Monday Happenings

New Music

-- The NEC continues its celebration of centenarian American composer Elliott Carter by teaming up with Cambridge's Longy School of Music for a performance of his landmark String Quartet No. 3. The Longy's Pacifica Quartet is wrapping up recordings of Carter's complete string quartets, so their performance is certain to be assured and authoritative. Also on the program: Beethoven's String Quartet, Op. 132 and George Crumb's String Quartet No. 3. Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall, Longy School of Music, 1 Follen St., Cambridge, 8 p.m. $30/$20.

Video

-- Bill Viola's early video work expanded the possibilities of the medium and helped the arts establishment to understand its importance. Extremities of emotion has long been a theme in his art, and his 1976 video The Space Between the Teeth features a prolonged scream, a long hallway, and some dishes. Screening on the Media Test Wall. MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Cambridge. Opens today, through January 2. Free.

Experimental Film

-- Robert Todd is a Boston-based experimental filmmaker with a painterly approach to his art. He explores, and explodes, components of everyday life in the city, presenting everything from the ever-present jackhammers to the "invisible" Stony Brook river. A quintessential Boston experience. Seven shorts screen and Todd will be on hand to present. Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, 7 p.m. $10.

Still from Robert Todd's Dig courtesy Harvard Film Archive.