Obscuring Power will be screened as part of ATMOSPHERES + AURAS, the Mattress Factory’s Summer Film Screening Series co-hosted by Pittsburgh Sound + Image, curated by Benny Shaffer.

ATMOSPHERES + AURAS features five experimental and documentary short films that will immerse viewers in sensory environments shaped by elemental forces and industrial traces. Tomonari Nishikawa’s Light, Noise, Smoke and Light, Noise, Smoke and Kathy Rugh’s Don’t Look Directly into the Sun use 16mm film to experiment with visual interference and the limits of perception. Inger Lise Hansen’s Tåke (meaning ‘fog’ in Norwegian) drifts through various temporalities, geographies, and media formats, while Sun Xun’s Coal Spell conjures a surreal, animated meditation on energy, memory, and labor in northeastern China. Erin Mallea’s Obscuring Power anchors the program in our western Pennsylvania context, revealing how landscapes and atmospheres absorb and obscure histories of extraction, pollution, and power at the community level. The films will be projected from 16mm and digital sources.

After the screening, Erin Mallea, Luke Stettner, and Calista Lyon will join us in-person for a conversation led by curator Benny Shaffer.

Atmospheres + Auras
August 23, 2025, 8-10 PM
Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA