Idiomorphs 1974-2014: Barbara Lattanzi, selected works a survey of film, video and new media works by Barbara Lattanzi that I’ve curated as part of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center’s 40th Anniversary programming will screen on February 17. 2015.

“Over the course of her career, media artist Barbara Lattanzi has created a broad and influential body of screen-based work that spans across mediums—film, video, installation and interactive and generative software. Lattanzi utilizes the term “idiomorph” to characterize the diverse but interconnected projects that populate her oeuvre. Derived from the Greek idio-morphos, idiomorph alludes to a characteristic shape or individual form, enacting what Lattanzi notes is “both a position to be sought out and a process of recursively moving towards.” There is an underlying performativity operating in Lattanzi’s idiomorphs as she animates both the medium, itself, as well as the various “characters” that populate her work. In Lattanzi’s hands, filmic surface, software and pixel activate an ongoing investigate into the materiality of the mediated image, while a cast of vampires, bishops, politicians and teapots actively interrogate a range of aesthetic, art historical and political relations. Idiomorphs 1974-2014 presents key works from Lattanzi’s career including early films, public access programming, and generative and interactive software projects—work that is at once challenging, humorous, and visually stunning.”