploys multiple technologies — Super 8, 16 mm and digital video among them — sometimes within the context of a single work. In his films, Beebe explores contemporary commercial landscapes and suburban sprawl and weighs the banalities of a concrete landscape against the utopian promises of space-age America. Tonight, Beebe presents a free screening of his Films for One to Eight Projectors at La Esquina (1000 West 25th Street, 816-221-5115), during which you can witness his choreographed cinematic works Last Light of a Dying Star, Money Changes Everything, TB TX DANCE and The Strip Mall Trilogy.

Thu., Sept. 24, 8 p.m., 2009