The Baptism

Barbara Hammer

1968, 9:21 min, color, silent

Contribution to Light

Barbara Hammer

1968, 3:42 min, color, silent

"Contribution to Light is all about my excitement and thrill at seeing reflected and refracted light. I shot the edges of pieces of found broken glass that streamed light rays broken into myriad colors. I saw, years later, a shared aesthetic in Stan Brakhage’s study of a crystal ashtray." — Barbara Hammer

White Cassandra

Barbara Hammer

1968, 4:08 min, color, silent

"Aerial views of Los Angeles rooftops and a swimming pool surrounded by tan sunbathers contrast starkly with the Wheeler Ranch, hippie free land of shacks and barren landscape in Sonoma County. Is this about the filmmaker's own childhood urban lifestyle and the rural life she chose in early adult years – identifying with Cassandra, the prophet foretelling a future celebrating an end to capitalism? And what of the radical attempt to divert the small aircraft with mirrors and bow and arrows harassing the open land freestylers?" — Barbara Hammer

Clay I Love You II

Barbara Hammer

1968-69, 5:19 min, color, silent

On a trip in anticipation of an around the world motor scooter tour in 1973, Hammer and her ex-husband traverse the Mendocino coast on their motorcycle – Hammer filming all the while from the rear seat. Light reflections, creative camera perspectives, and Hammer's signature self-inclusion mark this early film.

Aldebaran Sees

Barbara Hammer

1969, 3:15 min, color, silent

"Aldebaran is the brightest star of the Taurus constellation. It is not without hubris that I claimed that light-seeing eye for myself. The world of Aldebaran is projected light, rear screened and filmed again, pre-optical printer, and contemporary with the Haight-Ashbury projection light shows that played behind the bands at The Fillmore." — Barbara Hammer

Cleansed II

Barbara Hammer

1969, 7:43 min, color, silent

Abstractions of light, hand shaped mattes, radical exposure changes and the subjective body of the filmmaker mark this early film of Hammer with filmic language that reappears in her later work. Shot in Northern California on the Sonoma Coast and in the woodlands, the beauty and sparkle of silent Super8 is breathtaking and wondrous reminding the viewer of a time before depletion and pollution marked the landscape.

Death of a Marriage

Barbara Hammer

1969, 3:09 min, color, silent

"Death of a Marriage I think is my first psychodrama – finding images and filmic methods of portraying my interior emotional being. I had built by hand with my husband a home in the woods, made my own horse corral, and had an art studio. Yet the alternative lifestyle didn’t erase the feeling of entrapment, proscribed role, and constrictions. Yip, yip and away!" — Barbara Hammer