Dan Graham film: tonight!

Just found this in my inbox:

The Fowler Visiting Artist, Dan Graham, will screen Rock My Religion this evening:

6:30pm

115 Lawrence Hall

Rock My Religion(1982-84)

1982-84, 55:27 min, b&w and color, sound

Rock My Religion is a provocative thesis on the relation between religion and rock music in contemporary culture. Graham formulates a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious community who practiced self-denial and ecstatic trance dances. With the “reeling and rocking” of religious revivals as his point of departure, Graham analyzes the emergence of rock music as religion with the teenage consumer in the isolated suburban milieu of the 1950s, locating rock’s sexual and ideological context in post-World War II America. The music and philosophies of Patti Smith, who made explicit the trope that rock is religion, are his focus. This complex collage of text, film footage and performance forms a compelling theoretical essay on the ideological codes and historical contexts that inform the cultural phenomenon of rock `n’ roll music.

Original Music: Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth. Sound: Ian Murray, Wharton Tiers. Narrators: Johanna Cypis, Dan Graham. Editors: Matt Danowski, Derek Graham, Ian Murray, Tony Oursler. Produced by Dan Graham and the Moderna Museet.

Last year in this class we watched most of Rock My Religion in order to propel discussion about art as a vehicle for constant cultural remixing. The film is available on Ubuweb (here), so you can watch it on your own if you are curious but can’t make it to campus tonight…