The Farnsworth Scores is an experimental film and musical composition by multidisciplinary artist Rob Mazurek, in collaboration with filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt that captures the interaction between humans, nature, and architecture at Mies van der Rohe's iconic Farnsworth House. Rob Mazurek, will be present for a live performance of the Farnsworth Scores as well as discussion with Julia Pello.
With its steel frame and walls of uninterrupted glass, the Farnsworth House stands as a contemplative, sculptural dwelling intended by the architect to give nature "a more profound significance than if viewed from outside." The glass, which simultaneously delineates and joins interior and exterior space, acts as catalyst for this expanded dialogue. The film explores the intimacy of the artistic process and questions architecture's role in reconnecting humanity with nature.
ROB MAZUREK is a multi-disciplinary artist, composer and improviser, whose broad electro- acoustic palette defies simple categorization. His work has earned him a reputation as a respected figure in the international creative music and avant-jazz scenes. His expansive vision and vast catalog of over 400 compositions and 65 recordings have kept him reshaping modern music's cutting edge for the past three decades. He leads and composes for projects ranging in size from solo to orchestra. Mazurek's solo endeavors highlight the breadth of his virtuosity and rich improvisational vocabulary. His work has been featured in The Wire (UK), DownBeat, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. As a multimedia artist, he has exhibited his video, painting and print works internationally. Mazurek is increasingly recognized by major arts institutions as an accomplished visual artist and has received a number of grants and commissions in support of his work from URDLA Centre International Estampe & Livre, New Music USA, the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, and the Helen Coburn Meier & Tim Meier Foundation, among others.
LEE ANNE SCHMITT is a Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker interested in political thought, personal experience and the land. Much of her work involves 16mm filmmaking placed in landscape, object and the traces of political systems left upon them. Her projects have addressed American exceptionalism, the logic of labor, racial violence, cowboyism, trauma, and the efficacy of solitude. Schmitt has exhibited at film festivals and venues, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), The Getty (Los Angeles, CA), REDCAT Theater (Los Angeles, CA), Northwest Film Society (Portland, OR), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Viennale (Italy), Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Denmark), Oberhausen International Film Festival (Germany), Rotterdam International Film Festival (the Netherlands), Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (Argentina) and the International Film Festival Marseilles (France). In 2015, Schmitt received a Creative Capital Award. She is also associate director of the Film Directing Program at the California Institute of the Arts.
JULIA PELLO is a Russian-born, US based filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. Her work engages sites of history and memory juxtaposing personal and historical time. Coming from a collaborative audio-visual background, Pello’s film practice extends to hybrid fiction/non-fiction works that don't privilege narrative structure, engage with the poetics of site and architecture, and employ duration and other experiential modes of filmmaking.