SFCINEMATHEQUE

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Thursday, February 16, 2017, 7:30 pm

Changing the Shape of Film: An Evening with Barbara Hammer

a Canyon Cinema Salon

THE KANBAR FORUM, THE EXPLORATORIUM

Piers 15/17

San Francisco, CA 94111-1456





presented in association with Canyon Cinema Foundation and the Cinema Arts Department at The Exploratorium


Admission: $15 general /$10 Cinematheque members; free for Exploratorium Lab Members
Advance tickets available here.
Join the Facebook event.


Join us for an evening of transmuted cinema, where images break through the traditional rectangular screen and emerge as unexpected and amorphous shapes. Working since the late 1960s, Barbara Hammer’s career has been marked by experimentation, intellectual rigor, and a commitment to testing boundaries.


Tonight, Hammer will present two works of expanded cinema that reconsider exactly where film images belong. With Changing the Shape of Film, a 12-foot weather balloon becomes the screen for Hammer’s own films, forcing the audience to find new perspectives, and seating arrangements. In Available Spacea 16mm projector is mobilized and the architecture of the space becomes the screen. In this work, the viewer is also mobilized and forced into continuous physical motion to view it.


Presented in conjunction with Canyon Cinema 50, this event is the first in a yearlong series of programming in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Canyon Cinema’s incorporation. In the tradition of Canyon’s monthly Canyon Cinema Salon series, Hammer’s performances will be followed by an intimate conversation.


Barbara Hammer was born on May 15, 1939, in Hollywood, California. She is a visual artist working primarily in film and video. She has made over 80 moving image works in a career that spans 40 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema and has worked in documentary, experimental cinema, performance, and installation. She has received numerous honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship and retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Toronto International Film Festival. Her work has shown at countless national and international venues. In addition to her moving image work, she is the author of Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life. She teaches each summer at The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.


image above: Barbara Hammer, Northwest Artists Association, Portland Oregon, 1979. Photo: Cheri Heiser