At The Dissolve — SITE Santa Fe's Eighth International Biennial — more than two dozen artists have sparked their paintings and photos into motion using long-lost animation techniques from the early 20th century. These painters and sculptors have joined pigment and clay to celluloid and digital bits to create work that harks back to a time when film was neither a technology nor an art, but sorcery that could recall time and reconstitute reality.

"They want to look back at earlier, simple techniques that endow the materials with magic," co-curator Daniel Belasco said. In addition to work by contemporary artists, The Dissolve also includes a strong showing of animated and moving-image work created between 1900 and 1930, when the field was full of rascals and visionaries trying to make good on the promise of early animation technology. Belasco and co-curator Sarah Lewis have spent six years assembling the works presented in this show. What guided their search, Lewis said, was a quest to find artists who "want to push past the boundaries of the medium. They make it like a storybook narrative they can enter into."

While most of the work at the Biennial brims with storytelling, lovers of conceptual art can also check out a satellite program called The Abstract Dissolve, a series of videos being shown at the Lensic Performing Arts Center at 1 p.m. Sunday. Tickets for The Abstract Dissolve are $10, available by calling 988-1234 or visiting www.ticketssantafe.org.

Also in conjunction with The Dissolve, the Lensic Performing Arts Center will host a digital collaboration between the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and The OpenEnded Group.

The show is called Ghostcatching and it uses the latest in 3-D technology to trace the movements of live, acrobatic dancers and render them as live-motion, holographic figures strutting and gyrating across the stage.

THE DISSOLVE, SITE SANTA FE'S
EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL

Opens noon Sunday-Jan. 2, 2011, SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta; $10, $5 students and seniors, no charge for opening day or on Fridays; for more information visit www.sitesantafe.org or call 989-1199

IF YOU GO

• 11 a.m. today, panel discussion with Biennial curators and artists, National Dance Institute of New Mexico's Dance Barns, 1140 Alto St., $10; call 989-1199.
• 8 p.m. today, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performance, Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., 988-1234. Tickets $30-$100.
• Noon-5 p.m. Sunday, Public opening, The Dissolve. No charge.
• 1 p.m. Sunday, The Abstract Dissolve video screening, Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., 988-1234, $10.

All events take place at SITE Santa Fe, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, unless otherwise noted. More than a dozen public programs are planned between June 29 and Nov. 16. See www.thedissolve.net/calendar for a complete schedule. For more information, call SITE Santa Fe at 989-1199.