Nerd Nite No. 34: Gamer Romance, Sirius in the Sky, and Victorian Love & Death
Hey Friends, are you ready for a fantastic Nerd Nite? We know we’ve been missing all of you plus the fine beers at Frankford Hall during our hiatus. So we’re back and better than ever. The ever important logistical details:
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
doors at 7pm, show starts at 7:30pm
Frankford Hall at Frankford and Girard
$5 cover gets you a night of nerdy edutainment, plus food and drink specials.
The talks at hand are as follows:
“Love, Pixels, & Exploring Romance in Video Games” by Eric Smith
If someone were to ask you what the Greatest Love Story of All Time was, and what it was that made said story so great, what would be your answer? Chances are, you might not bring up Shadow of the Colossus or Final Fantasy VII. Which is ridiculous, because come on. In this talk, we’ll explore the oft forgotten romantic genre… of video games.
Bio: Eric Smith is the co-founder of Geekadelphia and the Philly Geek Awards, and the social media manager at Quirk Books. He’s the author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating, and his debut YA novel, Inked, is due out this Fall with Bloomsbury Spark. He’s written for The Huffington Post, Boing Boing, BuzzFeed, BookRiot, The Bygone Bureau, Geekosystem, and more. He enjoys bad movies, good books, and old fashioned cocktails. Hi Nena! <3
“When the Stars Align – The Convergence of Art & Science” by John Caperton
The Print Center’s Demetrius Oliver exhibition, Canicular, is conceived in direct response to the curator’s request for the artist to think as expansively as possible about what constitutes a print (printed work being the core of The Print Center’s mission), and reflects the artist’s longtime desire to create an installation requiring a radical shift in the typical functions of an organization and its gallery spaces. In this case, the artist essentially converted the gallery spaces into an observatory which will only be open for one hour each night (Tuesday-Saturday 7:00pm-8:00pm, weather permitting) to coincide with the rising of Sirius in the night sky. Canicular is a new video installation that will consist of a projected, live-feed from a high-power telescope focused on Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky). The video, a live-feed from a telescope mounted on the roof of the Franklin Institute, will be projected in a round structure, built within one of The Print Center’s galleries to resemble a small observatory.
Bio: John Caperton, Jensen Bryan Curator of The Print Center, curated a solo exhibition by New York City artist Demetrius Oliver entitled Canicular on view through March 22 at The Print Center. Oliver is known for creating elegant, improvisatory, site-specific installations using photography, sculpture and video to record the act of sidereal observation itself. His work draws heavily on a variety of disparate intellectual interests related to interpreting phenomena, including American transcendentalism, music of the spheres, and the history of cosmology, weaving them into spectacular, cohesive works of self-exploration and expression.
“True Love Never Dies: Victorians, Burials and the State of Amour” by Alexis Jeffcoat
The woman who left behind her heart, the ashes that were pulverized to make room for two souls; the pomp and circumstance of arctic explorer’s burial with the sad state of his lover in a pauper’s grave. These are love stories. And hate stories, too. Lust, loathing, passion, devotion; all of it follows us to the grave. Be it all-consuming, romantic or even scandalous; love does not end with death and no one was surer of that than our Victorian predecessors. Sit back, grab a drink, and snuggle up: we’re about to gossip like its 1872. The dresses were long, the love was torrid and the burials? Dramatic.
Bio: Alexis received her undergraduate degree in Psychology and European History from Temple University and her Masters in Arts & Humanities from Arcadia University. She manages marketing and programming for the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Laurel Hill Cemetery as a historic site. As a fan of history, Alexis enjoys sharing the stories of the cemetery’s varied “residents” and no, she has not yet seen a ghost.
Plus Joey Sweeney with some sweet acoustic sounds.
See you fine Nerds there!
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