Negative Capability

A ramshackle underground SF satire set and shot in the self-absorbed art world of lower Manhattan, written, produced, and directed by Joe Gibbons, who also plays one of the lead parts. Gibbons plays a mad scientist who's developed a technique for transferring personalities from one person's body to another; he becomes obsessed with an outlaw artist (played by performance artist Karen Finley) who destroys paintings in various galleries as a form of anarchist, anticapitalist protest.

Joan of Arc and Dorothy of Kansas become one thanks to Hildegard von Bingen.

Made in collaboration with Keith Sanborn, The Deadman is based on a story by Bataille, charting "the adventures of a near-naked heroine who sets in motion a scabrous free-form orgy before returning to the house to die — a combination of elegance, raunchy defilement and barbaric splendor." — Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader.

1982, 3.5 min, 16mm, anaglyph 3D

A short essay on the triangular Square du Vert-Galant, one of the favorite repairs of the vanishing Paris of Guy Debord. Yet another slow film.

A slow four-part film on death and the persistence of the dead. Where ignorant armies clash by night: the dolphin-torn and gong-tormented sea.

1980-88, 11 min, 16mm, silent. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives. Separate digital soundtrack accompaniment.

A film by Keith Sanborn

Various permutations and combinations of the Zapruder footage of the assassination of JFK. Intended as an investigation of the footage as visual, experiential, and cultural document. In the USA this footage is both notorious and invisible; seldom actually seen, it is very well known; when seen, it remains opaque. This work is intended to add a level of "transparency" to original. It is set to Jajouka music in order to bring to the foreground the ritual aspects of this visual, mechanical; and media historical event. For some reason I had a memory of that footage being black and white.

An experimental film essay on architectural excess, with its aim not functional shelter but conspicuous destruction of wealth

An attempt to problematize ownership and authorship in the age of digital reproduction. Inspired by the Walter Benjamin essay of the same name and the activities of the Situationists.

An exploration of Joan Jonas’s studio in Nova Scotia in August 2019, by night with torch, but no spear. Special thanks to Peggy Ahwesh for pelican lighting effects.

8mm-to-digital and 16mm projector performance. This work includes the film NAVIGATION, which has been preserved by Anthology Film Archives.

A simple and, possibly as a result of this, effective reworking of a recent propaganda film. The original film is Enduring Freedom: The Opening Chapter. It was made for a large scale cinema release as a short or commercial and was commissioned by the US Marine Corps and the US Navy. Sanborn copied the film and showed each scene in its glorious bombast and heroism twice.

2019, 1 min, digital

In one incredibly long take we see the arrival and disappearance of John Kennedy's body as it is delivered from Dallas aboard Air Force One.