Ericka Beckman

Ericka Beckman (born 1951) makes films without plots in a conventional sense, constituting them instead from themes: socialization, acculturation, competition and the organization of thoughts and memory. Since they are largely structured like games, they do not have characters; they have players. Like everything else about the films–the scenery, the props, the animation–the players are representatives, stand-ins contributing to Beckman’s abstract ruminations on culture in a time-based medium. This lavishly illustrated reference monographs documents every film Ericka Beckman has made since her days as a CalArts graduate in the 1970s, and includes storyboards, production stills and notes, the librettos of her musicals, as well as a thorough photo-documentation of her multimedia installations. Together with an anthology of critical writing on the artist’s work, the book features an interview encompassing the artist’s entire career by Lionel Bovier and Fabrice Stroun, as well as new contributions by Vera Dika, John Beeson, Jeanne Graff, Geraldine Tedder and renowned game theorist Eric Zimmerman.