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Barbara Hammer, Superdyke: Ecstatic Subjectivity

Barbara Hammer, Superdyke: Ecstatic Subjectivity

Generations

UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program, and Los Angeles Filmforum present

Barbara Hammer, Superdyke: Ecstatic Subjectivity

Saturday, December 8, 2018, 7:30 pm

At the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024

By the very nature of her multifaceted identity, lesbian feminist filmmaker and artist Barbara Hammer (b. 1939) has maintained a formal fluidity in her half-century-long practice effectively unparalleled by any living moving image maker. From her first Super 8 experiment, SCHIZY (1968), Hammer gave herself permission to fearlessly follow her instincts. Through her explicit and politically-charged work of the 1970s to her material interactions and printing exercises of the 1980s and continuing with her seamless adoption of analog and digital video, Hammer’s visual lyricism and sensuality dance invariably within each of her over 80 moving image works in a conscious, active (re)writing and (re)defining of a singular cinematic language

Capturing subjects considered verboten—joyous lesbian sensuality, female sexual pleasure, aging, death and dying, menstruation—Hammer boldly confronts normative representations of women and characterizations of gender expression, commanding and claiming space for a refreshingly new aesthetic and sensibility, queer or otherwise, in experimental film that continues to inspire generations of artists across myriad layers of identification. Her inclusion of queer women in works both traditionally documentative and those more performative allowed for not just increased visibility of lesbian culture in their day, but also an invaluable archive of the ever-evolving political and social objectives of communities often rendered invisible.

 With the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Archive is proud to present five programs of films by Barbara Hammer, nearly all of which will be shown in restored or newly struck prints from the Academy Film Archive.

 This program was curated by KJ Relth and Mark Toscano; program notes written by the same.

 Special thanks: Florrie Burke; Karl McCool, Electronic Arts Intermix; May Haduong, Academy Film Archive.

Tickets: Advance sale Price: $10.00 at http://emarket.cinema.ucla.edu/ShoppingCenter/Details.aspx?ref=1037

Tickets for Archive events may also be purchased at the box office:
General admission:  $9.00; Seniors:  $8.00; UCLA Alumni Association Members:  $8.00
Non-UCLA students:  $8.00; Filmforum members, UCLA students:  Free (see policy)

For more information: https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2018/barbara-hammer-superdyke www.lafilmforum.org or 323-377-7238.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8  7:30PM

Ecstatic Subjectivity

Throughout her career, many of Hammer’s more visually ecstatic works reveal a psychedelic thread running through her filmography, from her 1968 debut Schizy, to one of her final works on 16mm, Generations (made with Joey Carducci).  Using various technical and formal approaches including time lapse, optical printing, animation, and digital image manipulation, Hammer has regularly embraced the presence and physicality of film to deeply mine the rapture of subjective vision. 

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Psychosynthesis

PSYCHOSYNTHESIS

1975, 16mm, b/w & color, 6 min.

Restored by Electronic Arts Intermix and the Academy Film Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation.  Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

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Schizy

SCHIZY

1968, Super 8, color, silent, 4 min.

New print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

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Bent Time

BENT TIME

1984, 16mm, color, 22.5 min.

From the Barbara Hammer Collection at the Academy Film Archive.

Pools

Pools

POOLS

With Barbara Klutinis

1981, 16mm, color, 5.5 min.

Restored by the Academy Film Archive.

PLACE MATTES

1987, 16mm, color, 8 min.

Restored by the Academy Film Archive.

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Our Trip

OUR TRIP

1980, 16mm, color, 4 min.

Restored by the Academy Film Archive

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Generations

GENERATIONS

With Joey Carducci

2010, 16mm, color, 30.5 min.

From the Barbara Hammer Collection at the Academy Film Archive.