WORKSHOPS

The Cooper Handmade Cinema Group is a workshop series open to all students at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art during the Spring 2025 semester. Read more about the project here.

Students from the schools of Art, Architecture, and Engineering can attend. (No prior experience is necessary, just a willingness to experiment and discover.)

On May 9, 2025 @ 5PM there will be a public presentation of student work in the Film/Video Screening Room: Foundation Building RM 539.
(note date & venue change since earlier announcement)

Film as a Collaboration with the Environment

Fri Feb 28 + Fri March 14
Jennifer Reeves
Film Screening Room - Foundation Building rm 539

Session 1: Fri Feb 28, 2025 (Noon - 2pm)
In the first session, students learn techniques to transform junk 16mm film into original works of personal, handcrafted cinema by working with the elements. Earth, water, mineral, bacteria and heat will aid us in giving renewed value to discarded 16mm film and other materials. (Students will continue to work on their own between sessions.)
Session 2: Fri March 14, 2025 (Noon - 2pm)
In the second session, we will review student projects and explore strategies for handling these fragile handmade works. We will introduce photochemical and digital methods to copy the films so they can be edited and shared.

Mining the Archive

Tue March 11 (noon - 2pm)
Mary Mann
Cooper Union Library - Archives Mezzanine

This course uses Cooper’s archives as a jumping-off point to explore how and why to use archival material to make film. Through hands-on interaction with archival items, participants will develop an understanding of how said materials can inspire and shape a film and will also learn the basics of archival research, from finding where to look to requesting materials to touching things.

image: Un-Tidal by Masha Vlasova

Digital Camera-Less Film

Tue March 25 (11:30 - 1:30pm)
Zach Poff
Film Screening Room - Foundation Building rm 539

Transform digital video into 16mm film without a camera. We will use custom software to deconstruct short videos into individual frames, then print them onto recycled clear film stock. The half-tone images make great textural loops for performances, or re-scan them back to digital to continue their journey in pixels. (Each participant should bring a short video clip to print onto provided film stock.) Download software here.

Past Present: Exploring a Collection

Thu March 27 (Noon - 2pm)
Jenny Perlin & Dale Perreault
Cooper Union Library

Did you know that Cooper has a mountain of movies on actual film? Explore the 16mm film collection in the Cooper Library and learn about film preservation and media curation. Students can later opt to be trained on projection and print care in order to curate their own programs.

16mm Photograms and Loops

Thu April 3 (11:30am - 1:30pm)
Lily Sheng
Film Screening Room - Foundation Building rm 539

Learn how to create photograms on black and white high-contrast film by exposing materials directly onto the film surface. Students will learn to expose, hand process, and splice the film into short loops that can be projected and layered into the 16mm slot-load projector. Supplies will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring some very small objects or patterned materials of their own. (To visualize scale, each frame is about the size of a fingernail.)

The Projector as Instrument

Tue April 8 (11:30am - 1:30pm)
Zach Poff
Film Screening Room - Foundation Building rm 539

Pop the hood on a 16mm film projector and learn how this “sewing machine of the senses” works from the inside out. Discover the assumptions baked into the design by a century of service in movie theaters, and the potentials to re-engineer it as a hand-held tool for expressive performance.
Based on the work of the SPECTRAL: Wandering seminar in 2023-2025.

Optic Antics

Tue April 22 (11:30am - 1:30pm)
Simon Liu
Film Screening Room - Foundation Building rm 539

Delving into both the practical groundwork and vast creative potentials of multiple projection performance by utilizing a plethora of analog projection tools combined with digital approaches, this workshop asks students to reimagine the presentation of moving images and how so-called outdated machines can closely reflect our contemporary experience. Participants will learn how to stage multi-channel 16mm projections utilizing both found footage alongside new material whilst manipulating the optical soundtrack in real time. Then we will experiment with alternative projection screens, reflective surfaces, and video feedback loops to create a mixed-media hybrid performance.

The Chemistry of Color

Tue April 29 (Noon - 2pm)
Fabiola Barrios-Landeros
41CS Room 427

We will measure the visible spectra of acetate light filters and pigment solutions to explore the significance of wavelength and absorbance.
Additionally, we will set up an experiment to project real-time color changes in natural pigments extracted from butterfly pea tea. Their chemical structures undergo changes in response to acidic or basic conditions, which we will control using household chemicals.
Participants will also have the opportunity to create their own liquid filters and test them using cellphone cameras.

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Cooper Handmade Cinema Group

Closing Event

To close the workshop series, The Cooper Union Handmade Cinema Group hosted an informal screening to conclude the workshops we taught this semester.

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