Film Forum

The erotic unfurls as a vital force connecting self, lover, and collective. Barbara Hammer left behind a monumental body of work unified in its fiercely political perspective and bold exploration of lesbian life. Her earliest short films materialized from the ashes of postwar American life, as long-established virtues of womanhood were being rejected and a new vision was beginning to form. As Hammer put it in her own memoir: “The 70s were a glorious time of feminist ideals and lesbian bed-hopping.” These works spotlight Hammer’s sustained investment in collective queer worldmaking, mobilizing eroticism as a social force inseparable from emergent forms of lesbian visibility and activist formation.

Total runtime: Approx. 77 min.

Double Strength
U.S., 1978
Approx. 14 min.

A poetic meditation on the arc of a lesbian relationship from the charge of erotic beginnings, the rupture of conflict, to the settled ground of enduring friendship. Hammer draws directly onto celluloid and layers mirrored images of bodies moving asynchronously, while musings on love, life, and death drift through the soundtrack. Woven through are a trapeze duet performed by Hammer and aerial dancer Terry Sendgraff, and portraits of the couple.

Dyketactics
U.S.,1974
Approx. 4 min.

Inspired by Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, Hammer set off on a motorcycle with a Super-8 camera to make what became widely regarded as the first lesbian lovemaking film by a lesbian filmmaker. Calling it her “popular lesbian commercial,” she compressed 110 images of sensual touching into rapid montage, cut across A, B, C, and D rolls in what she termed “kinaesthetic” editing.

Superdyke
U.S., 1975
Approx. 17 min.

A militant feminist lesbian comedy from the early liberation era, following a troupe of shield-bearing Amazons as they storm San Francisco—City Hall, bus lines, Macy’s, an erotic art museum—before retreating to the utopic countryside. The film gave voice to the city’s emerging lesbian community, channeling Hammer’s ongoing fascination with communal life, her handheld camera capturing both bystanders’ shock and her participants’ joy.

Sync Touch
U.S.,1981
Approx. 10 min.

In one of her most explicit attempts to construct a haptic cinema, Hammer explores a lesbian-feminist aesthetic that positions touch and sight as the twin foundations of a “new cinema,” binding sexuality and filmmaking together with a scientific inquiry into the sense of touch. Painting and collaging directly onto the 16mm film strip, and using an optical printer to loop, layer, and manipulate the shots, she distorts the imagery to manifest this physicality.

Audience
U.S., 1982
Approx. 32 min.

A 16mm diary and historical archive, this major work of sapphic ethnography finds Hammer interviewing moviegoers at screenings of her films in San Francisco, London, Toronto, and Montreal. She captures an array of reactions and reflections on both her films and depictions of lesbians on screen; the work doubling as a self-portrait, refracted through the eyes of her audience.

Programmed by Andrea Torres

Presented with support from The R.G. Rifkind Foundation Endowment for Queer Cinema and The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

Images courtesy of the Estate of Barbara Hammer, New York and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.