The Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist Lecture Series will feature a talk by Steve Anderson on Wednesday, November 13 at 5pm at The Ross, followed by a free screening of Anderson’s new film REALITY FRICTIONS. Presented by the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, The Awareness Lab, and The Ross Media Arts Center.

Free tickets available at the door the night of the event.

REALITY FRICTIONS

Reality Frictions explores the intersection of fact and fiction on the screens of Hollywood, highlighting moments when images, people or events from the real world intrude on the cinematic one.

In an age when generative AI and synthetic imaging provoke anxieties about our ability to tell the difference between real and fake, Reality Frictions demonstrates that spectators have long traversed the borders of believability, developing nuanced skills for navigating the pleasures and paradoxes that emerge when reality and fiction collide.

Richly illustrated with clips from more than 100 movies and TV shows, Reality Frictions is an entertaining, but also serious, investigation of media’s role in revealing truth and making history. More info…

STEVE ANDERSON

Anderson is a professor of digial media at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and associate dean for academic affairs in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. He received a Ph.D. in film, literature and culture from USC and an M.F.A. in film and video from CalArts.

He is the author of “Technologies of Vision: The War Between Data and Images” (MIT 2017) and “Technologies of History: Visual Media and the Eccentricity of the Past” (Dartmouth 2011). He is also co-editor of the anthology “Reclaiming Popular Documentary” (Indiana 2021). Anderson is the founder of the appropriation-friendly public media archive Critical Commons and co-PI on the electronic authoring platform Scalar.

His recent creative work includes the mixed reality installation Live-VR Corridor (2021), which won the award for Best Mixed Reality at the New Media Film Festival and premiered internationally at the Beijing International Film Festival in 2021. His feature-length video essay, “Reality Frictions” premiered at the Madrid International Film Festival in 2024.