Thursday, April 9, 8:00 p.m. | The 36th Onion City Experimental Film Festival opens with USEFUL FANTASY, a special shorts program curated by artist Peter Burr and presented in partnership with 150 Media Stream. The program features a 35mm print of Suzan Pitt's iconic ASPARAGUS (1979) restored by the Academy Film Archive, as well as Peter Tscherkassky’s avant-garde masterpiece OUTER SPACE (1999, 35mm). Accompanying these prints are digital presentations of Peter Burr’s ALONE WITH THE MOON (2012), Vince Collins’ MALICE IN WONDERLAND (1982), Shana Moulton’s THE MOUNTAIN WHERE EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN (2005), and Boris Labbé’s LA CHUTE (2018). Peter Burr will be in attendance to present a work-in-progress preview of his generative artwork MAINTENANCE GAME (2026). Co-presented by 150 Media Stream. The program is preceded by a reception hosted by 150 Media Stream at 150 N Riverside Plaza from 5:30 - 7:30pm.
Most fantasy is useless. That's the point. It's the space we reserve for what doesn't have to justify itself. USEFUL FANTASY insists on having both of its ways, gathering films that build worlds through their psychic accumulation, letting meaning emerge so indirectly it might not emerge at all. Not all fantasy does the same work. Some fantasy simplifies, promising escape into the manageable and known. The fantasy gathered here moves in the opposite direction. It opens doors rather than closing them. It intensifies uncertainty rather than resolving it. In an era where imagination is constantly recruited for branding, forecasting, or visioning corporate futures, these works practice a different kind of thinking. They construct environments that resist extraction, realms that can't be converted into actionable insights or reassuring narratives. Their allegories feel urgent and specific without ever declaring what they're allegories of. This is fantasy as a form of refusal: not escape from reality but escape from the demand that reality be simple or weirdness eventually resolve into something we can use. These works stay strange precisely because they don't owe us anything. They hold open space for thinking that might circle its target forever and refuse to land. (Peter Burr)
Related Event: ONION CITY CLOSING NIGHT — OFF CENTER: GANGSTERISM
Sunday, April 12, 7:00 p.m.
About Onion City
The Onion City Experimental Film Festival is one of the premier international festivals exclusively devoted to experimental film and video. Our mission is to provide local and regional audiences with an opportunity to view a wide variety of contemporary experimental works, focused on artistic excellence, but also with an eye towards representing differing styles, forms, and nationalities.
About 150 Media Stream
Located in the lobby of 150 N Riverside Plaza in Chicago, 150 Media Stream is a public digital art installation divided into 89 LED blades. It stretches over 150 feet long and reaches 22 feet high, the largest structure of its kind in the city. Launched in 2017, 150 Media Stream has showcased over fifty commissioned works by emerging and renowned local and international media artists. Curated by Chicago-based video artist Yuge Zhou, the 150 Media Stream Arts Program forges strategic partnerships with many of Chicago’s major academic and artistic institutions, providing a forum for students and cultural practitioners to exhibit and promote their work in a dynamic and iconic environment.
About Peter Burr
Peter Burr is an artist from Brooklyn, NY who transforms complex computational systems into emotional, sensory experiences through large-scale immersive environments. Drawing from early experiments with computational graphics in the mid-nineties, Burr's practice has evolved to incorporate techniques that merge fundamental computing operations with modern real-time rendering systems. His work frequently explores the relationship between human-machine interfaces and the underlying systems that drive them.
Previously Burr worked under the alias Hooliganship and founded the video label Cartune Xprez through which he produced hundreds of live multimedia exhibitions and touring programs showcasing a multi-generational group of artists at the forefront of experimental animation. His practice has been recognized through grants and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Grant, and a Sundance New Frontier Fellowship. His work has been presented at major cultural institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Barbican Centre, Documenta 14, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Pompidou.
Throughout his career, Burr has maintained an active presence in the computational arts field, with exhibitions in over 25 countries. He regularly presents his research at institutions including past keynotes at Yale University and Ars Electronica. He is a current PhD candidate in video games at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu