For immediate release contact: Carol O’Sullivan

February 13, 2009 412-681-5449

Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Announce

Two Photography Shows: Code Words and Banska Stiavnica

(Pittsburgh, PA) – Filmmakers Galleries will present two photography shows in March: one that captures the Old World, one that explores modern digital language. They are both on view from March 6 through April 5, 2009. Code Words by Pittsburgh-based artist Lori Hepner is a photographic print series centered around the concept of binary code. Banska Stiavnica by Slovakian artist Rastislav Misik features landscape photography printed on canvas. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 6 at 6:00pm. It is free and open to the public.

Lori Hepner, who recently moved here from Ithaca, NY, is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on aspects of coding language in the digital culture. Ambiguous visual representations of binary code are used in the Code Words series to create large-scale digital print installations. “Binary code has been something that I have been utilizing as a vehicle to represent the growing schism between what our culture now perceives to be a normal speed of communication vs. the course and speed of communication before the digital revolution,” Hepner says. In Code Words, images of binary code are transformed with dyed silk in bleach. “The play between organic materials and digital information is a paradox that has been built into the work,” she explains.

Hepner’s work has been shown nationally and internationally in exhibitions, screenings, and performances including Festival Internacional de la Imagen (in Manzales, Colombia); Sixth International Digital Art Exhibit (in Havana, Cuba); Carnegie Museum of Art; Westmoreland Museum of American Art; and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. She received an MFA in Digital Media at the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Fine Art Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Rastislav Misik’s photographs are featured in the exhibit Banska Stiavnica, which is the name of a preserved medieval city in central Slovakia. The prints on canvas recall 17th century landscape paintings. This ancient city – a region that looks much like the rolling hills of Western PA – is listed as a United Nations World Heritage Site. Nature/landscape photographer Rastislav Misik visited his grandparents there as a child. Five of the photos in the show feature the home they lived in – which is more than 500 years old. Misik, who inherited the house, plans to use it as an artist studio.

Misik has a Masters in Photography from the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia. He visited the US in October 2008 as a guest of Point Park University, where this exhibit was first presented.

Filmmakers Galleries are located at 477 Melwood Avenue, North Oakland. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, noon to 5:00, and during public film screenings. Free and open to the public. For more information call 412-681-5449, or visit: www.pghfilmmakers.org

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