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Mike Gibisser Headshot

Mike Gibisser

  • Associate Professor, Film, Video, Animation and New Genres

Education

  • MFA, Moving Image, University of Illinois - Chicago, 2011
  • MA, Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2009

Biography

Mike Gibisser is a filmmaker and artist interested in navigating the indefinite lines between essay, narrative, experimental, and documentary work. He has presented work at numerous festivals including Sundance, Toronto, New York, Edinburgh, BFI, Thessloniki, and FICUNAM. His work has been featured in Bomb Magazine, Artforum, Variety, and Hyperallergic, amongst other publications.

"Examining the politics and poetics of the everyday drives my artistic practice. Each of my projects explores aspects of the world, which—overlooked because of their familiarity—ultimately reveal the unquestioned ideologies embedded within the realms of science, technology, history, and subjectivity. The goal of my work is to constantly put the concepts of the ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ under pressure, revealing the historical, cultural, environmental, or political contingencies underlying the materiality of everyday life.

"Through my work I explore disparate themes: beliefs about aging embedded within (or produced by) scientific axioms; temporal standardization within the United States as a process of behavioral normalization; and the fluidity of the dividing line between the natural and non-natural world, a line which traces deployments of power more than it marks physical territories. Formally, I search for the best container to express the ideas and poetics of a particular project. Some films take the form of experimental documentaries, often with an attention to duration and the long take. Re-enactment features prominently in others, combining fiction and non-fiction, and reorganizing archival research into a non-literal but ecstatic truth. Yet others are more painterly or gestural, utilizing hand-built cameras or unconventional photographic processes like long exposure to reveal the normalization inherent in the image itself. Each begins with dedicated research, advancing my belief that through sequences of images and sounds, arguments can be made and new ideas unearthed. In other words, that scholarship, art, and affect are not mutually exclusive."

Links

Recent & Selected Works

Motion-blurred image of landscape
Still from Slow Volumes (2019)
Hollowed out inside of a train car or possibly bus, graffiti covers the remaining walls.
Still from The Day of Two Noons (2012)
Barren parking lot with one lone sign. The only remaining words say "travel stop"
Still from Travel Stop (2018)
Three men work over a sheet, barely visible in the dark around them, one light only illuminates their faces and their work
Still from A Common Sequence (2023)
Two axolotl in a tank
Still from A Common Sequence (2023)
A nun looking over terrariums in a long but small room, many line the walls
Still from A Common Sequence (2023)

A Common Sequence (2023) trailer

Certain Portions of Matter (in-progress) trailer