We are honored to join the city-wide tribute to Ken and Flo Jacobs, two pioneers of experimental cinema who both passed away in 2025. Their radical inventions and interventions of images transcended familiar notions of time and space and inspired generations of avant-garde filmmakers.
This program features some of Ken and Flo’s many interrogations of depth — and also the movement of water. It opens with a digital iteration of Bi-Temporal Vision: The Sea, one of their early “Nervous System” performances in which they ran two 16mm projectors simultaneously with a spinning propeller between them, its blades flickering between beams of light to reveal hidden dimensions. The technique behind this effect is explained in New York Street Trolleys 1900, narrated by Ken. We will also project Window, an early 16mm work that Ken described as a “cinematic action-painting,” before closing with two of Ken’s late “eternalisms” — further explorations of suspended moments in time — Capitalism Defeats Life on Earth, Cab in Rain and the World Premiere of Riverbed.
Bi-Temporal Vision: The Sea, 2019, 11 min (digital iteration)
New York Street Trolleys 1900, 1999, 10 min
Window, 1964, 12 min
Capitalism Defeats Life on Earth, Cab in Rain, 2017, 5 min
Riverbed, 2024, 17min *Premiere
Doors 5:30pm / Screening 6:00pm
Warning: This screening contains throbbing light. Should not be viewed by individuals with epilepsy or seizure disorders.
Very special thanks to Andrew Lampert.
__________________________________________________________________
Spanning the entire month of April, The Whole Shebang: Celebrating Ken and Flo Jacobs is a 14-venue cinema salute to two of experimental cinema’s most beloved icons. Ken (1933–2025) and Flo (1941–2025) were inseparable sweethearts and creative partners from the day they met in 1962, and while their passing last year left cinephiles bereft, it also provides a welcome opportunity to survey their enormous and extraordinary film and digital oeuvre. The Whole Shebang represents an unprecedented aligning of venues across the city, all of whom presented and championed the Jacobs’ uncompromising output during the last six-plus decades. Featuring key works, many theatrical and world premieres, and plenty of deep cuts, this sweeping festival serves as both a remembrance and an introduction to the duo’s remarkable achievements and impossible-to-categorize genius. Organized by Andrew Lampert, this collective tribute will unfold over April with screenings at: L’Alliance New York, Anthology Film Archives, BAM Cinema, Film-Makers’ Cooperative, Film at Lincoln Center, Light Industry, Metrograph, Millennium Film Workshop, The Museum of Modern Art, Museum of the Moving Image, Rockaway Film Festival, The Roxy Cinema, Spectacle Theater, and UnionDocs. Visit each org’s website for programming info.
