Calendar of Events
New Media

New Media Professors’ “Acetone Reality” Debuts at NY Film Festival

Michael Bell-Smith and Sara Magenheimer’s experimental video premieres at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, Sept. 26–Oct. 13.

Using animation, found images, and their own video recordings, Associate Professors of New Media Michael Bell-Smith and Sara Magenheimer explore the nature of meaning through blocky pixels, smeared colors, and cryptic iconography.

Lauded for its “inventive use of artificial intelligence,” Acetone Reality employs elements that crash, cascade, and collide while computer-generated voices explore the wonders of acetone.

Still image from Acetone Reality Still image from Acetone Reality, which was among this year's NYFF Currents selection of innovative works that include 16 features and 24 short films in five categories, representing 28 countries.

 

Now in its 63rd year, the New York Film Festival (NYFF), presented by Film at Lincoln Center, showcases bold, significant, and often challenging films from acclaimed and emerging directors worldwide. 

Michael Bell-Smith Sara Magenheimer


Bell-Smith’s Rabbit Season, Duck Season was screened at the 53rd NYFF, and Magenheimer’s Art and Theft premiered at the 55th NYFF.

See Magenheimer’s work through December 20, 2025, in the artist’s first survey exhibition, Ill-Gotten Gains, presented by Lighthouse Works on Fishers Island, NY, an island in the Long Island Sound. The exhibition disrupts, manipulates, and defamiliarizes language with bold combinations of image, text, and sound.