Artists Space

Standard Evaluation Materials

Lecture & Performance
April 27, 2012, 7pm

Standard Evaluation Materials is an illustrated lecture by artist Lucy Raven examining some of the visual and sonic tests used by the motion picture industry to standardize projection equipment. These samples of picture and sound are used to calibrate a theater's playback system in accordance with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineer's "Recommended Practices," along with those of other standards agencies.

While the content of these tests is idiosyncratic, they are specifically engineered to achieve an evaluation of a theater's projector and speakers towards an objective standard – the attempt is to minimize subjective variables and achieve a uniform sensory experience. As economies and technologies dictating changes in the motion picture industry have shifted, so have standards and recommended practices. The material directly embodies a relationship between sensory affect, and its location within globalized systems of regulation and circulation.

Lucy Raven is an artist, filmmaker and writer based in Oakland and New York. Her work has been exhibited at art and film spaces internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, West Adams, MA; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; and the Manchester International Festival, Manchester, England. Raven was the co-curator of The Marfa Sessions at Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, TX and Nachleben at the Goethe Institute in New York. Her recent performance piece What Manchester Does Today, the Rest of the World Does Tomorrow, is produced in collaboration with Jason Moran and Julian Dyer, and showing at the Whitney Biennial 2012.