- Pre-show setup and gatherings (video clip - get RealPlayer)
- The Installations
- The Films
- History of Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard
- San Francisco Cinematheque and Program
An Outdoor
Ephemeral Event of
Film Projections
and Installations
Saturday, July 7th, 2001, Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, 8pm
Presented by the San Francisco Cinematheque
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Removed from military use in 1974, San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is currently home to scores of artist’s studios, a police crime lab, the San Francisco Train Museum, San Francisco’s worst toxic waste dump, and the current offices of San Francisco Cinematheque. A hotly disputed piece of Bay Area real estate, the Yard now rests in a picturesque limbo between decay and development.
Sink or Swim, conceived by artist Melinda Stone and presented by San Francisco Cinematheque, aims to reveal, through screenings and installations, the unusual nature and unsung history/future of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. In addition to the screening of films commissioned for the event, a variety of site-specific installations, and contributions by, neighborhood filmmakers, the evening includes a hand-crafted sing-a-long, bingo and more.
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RealPlayer G2 is required to play the movie files. Click on the button at left; the free version is on the link "RealPlayer 8 Basic - is our free player" midway down the page. |
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#1: A Boat Called Karma by Claire Bain; Installation, Super 8 film and 35mm slide projections, light, paper, audio cassettes, etc. rear-projected on the windows of the Cinematheque Office
I read that Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is one of the most polluted sites on Earth. There is a Clear and Present Danger from blowing radioactive dust that had been sandblasted off ships which were anchored as targets in the vicinity of ‘Shot Baker’, a nuclear blast set off in the Bikini islands in 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads, the US Navy's atomic bomb testing project. There is a list of other pollutants and resulting health problems in the community which reads like a litany from biological Hell. Not to mention the infamous problems which the community suffers as result of being on the Edge, geographically, economically and socially. We are up Shit Creek in a boat called Karma.
Yet it's one of the most beautiful places in The City: clear blue skies, crystalline clouds, beautiful views, dew drops on plants that hold butterfly eggs, even a Redwood tree growing in the yard behind Cinematheque's office. People use music and art to thrive and cope and to improve their situation. Speaking of Edge, this is the place where the Artists can go when pushed like so many others out of the physical housing of the Cyber-Dharma Realm. Which opens a whole new can of glowing worms.
Anyway, this piece deals with the following aspects of Hunters Point: 1) The human community 2) the geographic and symbolic location and 3) The nature situation. It is comprised of slide portraits of people from the studios and community; photo documentation of the metamorphosis of Anise Swallowtail butterfly eggs found on fennel plants at the loading dock behind Cinematheque; text and photos from local media; footage of plastic covered piles of clear and present danger; footage of transitioning to the area; sound recordings of nature info and a City Supervisor's meeting in which residents speak out about their situation.
Nature information and assistance provided by Deirdre Elmansoumi. Slides and audio recording of Bayview Community Youth Choir, Imani Voices of Praise, Rejoice Choir, Kim Stewart, Jus-BCuz, and Staff of the Bayview Opera House. (CB)
#2: Naval Compression: Prelude by Janis Crystal Lipzin; digital video, color, sound, 6 minutes
A site-specific compression of light, sound, and time projected onto the ruins of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and encircled by echoes of the past and present human activities associated with its dramatic setting and history. The Shipyard was established in 1869 as the first dry dock on the Pacific Coast, was operated by the Navy until 1976 and closed in 1991. Music by Samuel Barber and Duke Ellington. (JCL)
#3: Transformer by Cade Bursell and Michael Wilson; audio installation.
[sorry, no image available.]
Transformer is a site-specific, audio installation, created by Cade Bursell and Michael Wilson, that uses simple technology to re-animate an inactive electrical transformer on the grounds of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyards. Guided only by the beams of hanging flashlights swinging overhead in the wind, the visitor to this site will hear sounds emanating from the monolithic mass of the transformer’s sounds that suggest the energy and industry that once made the shipyards hum with activity. Yet, behind those sounds, the listener will perceive voices of community members, scientists, and workers who voice their concerns about the toxic legacy that permeates the surrounding landscape. (CB, MW)
#4: 1966 Hunters Point Uprising Project by Natalija Vekic and Christian Bruno; installation.
In 1966, MatthewJohnson was shot dead by a police officer. The excessive force used by the cop against a young African American boy of 16 whose only crime was joyriding unleashed the frustration of a community wracked by unemployment, the Vietnam War, and continued oppression perpetrated by the city of San Francisco in the form of its police department. What resulted was a ten-day uprising, where residents of Hunters Point demanded justice and were met by the forces of the armed National Guard.
Three long-time members of the Hunters Point community (Jesse Mason, Oscar James, and Gary Lee Brown) along with veteran African American journalist Tom Flemming, discussed the atmosphere of the African American Sixties in Hunters Point, the event stemming from the murder of Matthew Johnson and the uprising’s legacy today, providing insight into a world few outside Bay View Hunters Point ever get. Accompanying images juxtapose mundane representations of freedom, the American dream, the ‘melting pot,’ with America’s real presence: militaristic cops and a lack of opportunity.
In the center, a transistor radio tuned to dead stations, a gadget belonging to a sixteen year old boy who, like so many even today, never had a chance.
Sound by Cari Campbell. Pod by Laurel Frank. (CB and NV)
#5: Save Our Souls by Kerry Laitala & Maximillian Godino; installation
Thanks To: Basement Films, Dan Barnett, Peter Conheim. Heather Lynch, Konrad Steiner, Melinda Stone, Matthew Swiezynski.
#6: On Earth as it is in Heaven by Robert Schaller; installation on a kite.
We are caught between a world we imagine, a material realm onto which we inscribe our vision, and the hybrid of this mixture, neither completely natural nor entirely created. It is in this imperfect amalgam that we must live, and must wonder at the role we—both together and alone— play in its never ending transformation. Thanks to George Peters, Melanie Walker, and Cynthia Sliker. (RS)
#7: Campfire Stories: The Anchor Outs by Bill Daniel; installation.
Tonight some of the live-aboards out in Squatter Bay have towed their dingies ashore to have a campfire and tell stories about the anchor out life. They live aboard their boats, out of reach of landlords and tax collectors. They come from all walks of life and all political stripes, but they all share a love of the nautical life and an anti-authoritarian philosophy. (BD)
#8: The Nocturnal Movement of Matter Under the Direction of Black Ants and Honey Bees by silt; installation.
An attention to the transformative power of the microcosm in and around this toxic region of the Bay landscape reveals a different scale of the work being done. (silt)
#9: Hothouse by Alfonso Alvarez and Melanie Curry; installation.
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a prime piece of real estate slated to be given to San Francisco, is a poisoned dumping ground. The identities and amounts of toxic compounds and radiation on this site are unknown, says the Navy. Let's just put a cap on it.
What hides behind the thin veils that form the walls of this house? By controlling the information we feed you, we protect you for your own good.
The Navy made this bed: will you lie in it? (AA, MC)
#10: a.m. by Steve Polta; installation.
[sorry, no image available.]
#11: Wrapped Around the Screw - A Ghostfleet-in-a-Bottle by Thad Povey; installation with 16mm loop optically printed from unsplit Regular 8mm.
Dedicated to and inspired by Craig Povey and his model building. (Many thanks to Janet and Isabel, Rosi Phillips, Suzanne Stein's grandpa, Joe Bini, Lucio Menegon, The Makeout Room) (TP)
Tonight’s Sing-A-Long: Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. Film by Melinda Stone.
Got Milk? Conceived, written and directed by students of JMC Academy, Bay View Hunters Point, 16mm, black and white, sound on cassette, 3 minutes.
This short comedy was made through the Hunters Point Free Film Workshop, organized by Christian Bruno in conjunction with Drea Cooper of JMC Academy.
Battle Station by Dominic Angerame; 16mm, black and white, 3 minutes
Leyna D’ancona and myself went filming at the Naval Shipyard at Hunter’s point a few weeks ago. My original concept for this film was to have my friend Leyna perform a belly dance ritual in front of the Cinematheque office and I would superimpose images from the ‘macho’ naval station...a perfect blend of yin and yang.....ships and a navel....
However, when we arrived it was high noon and the shadows were awful....workers were honking horns at Leyna as she belly danced....I had a hard time coming up with the correct exposures....and we were both frightened by the earthen mounds we saw covered with plastic and anchored down by haystacks....It was extremely distracting....and we had heard that there were toxic materials from radioactive ships all around...so I decided to shoot this toxic material as part of the film...Leyna kept saying...’Dominic...stay downwind’ as the currents ripped my hair backwards....
We stopped at the pier and I cautiously stepped down a rusted metal stairway to the water to get footage of an abondoned submarine walkway....and we traveled to the main shipyard where workers were deconstructing a ship...We were stopped for papers and ushered off the set...we were on top secret ground....I now discovered I shot the entire previous shots more than 100 short takes with the variable shutter closed...and told Leyna of it....
We shrugged and headed for higher ground—a hill overlooking the pier where the workers were. I rewound the film and opened the shutter...hopped in the back of the flatbed truck and took out the 100mm lense...perfect... for a rather close view of the top secret activity... and began to shoot the first sequence...we are stopped again...Leyna jumps out shaking her chest...I hunt for the permit...the guard says...’that’s my boss’ signature’ and drives away...I shoot...have no idea if anything is to come out....I run out of film...
And soon I smell smoke...thinking it is a barbeque...and Leyna runs out of the bathroom saying the whole place is on fire, and indeed there is a wall of flame and smoke outside of Dago Mary’s...clientele running out to save their cars...we bust through the front gates, flames licking the side of the truck...I am furiously rewinding film to shoot...hop out of truck and shoot the fire... children are throwing stones at us from the nearby hills and ...certainly we are in Dante’s Inferno...fire trucks finally arrive...put out the blaze, me and Leyna leave, glad to be back to some sort of civilization.
The next week, Bruce Conner and I decide to go to the site with a Geiger counter to see of the toxins are radioactive... After more than 45 minutes of driving and testing we find no radioactivity...
This film is a diary of this experience...
Thanks to Leyna D’Ancona and Bruce Conner. (DA)
From The Water by Greta Snider; 16mm, black & white, sound on cassette, 8 minutes
From The Water consists of images of the waterfronts, shot from a small boat. At the shorelines, where the water meets concrete and wood, the relentless tides and sea creatures make their marks. Scarcely 25 years of inactivity was required to transform the century-old structures, that have supported the building and maintenance of gigantic vessels, into a lacy forest of stumpy pilings and twisted metal.
The nimble, human-powered craft creates a graceful and intimate tracking of giant ships and undersides of piers, unknowable by either the landbound or the bulkier boats. The images are of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, the submerged United Steel Plant, and the Mothball Fleet, including rare footage of Howard Hughes’ ‘Glomar Explorer’. The ships look impossibly huge from the water's surface, and the cryptic graffiti scrawled by deckhands from all over the world is visible only in the secret hideaways we sailors see... (GS)
Your Heart the Anchor by Dina Ciraulo; 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
Your Heart the Anchor explores our connection to place through the image of a chain and anchor. Nautical artifacts reference the site's contested history and serve as a metaphor for staying grounded in a changing environment.
Sweet Dreams by Te-Shun Tseng; 16mm, black and white, silent, 5 minutes
A visual tribute to the landscape and the history of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. A dreamscape is created utilizing the hand processed image of the landscape and the stock footage from a navy training film. In the film, an unusual night-time view of the naval shipyard is transformed into a lyrical memory land where images of sailors merge into the water. The meditative and abstract image invites the viewer to navigate through time and memory. (TT)
Exposure by David Duhig; 16mm, color, silent, 5 minutes
An exploration of time, space, and noxiousness. (DD)
Indefinite Appointment by Melinda Stone; 16mm, color, sound on cassette, 3 minutes
Memories of Elizabeth Doherty, a HPNS clerk typist. Footage shot in an abandoned supply room in HPNS 253, the ordinance and electrics building. (MS)
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard - A Brief History
1839 - Jose Cornelio de Bernal receives a land grant from the Mexican government that includes the site.
1868 - California Drydock Company establishes the first drydock for commercial use on the West Coast.
1939 - The seventy six congress purchases the site (47 acre parcel for 3.9 million dollars). They built ships (primarily Liberty Ships), modified submarines, maintained and repaired all types of navy water craft (600 fighting and support ships) and held ordinance training exercises using the Launch Test Complex. 17,000 employed at the shipyard.
ca. 1948 - Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory establishes a decontamination center for ships formerly involved in nuclear weapons testing. The NRDL radioactive laboratory operations were involved in animal research studies and cyclotron experiments. The decontamination project ceased in 1969 after a significant budget cut.
1951 - During the Korean conflict the yard experiences a dramatic increase of work and employed 11,000.
1974 - The shipyard closes on June 30.
1976 - 1986 - The site is leased to Triple-A Shipyard. Triple A leases a number of buildings to small businesses and artists. It is said that during the Triple-A years there was heinous illegal disposal of waste products by the company.
1987 - PCBs, trichloroethylene and other solvents, pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons and metals including lead are confirmed at a number of shipyard locations. This finding and the shipyard's proximity to an off-site water source (the aquifer used by the Albion bottling company), result in the EPA placing Hunters Point Shipyard on the National Priorities List in 1989. Subsequent Navy investigations indicate that the aquifers beneath Hunters Point and the those used by the water bottling company do not appear to be connected.
1988/89 - Remove approx. 1,500 drums of hazardous materials from the site.
1990 - The Golden Gate Railroad Museum is started.
1990 - Approx. 226,000 sq. ft. of asbestos contaminated materials are removed.
1994 - Lawsuit against the Navy for 19,000 violations of the Clean Water Act.
1996 - The SF Redevelopment Agency approves the re-use of Building 606 to house the Police Department's field operations bureau. The 90,000 sq. ft. building accommodates a crime laboratory for DNA testing, a property clerk section, the Department's special operations division and administrative offices. The facility is expected to improve the level of police service.
2000 - Lennar Partners, the largest home builder in the US, is selected by the city as the developer of Hunters Point’s future. Lennar's plan for the 500 acre shipyard includes four distinct neighborhoods, a high tech industrial park, and African themed museum, and 126,000 square feet of retail space. 8,000 new jobs and lucrative construction contracts have been promised to the local community.
2000 - An underground hazardous waste landfill fire is detected at the shipyard. As of today it is still burning. It can be contained but not stopped.
2001 - Unidentified molds (as well as highly dangerous unidentifiable molds) are detected in surrounding low-income housing. Many believe these molds are responsible for the ultra high levels of respiratory problems reported in the area. The housing complex is owned by AIMCO, the largest private landlord in the country.
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard - Some Characteristics
+ The Spanish first called the point La Punta de Concha (Seashell Point) and later Point Avisadero, a name that apparently means nothing at all. Indians who previously inhabited the site did not believe in owning land. Any given name they had for the site is not known.
+ The name Hunters Point comes from the name of a pioneer family that was living in the area in 1866.
+ The shipyard consists of 936 acres, 493 on land and 443 underwater in the San Francisco Bay.
+ Between 70 and 80 percents of the site is constructed by placing fill materials along the bay margin.
+ Groundwater, sediments, soil, and surface water are contaminated with fuels, pesticides, heavy metals, PCBs, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Soil contains asbestos and radium dials.
+ San Francisco's worst toxic waste dump.
+ Biggest artist colony in the U.S.
+ Approximately 120 small businesses located at the site, including a mushroom farm.
+ Hunters Point area citizens rate of hospitalization is 4 times the state average. Four times the state average for having asthma, congestive heart failure, diabetes, emphysema and hypertension.
+ Breast cancer rates among women under age 50 in the area are twice the normal level.
To find out more about the San Francisco Cinematheque or to be put on our mailing list, email us at sfc@sfcinematheque.org or see our website www.sfcinematheque.org
Tonight’s event was made possible by the generous contributions of the San Francisco Arts Commission, Individual Artists Grants Program; Philo Television; and in-kind donations from Film Arts Foundation, Action Camera, Monaco Labs and Big Shot Generator.
Many, many thanks for their generous help to: Julian Billotte, Louise Billotte, Joel Shepard and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, New Langton Arts, Om (Rich Spelker, Joel Miller, Charles Kremenak, John Reiley), Laurel Jorgensen, Tonita Abeyta, Dianne Frisbee, Jaime Peterson, Christine Metropoulos, Eric Jensen, Moses Villarama, Nic Hill, Michael Brown, Michael Swaine, Mara and Dennis, John Kiffmeyer, Kent Long, Smith Patrick, Bohdi Wright, Marijka Jorritsma, Stom Sogo, Eden Batki, and last, but not least, the US Navy.
Program
8-9 pm: Ambient sound by Om (Rich Spelker, Joel Miller, Charles Kremenak, J Reiley)
Bingo in main screening area
9:15-ish: Films by: Hunters Point Filmmaking Workshop; Dominic Angerame; Greta Snider; Dina Ciraulo; Te-Shun Tseng; David Duhig; and Melinda Stone.
10 pm-ish: Site-specific installations by Claire Bain; Janis Crystal Lipzin; Cade Bursell and Michael Wilson; Natalija Vekic and Christian Bruno; Kerry Laitala and Maximillian Godino; Robert Schaller; Bill Daniel; silt; Alfonso Alvarez and Melanie Curry; Steve Polta; and Thad Povey.
See map for location of the site specific installations, toilets,
and refreshements for sale (water, juice, beer, tamales).
More good food and beverages available just outside the base at Lola’s (on Innes) from 7-9pm
WARNING: THIS IS A FEDERAL SUPERFUND SITE!
FOR YOUR SAFETY YOU ARE REQUIRED TO STAY WITHIN THE POSTED BOUNDARIES OF THIS EVENT!
San Francisco Cinematheque | 40 Years
After being evicted from our Potrero Avenue offices of almost 20 years, San Francisco Cinematheque relocated its offices to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in June 2000. Always a peripatetic institution, what is today the Cinematheque began as a series of screenings on a sheet in filmmaker Bruce Baillie’s backyard in Canyon, California in the summer of 1961. This summer we are celebrating our 40th anniversary as one of the oldest showcases for non-commercial, personal and experimental film in the United States. Striving to make experimental film and video a part of the larger cultural landscape, the Cinematheque presents over seventy programs each year, with artists present at many of the screenings. We also publish our Program Notes and a journal, Cinematograph and frequently collaborate with other arts organizations in the Bay Area and across the country. Our usual bi-weekly screenings are presented at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Thursdays and at the San Francisco Art Institute on Sundays from late September through June.
Although the Cinematheque has presented other outdoor screenings and installations, this is the first (of two! come back June 21st for a joint celebration with film distributor Canyon Cinema, our mother, our sister) at our new Hunters Point home, and the first presenting all brand new work specifically commissioned for this event and this location. Presented with and conceived by artist Melinda Stone, Sink or Swim aims to engage with both the artistic community and the community and land of Hunters Point to create a new sense of the possible dialogues between our art and our lives.
