Event Title: Things to Come: An Off-Bauhaus Anniversary Screening with Joyce Tsai
Event Date/Time: Friday May 24th, 7:00pm
Location: Logan 201
In 1936, the Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy was hired to create a montage sequence for Things to Come, a sci-fi film scripted H.G. Wells. Telling the story of a world wrecked by war, poison gas, and epidemics before its reconstruction, the film offers both a reflection on the First World War and an uncanny prefiguration of the Second. Although only 90 seconds of Moholy’s footage appeared in the final cut, the influence of the Bauhaus is palpable in its production design, which presents a dazzling world of underground skyscrapers, panoramic vistas, and glimmering transparency. Revisiting the film in the context of the Bauhaus Centenary allows us to explore the wider dissemination of Bauhaus aesthetics since the 1930s, as well as question the relationship of modernist design, war, and environment. The screening will be preceded by Chicago-based artist Jan Tichy’s Things to Come, 1936-2012, which reworks some of the Moholy footage cut from the film, allowing a glimpse at both Moholy’s vision and its longstanding influence on Chicago’s own artistic heritage.