Film screening with John Sanborn

Entropy | Order | 3:33 | 1978

In deftly orchestrated interpretations of gesture and movement, simple events are reassembled into compelling compositions — rhythmic, stream-of-consciousness flows of images and sounds that play with illusion and reality.

From »Interpolation« Created by John Sanborn and Kit Fitzgerald, produced by the TV Lab at WNET

Static | Episode | 5:36 | 1981

»Static« is a dynamic boy-meets-girl narrative that uses a stuttering sound overlay of spoken text. A confusion of the heart is given a sonic voice.

Layering text and sound, »Episode« is a narrative of a young couple's power struggle. Over time, every relationship must end – sometimes badly. With Eric Bogosian, Jo Bonnie

Ear to the Ground | 4:27 | 1982

With David Van Tieghem, who plays the streets of New York City with reckless abandon. The sound you hear is just as it happened.

A Tribute to Nam June Paik (excerpts) | 5:49 | 1982

With irreverent good humor, this affectionate homage to artist Nam June Paik uses Paik's own rapid-fire editing and dizzying collage techniques to evoke his wide-ranging influence in video and contemporary art.

Act III | 6:30 | 1983

Created by John Sanborn and Dean Winkler, music by Philip Glass

»Act III« builds an imaginary world from rapidly multiplying three-dimensional forms that echo the repetitive strains and vital energy of Glass' music. Broadcast on »Alive From Off Center« on PBS, Good Morning Mr. Orwell on PBS.

Perfect Lives (excerpts) | 7:08 | 1986

Composed by Robert Ashley, Directed by John Sanborn, produced by Carlotta Schoolman and the Kitchen, commissioned by Great Britain’s Channel 4, 7 episodes – each 26.30

Robert Ashley’s opera for television has been called a comic opera about reincarnation and was realized for television with a combination of location photography, computer graphics, text on screen and the sublime voice of Robert Ashley.

Directed by John Sanborn for »Alive From Off Center« PBS, choreography by Bill T. Jones.

»Untitled« pays tribute to the life and work of the dancer and choreographer Arnie Zane, who died of AIDS in 1988. His long-time partner Bill T. Jones evokes memories of Zane through a stark, eloquent dance-lament and a parade of ghostly portraits and photographs.

»Tassel« | 9:12 | 2015

Directed by John Sanborn, performed by The Living Earth Show and Post:Ballet; choreography by Robert Dekkers, music composed by Anna Meredith 9:12

»Tassel« is a work of media invention, created using video editing to produce an otherworldly view of movement and physical impulse that projects what the musicians see and feel as they provide accompaniment to dance.

»A Sweeter Music«

»War is Just a Racket« | Kyle Gann | 9:27 | 2013

Piano | Sarah Cahill || video | John Sanborn

Sarah Cahill conceived of »A Sweeter Music« (borrowing a phrase from Dr. King’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech) as an artistic response to the Gulf War. In 2009, Cahill commissioned 18 composers to write on the subject of peace. PICO (reMIX)

»I Don’t Care« | 4:21 | 2015

Song written by David Meyer and John Sanborn

»I Don’t Care« is an ironic assessment of the current global crisis of inequity and imbalance – be it fiscal or social or just plain dumb stuff. Packaged in the form of a popular song, this work speaks a lie of indifference while aiming at the »socially responsible« bandwagon. In the age of social media we are quick to sing the slogans of revolution – but supremely slow to enact actual change.

»Rushing Like a Banshee« | 2:12 | 2016

Collaborative project with The Residents – what happens when speeding modern ideas meet an immovable object?