Ulysses Jenkins

RSVP here. Seating is first come, first serve. RSVP does not guarantee entry, but helps us track interest and send event updates and reminders.

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is pleased to present an eclectic selection of videos ranging from frenetic experiments to raw cell phone footage, musical numbers to satirical riffs on sleek consumer electronics, culled from works recently added to our distribution catalogue. The evening takes its title from Ulysses Jenkins’s Sobriety (2022), a new video and song by his conceptual art band Othervisions about keeping one’s head above water amid tumult.

In this collection of short works, artists contend with technology’s travails and possibilities, exploring how digital devices interact with the corporeal world. Cecelia Condit’s AI and I considers the artist’s relationship to Amazon’s Alexa. Jayson Musson’s Blockedt! pitches a functionless “anti-social social networking” app, co-developed with Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti for Rhizome’s Seven on Seven. Shelly Silver’s Score for Joanna Kotze, described by the artist as a “dance film that primarily leaves us in the dark,” flickers through photographs of flowers, buildings, and debris, and C. Spencer Yeh’s Three Waves collages close-up video and recordings from the artist’s mouth. LoVid’s Three Moons compiles footage of weeds, wild flora, and friends in and around Long Island taken with a custom-built temporospatial camera, and Wu Tsang’s iPhone-shot Girl Talk captures poet and scholar Fred Moten letting loose to Josiah Wise’s cover of the eponymous 1965 jazz standard.

Following the program, there will be an informal chat with Cecelia Condit, LoVid, Shelly Silver, and C. Spencer Yeh. An online, closed-captioned version of this program will be accessible for a limited time in March.

Please note that works in this program contain flashing lights and intense visual patterns.

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)’s venue is located at 264 Canal Street, 3W, near several Canal Street subway stations. Our floor is accessible by elevator (63" × 60" car, 31" door) and stairway. Due to the age and other characteristics of the building, our bathrooms are not ADA-accessible, though several such bathrooms are located nearby. If you have questions about access, please contact cstrange@eai.org in advance of the event.

On the occasion of the organization's 50th anniversary, Frieze has invited Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) to program a series of videos from its collection of over 4,000 titles. This selection offers a dynamic overview of the strategies and concerns of an intergenerational array of artists whose work experiments with communications technology, ranging from television to social media. Videos from the EAI collection will appear throughout the fair, on large-scale monitors at its entrance and in lobbies on two floors. EAI's participation is part of a program spotlighting New York non-profits organizations that have celebrated significant anniversaries in the past year, alongside peers Artists Space, A.I.R., and Printed Matter Inc. Works featured include:

Program #1 (4th floor, CRT monitor):
Anthony Ramos, Balloon Nose Blow-Up, 1972, 11:18 min
Kristin Lucas, Cable Xcess, 1996, 4:48 min
Jaime Davidovich, The Live! Show Promo, 1982, 5:32 min
Joan Jonas, Duet, 1972, 4:23 min
Ulysses Jenkins, Inconsequential Doggereal, 1981, 15:13 min
Robert Beck, The Feeling of Power, 1990, 9 min
Cecelia Condit, Possibly in Michigan, 1983, 11:40 min
Ellen Cantor, Evokation of My Demon Sister, 2002, 4:38 min

Program #2 (6th floor, HD monitor): 
Ulysses Jenkins, Notions of Freedom, 2007, 15:47 min
Trevor Shimizu, Lonely Loser Trilogy (Skate Videos), 2013, 14 min
Shana Moulton, Restless Leg Saga, 2012, 7:14 min
Peggy Ahwesh, The Falling Sky, 2017, 9:30 min
Tony Cokes, B4 and After the Studio, Part 1, 2019, 11:02 min
Maggie Lee, WINGS1 + WINGS2, 2013, 1:59 min
Maggie Lee, Department Store, 2021, 7:50 min

Mezzanine monitors: 
Peggy Ahwesh, The Falling Sky, 2017, 9:30 min
Trevor Shimizu, Lonely Loser Trilogy (Skate Videos), 2013, 14 min

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is pleased to partner with Metrograph to present a series of programs highlighting our catalogue and its essential role in the history of artists’ moving image work. This program coincides with our ongoing celebration of EAI's 50th anniversary.

Continuing this November, EAI presents a slate of works for both Metrograph's theater as well as its At Home online platform. The second installment of this program will focus on artists who have embraced the radical potential of mass media, and iterative possibilities of videotape and broadcast. Throughout the month, we will screen theatrical engagements of Robert Beck/Buck’s Cruising (Back to Front), a scene-by-scene reversal of William Friedkin’s notorious thriller; Zoe Beloff’s trilogy of works exploring unrealized Hollywood films by radical artists (Sergei Eisenstein, Bretolt Brecht, and James Agee, respectively); and Ulysses Jenkins and Video Venice News’ Remnants of the Watts Festival, documenting the annual summer music festival in the southeast Los Angeles neighborhood. On Metrograph’s streaming platform, we present a showcase of Robert Beck/Buck’s short video works, and two programs pairing artists Jaime Davidovich and Kristin Lucas, and Shana Moulton and Trevor Shimizu.

In theaters:

Cruising (Back to Front)
Robert Beck/Buck, 1998
Monday, November 15th, 8:30 pm
With introduction by Robert Beck/Buck

Fragments for a Future: Brecht, Agee, and Eisensten
Three Works by Zoe Beloff
Zoe Beloff, 2015-2019, 104 min
Monday, November 22th, 8:30 pm
With introduction by Zoe Beloff

Remnants of the Watts Festival
Ulysses Jenkins, 1972-73, 60 min
Monday, November 29th, 8:30 pm

At home:

Shorts works by Robert Beck/Buck
Available November 16th to 21th
With introduction and conversation by Robert Beck/Buck

Short works by Jaime Davidovich and Kristin Lucas
Available November 23th to 28th

Short works by Shana Moulton and Trevor Shimizu
Available November 30th to December 5th

$7 / $5 / free for members
Get tickets here.

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is pleased to present an evening with Ulysses Jenkins, organized in conjunction with the exhibition Broadcasting: EAI at ICA. Within this exhibition, Jenkins – whose work explicitly deconstructs racial stereotypes in media – is featured as a key figure demonstrating themes of message transmission, image representation, and broadcasting as a subject and strategy. Works to be screened at EAI include Two-Zone Transfer (1979), Mass of Images (1978), Dream City (1981), and Planet X (2006), and will be followed by an artist talk. This evening is part of a rare east coast appearance by Los Angeles based Jenkins, who will also participate in events at ICA and EMPAC.

With additional programs at Lightbox Film Center, PhillyCAM, Scribe Video Center, Slought, Anthology Film Archives, EAI, and EMPAC.

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is pleased to co-present Broadcasting: EAI at ICA at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia, February 2nd through March 25th. Featuring works by artists including Robert Beck, Dara Birnbaum, Tony Cokes, Ulysses Jenkins, JODI, Shigeko Kubota, Kristin Lucas, Shana Moulton, Trevor Shimizu, and TVTV, the exhibition will focus on how artists exploit the act of broadcasting as a subject, as a means of intervention, and as a form of participation across a variety of displays.

The word “broadcast” originated as an agricultural term meaning to disperse seeds widely, but became a figurative description for communications technology in the radio age. In the television era, with which broadcasting is most synonymous, the introduction of personal video equipment fostered a more dynamic interpretation, facilitating a two-way flow of information that resonates with contemporary participatory media. In this spirit, the physical walls of the gallery will extend beyond ICA through a series of collaborations with Lightbox Film Center, PhillyCAM, Scribe Video Center, Slought, Anthology Film Archives, EAI, and EMPAC.

Broadcasting: EAI at ICA is co-curated by Alex Klein, Dorothy & Stephen R. Weber (CHE’60) Curator, ICA and Rebecca Cleman, Director of Distribution, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)