From the Archive: Cameo—Persuasive Light
Performance by Margaret Tedesco
Pre-performance sound score by Wayne Smith
Friday, March 15, 2024 | 6-8pm (5:30pm Doors)
Location: Slash (1150 25th St, Building B, San Francisco)
Free event | Register here to reserve a spot
On the occasion of An Opera of Whispers currently on view in our library, please join us for a performance by the exhibition’s curator, Margaret Tedesco.
Rereading a film
In a semi-dark room, I reread an entire feature-length film with the sound off. The film title remains anonymous. Rereading a film, the spectator hears another generation of an original recording—a kind of hyper-text—or infusing of the narrator’s projection. It is an opportunity for the spectator and narrator to construct a new film.
We enter the frame, and at that moment, it is our film.
My film language began in my youth, when I was about 10 years old. Growing up in Los Angeles, we were close to all cinema. One TV program in particular, “Theater 9,” would set my film research into motion. For a full week, the program would run an international subtitled feature. My first two encounters were Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey. I watched them on repeat every night for the week’s duration. Many times I would sit my younger sister down at attention, and recount to her the entire film alongside school and neighborhood dramas. Fast forward to 1999, my first formal performance invitation was a program for the SFAC gallery exhibition FACING FEAR co-presented with SFCinematheque, subtitled: Against the shifting backdrop of a silent film, five performers inhabit the orchestra pit to create a spoken score that slips in and out of sync. In 2004, I began working solo and presented the current iteration of this work for Bay Area Now 4, (2005), at YBCA.
Credit for pre-performance sound score
Tedesco’s reading is accompanied by a commissioned sound collage from multiple sound scores composed by Wayne Smith for Cameo, an installation / performance by Margaret Tedesco for the exhibition Bay Area Now 4 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005). TRT: 15:07.
Made possible with support from Minnesota Street Project.
*For the safety of our community, we highly encourage all event attendees to wear a mask. We will provide masks as needed. Thank you so much.
*For inquiries about accessibility or to request an accommodation, please email ana@slashart.org by March 10, 2024.
Margaret Tedesco is an artist, independent curator, and designer who has collaborated with artists, writers, choreographers, and filmmakers for over three decades. In 2007, she established 2nd Floor Projects, an artist-run exhibition and publishing imprint, and received the Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Award. 2nd Floor Projects has participated in Printed Matter’s New York & Los Angeles Art Book Fairs, the San Francisco Art Book Fair, Berlin Art Book Fair, KADIST and Southern Exposure’s Book Fairs, and SFMOMA’s Printed Publics exhibition. As an artist, Tedesco has exhibited nationally and internationally.