Film & Digital Media Visiting Artist Series - Film Theory & Praxis
Visiting Artist Liz Keim, Exploratorium Cinema Arts Program Director
This event is sponsored by Film & Digital Media and Porter College.
Both artists and scientists use film as a tool for inquiry and expression, and the Exploratorium collects and exhibits works capturing the methods and aesthetics of each. The primary interest of the Cinema Arts Program centers on films that reveal a blend of observation, poetry, and surrealism; just as the focus of our exhibits and programs lies at the intersection of art and science we are particularly interested in documentaries that defy category and exist in the realm between art and science, fiction and document.
How does one generate the contemplative cinematic space between these realms, both physically and emotionally, within the dynamic inter-active environs of the Exploratorium? As a naïve graduate student this is the question I asked over 25 years ago, when I proposed the creation of an alternative film arts program to the museum’s founder and director Frank Oppenheimer and then went about testing and playing around with countless ideas. After many eye-popping, sweet, unexpected, and horrendous screening experiences we are still in the process of experimenting with and embracing the ephemeral elements of film, not only within the frenetic walls of the museum, but also out on the streets of San Francisco and on its Bay. We have projected films among the coastal trees in Big Sur, under the big skies of Amarillo Texas, in a hospital in the deep south, on screens made of leaves, and on the architectural remnants of lost landscapes. During this talk a selection of short films from the Exploratorium’s Film Collection will be screened.
Liz Keim initiated the Exploratorium’s film program and collection in 1982. Since then she has worked to integrate the vision of independent media artists into Exploratorium programming and public exhibition.