The CFA Media Mixer Showcase
The CFA Media Mixer started in 2012 as a way to open up CFA’s vault of archival footage to artists working in media, and to support the creation of new video work by pairing visual and sound artists. At the heart of the Media Mixer is a desire to give CFA’s archival collections new life through the creative interpretation of contemporary artists.
The Media Mixer is a collaborative project in which Chicago Film Archives commissions new work from pairs of Chicago media artists and musicians, who are invited to access, interpret, and transform archival footage from CFA’s collections. CFA matches 3 local video artists with 3 audio artists to collaborate, usually for the first time, in the creation of 3 new works.
Past Media Mixer filmmakers and media artists have included Cauleen Smith, Deborah Stratman, and Fern Silva; sound artists and musicians have included Phil Cohran, Olivia Block, Daniel Knox, and Sen Morimoto. Works commissioned for the Media Mixer have gone on to screen at film festivals throughout the world, including at Art Basel, the New York Film Festival, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Several have won awards.
This page is the digital home of the Media Mixer commissions that have been created over the years.
The 2024 participating artists for Media Mixer: Homemade were:
Henry Hanson + Fire-Toolz working with the Lieb-Hootnick Family Collection
Kioto Aoki + AJ McClenon working with the Frank Miyamoto Collection
Caitlin Ryan + Johanna Brock working with the Glick-Berolzheimer collection
Their creations premiered at Constellation.
The 2023 participating artists were:
Paige Taul and olula negre
Jose Luis Benavides and Conjunto Primitivo
Zachary Hutchinson and Haruhi Kobayashi
Their creations premiered at Constellation.
After a skipped year in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Media Mixer returned in 2022.
The participating artists were:
Kishino Takagishi and Daniel Knox
Tempestt Hazel and Azita Youssefi
Janelle Dowell and Sen Morimoto
Their creations premiered at Constellation.
Jean Sousa and Kioto Aoki
Jiayi Chen and Ronnie Kuller
Rob Christopher and David Boykin
Their creations premiered virtually, in collaboration with Experimental Sound Studios’ Quarantine Series.
The 2019 participating artists were:
Brian Ashby + Bill MacKay
Emily Eddy + Natalie Chami (TALsounds)
Amir George + Lilianna Zofia Wosko*
Their creations premiered at Constellation.
* Due to an agreement with the artists, Amir George & Lilianna Zofia Wosko’s piece, “Man of the People,” is not available for streaming.
The 2018 Media Mixer brought in an international dimension, thanks to support from the MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund.
The International Media Mixer was a cross-cultural artistic exchange in which Italian artists were commissioned to make a new film using material from CFA’s collections and Chicago-based artists using footage from a regional Italian archive, Lab 80 film – Cinescatti.
The filmmakers were asked to explore, interpret and use this material—from another culture, another country and another era—as they liked. We then paired the US-based filmmakers with Italian musicians and the Italian-based filmmakers with Chicago-based musicians to create soundtracks for the new video pieces. This resulted in a truly collaborative project that brought together artists in Italy and Chicago, as well as our two regional film archives based in Chicago and Bergamo.
The 2018 participating artists were:
Giuseppe Boccassini (IT) + Alex Inglizian (US)
Lori Felker (US) + Patrizia Oliva (IT)
Federico Francioni & Yan Cheng (IT) + Tomeka Reid (US)
Domietta Torlasco (US) + Stefano Urkuma De Santis (IT)
Their creations premiered in Italy at the Bergamo Film Meeting and in the United States at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago.
