Image: Sarah Pucill, Milk and Glass (1993). Film still, courtesy of the artist.

Co-presented by PARACME 
Livestream on Twitch
Free; no RSVP required
Q&A will follow

Films by: Barbara Hammer, Toney W. Merritt, Julie Murray, Dana Plays, Sarah Pucill, Rajee Samarasinghe, and Paige Taul

Screening line-up:

Anathema (Julie Murray, 1995, 7 minutes, color, sound)

Doubt assails the doctor and his assistants, who, through ritualized posturing, admit themselves to an arena of abject violence to inherit the disease they believe to be death. Home spun film footage reveals a number of points in this ceremony where through feeble act and over-wrought desire contamination mortifies catharsis.

Across the Border (Dana Plays, 1982, 8 minutes, color, sound)

“The film is a collage of found footage, and documentary images, radio Spanish/English tracks and commentary by Philippe Bourgois, a Stanford Anthropologist trapped in an offensive by U.S -backed Salvadoran Military forces. The film’s position against US intervention in the third world is stated in graphic visuals that employ techniques of optical printing and animation.” (David Heintz)

everyday star (Rajee Samarasinghe, 2018, 9 minutes, color, silent)

A strange vision caused by intense heat. Everyday states of being and decay are observed through the infinite scope of the cosmos and the restorative light which emanates from it, driving cinematic and photographic impulses.

10:28,30 (Paige Taul, 2019, 4 minutes, color, sound)

10:28,30 examines the relationship between myself and my sister, and our relationship to our mother. I am interested in the dissonance of our lives apart and the tension in the desire to be together.

Milk and Glass (Sarah Pucill, 1993, 10 minutes, color, sound)

In this film an interior landscape is scrutinised, and an apparent rational calm is revealed as suffocating. Milk and Glass is an evocative journey from surface to interior — a black-coated mirror, the hollow of a bowl, a cavernous throat; a brush demarcates a line of lip on a flat surface, a mouth doubles up with the bowl and is virtually spoon-fed till it chokes.

Welcome to the House of Raven (Toney W. Merritt, 1997, 3 minutes, b&w, sound)

A dance.
When magic is a verb.
The Beginning of the End.
The End of the Beginning.

No No Nooky TV (Barbara Hammer, 1987, 12 minutes, color, sound)

NO NO NOOKY TV posits sexuality to be a social construct in a “sex-text” of satiric graphic representation of “dirty pictures.” Made on an Amiga Computer and shot in 16mm film, NO NO NOOKY TV confronts the feminist controversy around sexuality with electronic language, pixels and interface. Even the monitor is eroticized in this film/video hybrid that points fun at romance, sexuality, and love in our post-industrial age. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York and the Barbara Hammer Estate.

About Light Field

Light Field is an annual exhibition of recent and historical moving image art on celluloid, held in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are artist-run and collectively organized by: Samuel Breslin, Emily Chao, Zachary Epcar, Trisha Low, tooth, Syd Staiti, and Patricia Ledesma Villon.

About Canyon Cinema’s (Virtual Salons)

Since 2014, Canyon Cinema’s Salon series has provided a free, informal platform for dialogue and engagement with moving image artists. In the past, these events have taken the form of artist-led screening-and-discussions, staged in an intimate setting (16 Sherman Street, in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood). Expanding into the digital space due to the current necessity of physical distancing, we have further opened the forum to scholars and curators to present their research alongside experimental cinema and media artworks. The Canyon Cinema Salon series is made possible with generous support from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

This program marks the beginning of a collaboration between Canyon Cinema and PARACME, a new platform for artist-made films. A prototype launched at the end of 2020: https://www.paracme.com/