Mirrored Identities: The Self as Multiple

The Surrealist movement reimagined the body as multiple: through gender play and an exploration of the uncanny, its early avant-garde artists engaged in a deliberate fracturing and recomposition of the self. Multiple exposure, mirrors, and creative framing methods provided new tools for destabilizing the viewer and provoking a conception of the individual not rooted in a unified, singular “ideal.”

This selection of films follows in that legacy — some overtly inspired by it, some not — and examines the mutability of human identity through doubling, fracture, and dissolution.

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PROGRAM:

Sara-Kathryn Arledge, Introspection (1946, color, sound, 6.5 minutes)

Maya Deren, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, black and white, sound, 14 minutes)

Tom Chomont, Phases of the Moon (1968, color, silent, 4 minutes)

Edward Owens, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1966, color, silent, 6 minutes)

Stan VanDerBeek, Astral Man (1957, color, silent, 2 minutes)

Maria Lassnig, Self Portrait (1973, color, sound, 4.5 minutes)

Gregory Anthon, Rhythm & Form: Grey Area III (1987, color, sound, 5 minutes)

Rosalind Schneider, Parallax (1973, B&W, sound, 21 minutes)

Total Run Time: 63 minutes.