BAMPFA UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

For the month of June, the BAMPFA hosts past episodes of The Electronic Lover, a new audio opera by composer Lisa Mezzacappa and writer Beth Lisick. New episodes will be released at a free online BAMPPFA event on Saturday, June 26 at 7pm PDT.

Episode 2 synopsis: The members of the women-only chatroom begin to open up to each other about their lives, desires, and fears. Frankie is fed up with being undervalued by her male colleagues at work. We learn more about Joan’s personal journey as she emerges to become the group’s leader, confessor, and confidant. Even outside the women's forum, everyone is buzzing with the energy Joan has brought to the online community.

Visit theelectroniclover.com for episode libretto.

The Electronic Lover Ep.1: Pilot

For the month of June, the BAMPFA hosts past episodes of The Electronic Lover, a new audio opera by composer Lisa Mezzacappa and writer Beth Lisick. New episodes will be released at a free online BAMPPFA event on Saturday, June 26 at 7pm PDT.

Episode 1 synopsis: It’s the early 1980s, and people across the US are connecting online for the first time. Internet service providers are setting up bulletin boards and chatrooms (also called forums, or “bands” after CB radio) for their customers, allowing people to discuss hobbies, politics, work, life and love with like-minded people they might never have met otherwise. Margot gets hired to be the Community Manager at a new online community. As women in the chatrooms find themselves talked over and preyed upon by men, Joan comes out of her shell and requests a forum for women only. She and Margot emerge as the leaders of a close-knit group of computer-savvy women, and bond over their newfound sense of purpose and possibility.

Visit theelectroniclover.com for episode libretto.

Explore the vitality of contemporary Black art and culture in the Bay Area and beyond with this podcast hosted by Ryanaustin Dennis. Today’s guest is jose e. abad, a queer social practice performance artist based in San Francisco whose work explores queer futurity through an intersectional lens. They talk about their transition from administrative work for a graduate school to entering the world of experimental dance, the woes of performative liberal politics, and the power of art as a social and political tool.

Born in Olongapo City, Philippines, to a Filipinx mother and a West Indian father, jose uses dance and storytelling to explore the complexities of cultural identity, feelings of landlessness, and the memories and wisdom held within the body that the mind has forgotten and history has erased. They have performed in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco in collaboration with a variety of companies and artists including Keith Hennessy, Scott Wells, Anne Bluethenthal, Brontez Purnell Dance Company, #DignityInProcess, and Detour Dance.

BAMPFA Adjunct Senior Curator for Photography Sandra Phillips closely observes Lee Friedlander’s photograph New Mexico (2000), whose stunning composition she sees as “miraculously conceived in the moment,” finding levels of meaning in the evocatively empty street scene.

Phillips is also curator emerita of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she presented countless exhibitions, including the first complete showing of the photographs and writings of Diane Arbus and the first museum exhibition to survey the work of postwar Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama. In 2019 she organized UNLIMITED: RECENT GIFTS FROM THE WILLIAM GOODMAN AND VICTORIA BELCO PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION for BAMPFA.

Lee Friedlander, New Mexico, 2000; gelatin silver print; 15 x 14 1/2 in. University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; gift of Victoria Belco and William Goodman in memory of Teresa Goodman, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

Copyright by artist: © Lee Friedlander, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

Retired BAMPFA film curator Steve Seid interviews TVTV members Megan Williams and Allen Rucker about  TOP VALUE TELEVISION. TVTV began in 1972 when a group of mediamakers, artists, and activists used brand-new portable videotape equipment to document the '72 Democratic and Republican presidential conventions. At a time when TV news reporters were weighed down by enormous packs of expensive equipment and gear, this band of "braless, blue-jeaned video freaks," as "Newsweek" called them, set out to revolutionize not only how to capture the news, but how to reframe the daily news cycle. With the sensibilities of the underground and cutting-edge consumer video tech, TVTV and a loose global network of video guerrillas spearheaded community-based news, citizen journalism, and democratized media that continue to gain relevance in the run-up to the 2020 presidential conventions.

https://guerrillatv.bampfa.berkeley.edu/

Views & Voices is a series of brief and personal responses to works of art and film by BAMPFA staff from different departments and UC Berkeley students. At a time of distance, these commentaries are designed to bring you closer both to individual people behind BAMPFA and to individual works in our collections. We hope you'll enjoy hearing these personal views. 



Here, BAMPFA Curatorial Assistant Lucia Olubunmi Momoh looks at a compelling photographic portrait—specifically, a carte de visite—of abolitionist, suffragist, and American civil rights icon Sojourner Truth. She discusses the image in relation to Truth's life and work, as well as to contemporary social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. Momoh, who co-chairs BAMPFA’s Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion task force, envisions her professional museum work as an extension of her social and environmental activism.



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