Campus News in Brief

Artist lecturers are announced

Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art has announced the speakers in its fall 2008 lecture series, which presents work in all art forms, from sculpture and photography to improvisation.

The lecture series features artists’ work reflecting topics on individuality and globalization through uniting different mediums and art forms. The art featured will include sculpture, improvisation, photography, video, and public installation.

All work pertains to the theme of how technology and global, political, and social developments affect how we define ourselves as humans in the world.

This year’s lecture series features artists from the 55th International Life on Mars exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, which explores the question of what it means to be human in the world today.
Featured lecturers include artists exhibiting in the Miller Gallery this fall as well as Jeffrey Kastner, an arts critic and senior editor of the award-winning avant-garde art and culture magazine Cabinet.

Other artists speaking include Stephanie Syjuco, the Kraus Visiting Assistant Professor of Art who uses tactics of counterfeiting and appropriation to address issues of cultural biography, labor, and economic globalization; Barry McGee, who reflects punk, outsider, and folk art; and Mark Bradford, who works in collage and examines culture, communication, and exchange in Los Angeles.

Visit (www.art.cmu.edu) for more information.

Drama looks forward to play

Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama presents The Other Shore Oct. 2–11 in the university’s Philip Chosky Theater.

The play was written by Gao Xingjian, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in literature. It explores humanity’s struggle to transcend suffering and attain nirvana, as in Buddhist tradition.

The Other Shore is the first presentation of a Chinese play in the School of Drama’s regular season.

It exposes the audience to a different worldview of storytelling, with a minimalistic set and integrated soundscapes. It follows the actors’ journey to cross the river of life and reach nirvana.

As part of a new initiative at the School of Drama, students in the Production Dramaturgy Program will hold talk backs with the audience, cast, and crew following the Tuesday evening performance of The Other Shore.

Performances of the show take place this Tuesday through Saturday. Visit (www.drama.cmu.edu) for tickets and performance times.

For more information, see the Pillbox article.