Block 1. Short films by Barbara Hammer "Radical content deserves radical form"

Marie and Me

One of Barbara Hammer's early films. A sun-filled, joyful image of an intimate relationship with the artist's first partner - Marie. The image of the adventures of those two protagonists. The film shows the experience of the body, touch, eroticism and closeness.

Dyketactics

"Hammer's films of the '70's are the first made by an openly lesbian American filmmaker to explore lesbian identity, desire and sexuality though avant-garde strategies. Merging the physicality of the female body with that of the film medium, Hammer’s films remain memorable for their pioneering articulation of a lesbian aesthetic.” - Jenni Sorkin, WACK! Art and The Feminist Revolution, 2007.

Jane Brakhage

"I picked up Stan and Jane Brakhage at the airport and drove them to San Francisco State College where Stan spoke about his films to the student body. I was fascinated with Jane. She was so interested in the world around her while Stan seemed caught up only in his ideas. She picked seed pods from trees and plants and told me she had written a lexicon of dog language. She was so much more complex than Stan's portrayal of her in “Window Water Baby Moving” (1958) that I decided to make a documentary about her for my graduate project." — Barbara Hammer.

Superdyke Meets Madame X

The film documents the Barbara Hammer’s relationship with Max Almy on a reel-to-reel ¾” videotape recorder and microphone. This was Hammer’s first foray into recording with the Sony Portapak and was produced as part of a skill swap with Almy.

Still Point

“Still Point” whirls around a point of centeredness as four screens of home and homelessness, travel and weather, architecture and sports signify the constant movement and haste of late twentieth century life. "At the still point of the turning world, that's where the dance is," wrote T.S. Eliot in "Burnt Norton," the first poem of “Four Quartets”. Hammer seeks a point of quiet from which all else transiently moves.

Lesbian Whale

"Lesbian Whale” is a video animation of Hammer’s early notebook drawings set to a sound track of commentary by the artist’s friends and peers. The script is composed of fragments and stray thoughts – 'as a feminist I’m very skeptical'; 'not necessarily physical time but emotional time' – and it’s not quite clear whether it’s spontaneous, planned, composed by the speakers, or read from Hammer’s notebooks. If Hammer’s artistic influence is well documented, this slippage between voices, authors, and images suggests an ethos of collaboration and conviviality that may prove to be her greatest legacy." — Andrew Kachel, Artforum.

Voice Participants: A.K. Burns, Heather Cassils, Myrel Chernick, Janlori Goldman, Holly Hughes, Daniel Alexander Jones, Reena Katz, Bradford Nordeen, Liz Rosenfeld, Julia Steinmetz.