From: Jacob (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2010 - 20:25:58 PST
Very sincere thanks to everybody who put this together, it's a treasure...
--- Jacob SLC, UT, 84117 http://making-light-of-it.blogspot.com/ --- On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 8:46 PM, Scott Stark <email suppressed>wrote: > Hi all, below is information about the publication of Radical Light: > Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000, > edited by Steve Seid, Kathy Geritz and Steve Anker, and its accompanying > exhibition series. > > More information is available on the Pacific Film Archive's website: > http://press.bampfa.berkeley.edu/radical/. > > cheers, > Scott > > ------------------------------ > > *University** of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive > Presents* > > *Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, > 1945–2000* > > BAM/PFA’s Radical Light—book, film/video series, and gallery exhibition— > places the San Francisco Bay Area as the unrivaled epicenter of an explosion > of avant-garde film and video in the second half of the twentieth century > > * * > > **With its undulating topography, diverse population, legacy of technical > innovation, and reputation for providing safe harbor for liberal attitudes > toward political, religious, and sexual orientations, the San Francisco Bay > Area is both a haven and an inspiration for a variety of artists, perhaps > none more so than those experimenting with alternative film and video. In > fact, since the mid-1940s, when Surrealist-influenced films were created in > some of the country’s earliest filmmaking classes at the San Francisco Art > Institute, the Bay Area has been a global center for an extraordinary > constellation of artists who use film and video not for entertainment or > documentation, but as an apparatus for the untethered pursuit of personal > expression. > > > > This vital but often overlooked artistic and regional history finally > receives its critical due with the decade-in-the making *Radical Light: > Alternative Film and* *Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, *a > 352-page richly illustrated book published by the University of California > Press and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. BAM/PFA is > celebrating the publication of *Radical Light *with an accompanying film > series, gallery exhibition, and related *(address suppressed): Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA *events. > Edited, curated, and programmed by BAM/PFA Film and Video Curators Kathy > Geritz and Steve Seid, and CalArts Dean of the School of Film/Video Steve > Anker, *Radical Light *offers audiences the first comprehensive overview > of this sweeping endeavor to reinvent the moving image. > > > > Though the book traces the history of alternative film and video in the Bay > Area back to 1878 in Palo Alto, when Eadweard Muybridge began his pioneering > experiments with the photographic image, *Radical Light *highlights the > mid- 1940s as the tipping point for the local development of a community of > avant-garde filmmakers such as Sidney Peterson, Harry Smith, Frank > Stauffacher, and James Broughton, who made the first Bay Area experimental > films. During the 1950s, Jordan Belson, Patricia Marx, and Christopher > Maclaine made their first films, and by the 1960s artists such as Bruce > Conner, Bruce Baillie, and Chick Strand changed the shape of filmmaking by > intertwining film and activism. *Radical Light *traces the arrival in the > 1970s of the first openly gay film artists Barbara Hammer and Michael Wallin > and the first generation of video artists, including Paul Kos, Terry Fox, > and Howard Fried. The next wave of mediamakers, including Peter d'Agostino, > Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Doug Hall, investigated gesture, language, and > text as it is reproduced through the image, while artists such as Lynn > Hershman, Max Almy, and Chris Robbins constantly tested the relationship of > technology to culture. Meanwhile, longtime Bay Area filmmakers such as > Nathaniel Dorsky, Ernie Gehr, and Scott Stark explored the formal properties > of the film medium; George Kuchar reinvented melodrama; and Craig Baldwin > and Trinh T. Minh-ha subverted documentary. *Radical Light *culminates > with the generation that rose in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Marlon Riggs, > Greta Snider, Lynne Sachs, Steve Fagin, Anne McGuire, and Tony Discenza, > which made its mark working across all media in a style as eclectic as the > evolving image-scape. > > > > With attention to contributions from nearly every corner of this disparate > community of local alternative film and video artists, *Radical Light *and > its accompanying film series, gallery exhibition, and *(address suppressed) *events brings > this neglected history into the light for audiences to rediscover. > > > > *ABOUT THE BOOK:* > > *Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, > 1945–2000* > > *Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz, and Steve Seid, editors* > > Available worldwide > ------------------------------ > > Paperback, 352 pages > > ISBN: 9780520249110 > > $29.95, £20.95 > > > > Hardcover, 352 pages > > ISBN: 9780520249103 > > $60.00, £41.95 > > > > This kaleidoscopic collection of essays, interviews, photographs, and > artist-designed pages chronicles the vibrant and influential history of > experimental cinema in the San Francisco Bay Area. Encompassing historical, > cultural, and aesthetic realms, *Radical Light* features critical analyses > of films and videos, reminiscences from artists, and interviews with > pioneering filmmakers, curators, and archivists. It explores artistic > movements, film and video exhibition and distribution, artists' groups, and > Bay Area film schools. Special sections of ephemera—posters, correspondence, > photographs, newsletters, program notes, and more—punctuate the pages of *Radical > Light,* giving a first-hand visual sense of the period. This > groundbreaking, hybrid assemblage reveals a complex picture of how and why > the San Francisco Bay Region, a laboratory for artistic and technical > innovation for more than half a century, has become a global center of > vanguard film, video, and new media. > > Among the contributors are Rebecca Solnit and Ernie Gehr on Bay Area > cinema's roots in the work of Eadweard Muybridge and others; Scott MacDonald > on Art in Cinema; P. Adams Sitney on films by James Broughton and Sidney > Peterson; Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Lawrence Jordan, and Yvonne Rainer on > the Bay Area film scene in the 1950s; J. Hobeman on films by Christopher > Maclaine, Bruce Conner, and Robert Nelson; Craig Baldwin on found footage > film; George Kuchar on student-produced melodramas; Michael Wallin on queer > film in the 1970s; V. Vale on punk cinema; Dale Hoyt and Cecilia Dougherty > on video in the 1980s and 1990s; Scott Stark on film and video installation; > Kathy Geritz on feminist filmmaking and theory; Steve Anker on pioneering > college film programs; Steve Seid on conceptual video and performance; and > Maggie Morse on new media as sculpture. > > Co-pub: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > FrameWorks mailing list > email suppressed > http://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks > >