Power Games: Winning Isn’t Possible

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Thursday, February 13, 2025, at 7pm for Power Games: Winning Isn’t Possible, a screening of selected works by Ericka Beckman, followed by an in-person discussion with the artist.
A key figure of the Pictures Generation, Beckman has consistently engaged with the intersections of infrastructures and societal critique, creating films that challenge and reimagine the systems shaping our perceptions of power, agency, and identity. Through her inventive use of cinematic language, Beckman merges play and architectural thought, creating works that compel viewers to interrogate the rules of the game we inhabit—both figuratively and literally.
This screening features You the Better (1983), Cinderella (1986), Switch Center (2003), Tension Building (2016), and Reach Capacity (2020), offering a cross-section of Beckman’s artistic trajectory. Together, these films examine systems of control, the architecture of power, and the boundaries between individual agency and structural inevitability.

The screening is happening in conjunction with , her solo exhibition on view at the Drawing Center from February 7–May 11, 2025.
Films

You the Better (1983, 32 minutes)
“You the Better is a film based on games of chance, and as games such as roulette, or craps go, this one is closed – meaning that the player cannot really affect the outcome. A team of uniformed players, led by the artist Ashley Bickerton, performs the mechanics of a game servicing an off-camera betting entity, the ‘House’. Although the game keeps changing and players are swapped out, one thing remains the same, the ‘House’ is hidden and controls the bets, the ‘chance’ of winning is nil. The game, in fact, is not between the players, but rather between the ‘House’, and the ‘Bettor’.” — E.B. 1983.
Cinderella (1986, 28 minutes)
“Cinderella is a musical treatment of the fairy tale and is inspired by interactive arcade games. I have broken apart the story and set it as a mechanical game with a series of repetitions where Cinderella is projected back and forth like a ping-pong ball between the hearth and the castle. She never succeeds in satisfying the requirements of the ‘Cinderella Game’. The film was shot MOS; the dialogue is lip-synched with an out-front score and effects track magnifies the film’s sense of alienation.” — E.B. 1984.
Switch Center (2003, 12 minutes)
“When I began preparing the film in Budapest in 2000, I found myself surrounded by the remnants of the Soviet’s Modernist Architecture. I was immediately captivated by these buildings – not because they were aesthetically appealing – but because they embodied perfectly, not only their purpose, but also the ideology upon which they were built. They were not constructed to last but a few years, but rather to endure through millennia, corresponding to the expected lifespan of the regime. The fact that they still stood – solid, defiant even – while the empire had crumbled into dust, made them all the more appealing to me. I chose an abandoned water purification plant on the outskirts of Budapest as the setting for Switch Center. In conceiving of this film, I was inspired by Leger’s early avant-garde picture, ‘Ballet Mechanic’. In my film, the structure itself comes to life through the manipulations of the employees who work inside it. I wanted to make a tribute to the kind of futuristic pragmatism expressed by these buildings that are now being razed to allow space for shopping malls and corporate offices.” — E.B. 2002.

Tension Building (2016, 9 minutes)
“Tension Building is a composite of linked architectural spaces, some are real and some are models. It combines stop motion and live action filmmaking shot at the Harvard University Coliseum in Boston (1935) and the Municipal Stadium in Florence (1932), built in by Luigi Nervi. It features Boston Symphony Orchestra percussionist Richard Flanagan, and the U Mass Minute Man Marching Band. I used my camera like a surveyor’s transit and created some rules for its path around the stadium.” — E.B.
Reach Capacity (2020, 13 minutes)
“Government and private corporate entities make decisions and play a structural role in what is fair game and what isn’t. The life of the individual is materially affected by these decisions. How can games create a possible alternative?Reach Capacity is in part a reaction to the game of Monopoly” — E.B.

Ericka Beckman has been an acclaimed filmmaker since being named the Village Voice Vanguard artist of 1979. Energetic pacing, simple, special effects, and chanted, percussive soundtracks distinguish the artist’s films. Beckman has been the subject of monographic exhibitions: Super-8 Trilogy (2018), Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Game Mechanics (2017) Le Secession, Vienna; and Double Reverse (2019), List Gallery MIT, Cambridge. Her films are held within the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Anthology Film Archives in New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Broad Museum, Los Angeles, The High Museum, Atlanta; the British Film Institute, London; and Light Cone, Paris.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.

Accessibility
– Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
– For elevator access, please RSVP to [email protected]. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
– e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the Screening Room and this bathroom.

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