SFCINEMATHEQUE

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Sunday, October 26, 1997

Early Interactive Cinema of Barbara Hammer

San Francisco Art Institute





Barbara Hammer returns with an evening of rare early work for expanded cinema and video which will give a fuller sense of her work’s range for those who know her most recent films. “In the mid-1970’s I was concerned with the passivity of audiences during film screenings. I was also interested in the manner in which projected light worked on various textures and three dimensional forms. I began to make films for interactive projections which required the audience to move in order to view the image.” Available Space (1978) is projected on an architectural site specific space; Pond and Waterfall (1982) portrays natural water systems and amplifies viewers’ own heartbeats; Sanctus (1990) re-works archival x-ray footage of Dr. James Sibley Watson, and will be projected onto a suspended weather balloon, and others.