PHENOMENA (1965) by Jordan Belson
Friday, September 26, 2025, 7:30 pm
Jordan Belson: COSMOGENESIS (Day 1)
A Symposium of Transcendental Films, Lectures, Performances, and Visual Arts
Presented in association with Gray Area and BAMPFA
Festival passes and individual event tickets here
Float into COSMOGENESIS, a weekend-long journey of transcendental films, lectures and live performances celebrating the visionary art and cosmic cinema of Jordan Belson.
Jordan Belson (1926-2011) was a San Francisco-based artist and abstract cinematic filmmaker. Over six decades he created sublime, spiritually oriented films, referred to as “Cosmic Cinema” by theorist Gene Youngblood in his 1972 book Expanded Cinema. His films are influenced by many subjects including yoga, Buddhism, mandalas, Indian holy men, Tibetan mysticism, theosophy, Egyptology, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, Jung, magic, Tantra, alchemy, symbolism, astronomy, Japanese mon design, Arabic patterns, optical phenomena and science imagery.
From 1957–59, Belson collaborated with electronic music pioneer Henry Jacobs on the late night series Vortex: Experiments in Sound and Light at San Francisco’s Morrison Planetarium, an early antecedent of today’s “immersive experiences,” using 30-channels of projection and surround sound.
This program includes screenings of rarely seen, newly preserved 16mm films and selected digital preservations from the archive in collaboration with the Belson Estate and curator Raymond Foye.
Day 1 · Day 2 · Day 3
festival passes and individual event tickets here
Day 1: Friday, September 26
Aspects of Enchantment with Erik Davis
7:30pm
tickets here
Films and discussion with cultural critic and writer Erik Davis.
One of the most compelling writers and public speakers on the subjects of media, esotericism and visionary experiences, Erik Davis brings an appropriate sensibility to Jordan Belson’s remarkable films. Davis’ 1998 debut work TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, a groundbreaking study of the persistence of enchantment in the digital age, proved a defining work on twenty-first century consciousness. His essay “The Paisley Gate: The Tantra of Psychedelics” was included in Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics—a favorite book of Belson’s. Davis approaches Belson’s films not just as art but as inner space probes, intimate artifacts of expanded consciousness that help us creatively know our own minds. Davis holds a PhD in religious studies from Rice University. His other books include High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies; Nomad Codes and Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. He currently covers California culture on his Burning Shore newsletter, and also co-founded the Berkeley Alembic, a center for meditation, arts and consciousness culture.
SCREENING:
RE-ENTRY (1964) (6 min)
LIGHT (1973) (8 min)
PHENOMENA (1965) (6 min)
MOMENTUM (1968) (6 min)
MEDITATION (1971) (6 min)
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES (1977) (10 min)
all films by Jordan Belson 42 mins total, all films are 16mm, color, sound