Branca in a still from Enter Body Into Field, a forthcoming multimedia narrative about an extraterrestrial reckoning with implanted memories of a planet they’ve never visited, and a subsequent fixation on Earth musicals.
Sid Fiore Branca (b. 1987, New York) is a time-based artist, writer, and educator currently based in Chicago. They work within an expansive definition of time-based media that spans film, video, performance, sound, music, browser-based multimedia projects, artist’s books, and texts of many kinds.
Branca’s current work is primarily in moving image media, but remains heavily entwined with a background in experimental theater, physical improvisation, and performance art, as well as an ongoing creative writing practice. They often blend live performance methods and editing processes: using theatrical improvisation techniques to generate material for films, creating videos to operate in tandem with live stage performance, building multimedia works to be experienced by an audience engaged in a kind of performance. There is often play with genre: making use of the symbolic functions of science fiction and horror, or drawing on formal properties from music videos, guided meditations, youtube vlogs, fan websites, and occult rituals. Thematically, their work frequently expresses (directly or metaphorically) experiences related to gender, sexuality, and disability.
Residencies have included the Artist in Residence Niederösterreich (Krems, Austria), Arteles Creative Center Neo Future Residency (Haukijärvi, Finland), the Swarm Artist Residency (Plymouth WI, USA), and (with First Floor Theater) a Logan Center for the Arts Performance Lab Residency (Chicago IL, USA). Branca has been a recipient of a Finlandia Foundation Cultural Project Grant, a Rosenblum Award from Columbia College Chicago, an Odyssey Scholarship from the University of Chicago, and the Karen and Jim Frank Excellence in Teaching Award from the Art Institute of Chicago. Branca’s work has been featured in The Wrong Biennale, the Onion City Experimental Film Festival, the Center for Book and Paper Arts, the Chicago Fringe Festival, the Neo-Futurarium, and Salonathon, among others. They are a member of the New Media Caucus and the College Art Association, and hold degrees from the University of Chicago (Theater and Performance Studies) and Columbia College Chicago (Interdisciplinary Arts and Media). Branca has been a faculty member in the department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2015.
A sampling of recent and current projects:
- a mumblecore-influenced 30 minute narrative film that devolves into a manifesto against naturalism
- live video feed design for a queer musical revue
- a website-video-novella of sorts about an extraterrestrial processing dysmorphia through an obsessive love of Earth musicals
- translations of two chapbooks of Weimar era poetry by Sylvia von Harden
- a feature screenplay about a theater production afflicted with both gendered violence and a poltergeist
- a research and writing project on the history of clowns in cinema
Branca also works as a freelance video editor, actor, projection designer for theater, and director of music videos and short films. Theatrical design credits include The Grelley Duvall Show and Floor Show (with Alex Grelle), Hooded; or Being Black for Dummies, Refrigerator, Always Nothing Else, and Daddy’s Girl (with First Floor Theater). Acting credits include those with Curious Theatre, Mary-Arrchie, the Plagiarists, the Inconvenience, First Floor Theater, and Prop Thtr, as well as on-camera performances including work with Rob Zombie, Joe Swanberg, and Chivo Lubezki.
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email: sid[at]sidbranca.com
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