Full series details here
As a filmmaker, Craig Baldwin’s works appropriate footage from pre-existing films, fusing form and content and embodying a radical vision of media culture as a participatory field. Engaging mainstream media as an adversary, using its languages in ironic opposition, Baldwin talks back to corporately produced media and creates inspiring, wildly imaginative works which profoundly challenge the nature of one-way media consumption. As a curator, Baldwin is known for Other Cinema, a hugely influential series of film/video programs which has been ongoing since the mid-1980s. Like his films, Other Cinema represents a radically expanded approach to film exhibition, media consumption and cultural engagement in which ephemeral forms of film history coexist alongside expanded cinema performance, underground/experimental film screenings, speculative lecture presentations, in-person artists and more.
Join us in celebrating the publication of Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live!Clocking in at 508 pages, Avant to Live!documents the life and work of the acclaimed filmmaker, curator and underground legend. Meticulously detailed, with contributions from over 50 writers, artists, illustrators and ideologues, Avant to Live! is the first critical text to examine the artist’s films analytically as a coherent and meaningful body of work and critical artist’s statement while also examining the cultural impact of Baldwin’s Other Cinema curatorial project. Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live! is a collaborative project of San Francisco Cinematheque and INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media. Full details on this publication here.
This evening’s event includes a live multimedia tour through the book by co-editors Brett Kashmere and Steve Polta to include excerpts from films, readings by contributors Gerry Fialka, Scott MacKenzie, Vanessa Renwick, Jeffrey Skoller and Rick Prelinger, film by Linda Scobie, performance by Jeremy Rourke and an onstage discussion between filmmaker Lynne Sachs and Craig Baldwin himself! JOIN US!
NOTE: While copies of Avant to Live! can be purchased at this event but there will be no time for signing. Want a signed copy or just want to beat the crowds? Pre-order a copy here and join us at our pre-event Signing Reception. Full details here.
AVANT TO LIVE! FLASHBACK!
RELIVE THE DAY!
Documentation of Avant to Live! launch at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater May 28, 2023. Presentation by Brett Kashmere and Steve Polta. This video contains readings by Jeffrey Skoller and Rick Prelinger along with Craig Baldwin in conversation with Lynne Sachs. Readings by Gerry Fialka, Scott MacKenzie, Rankin Renwick were also part of the event, but were not recorded. Video includes footage of You’re Not Listening by Jeremy Rourke. Footage captured by David Cox, edited by Mary Rose McClain.