John Sanborn

Movies

In C, Too
Director
"In C, Too" illuminates how close our dreams are to a common reality. Through structured visual improvisational techniques, the work explores how humanity survives because of our imagination and desire to transcend. "In C, Too" is also an origin story, operating in renunciation to mortality, focused on life's essentials - existence, exploration and how entropy ignites evolution.
Exquisite Moving Corpse
Director
The Surrealist, "Exquisite Corpse" was a French Café parlor game. "Exquisite Moving Corpse" is more of an artist chain letter. 60 artists participated over a two-year period, beginning in March 2020. Each invited artist made a one minute video in response to the last frame of the previous minute.
Triple Trouble
Associate Producer
In the year 2023, following the death of Randy Rose, the lead singer of The Residents, his son Randy Junior discovers that his father's ashes have been stolen and listed for sale on eBay by a mysterious culprit. While investigating, Junior discovers the footage for the group's unfinished feature film Vileness Fats in a foot locker in his mother's basement.
ALLoT (A Long List of Things)
Writer
Director John Sanborn attends his 40th high school reunion with a film crew to interview former classmates and gain a measure of closure on some open-ended chapters in his life.
ALLoT (A Long List of Things)
Director
Director John Sanborn attends his 40th high school reunion with a film crew to interview former classmates and gain a measure of closure on some open-ended chapters in his life.
PICO (reMIX)
Director
A video memoir in which artist John Sanborn explores the seismic artistic upheaval wrought by three great artists: John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Nam June Paik, celebrating the ways each artist challenged assumptions about what defines an artist, art, and the relationship of creator to audience.
Awakening from the 20th Century
"Awakening from the 20th Century" contends with the collision between the actual and the virtual in the city of San Francisco. "Is life becoming virtual?" Lord asks. "Are we witnessing the end of the City? Will the computer replace the automobile?" These questions are taken up by six prominent writers, musicians, and multi-media workers, who describe their own shifting relationships to technology and public space within the city. Awakening from the 20th Century is structured around imagery from several San Francisco sites: the broadcast transmission tower Sutro Tower; "Critical Mass," an activist bicycle event; and locations from the Dashiel Hammet Walking Tour, which are interspersed with scenes from The Maltese Falcon.
Theology
Associate Producer
Computer animation that follows a mysterious egg, directed by art pop musician Todd Rundgren. 3 years of production for 3 mins of animation.
The Eyes Scream: A History of the Residents
Director
This documentary is a history of The Residents hosted by Penn & Teller. It contains excerpts from most of their videos and some are in their complete form. It also contains the complete "Don't Be Cruel" video, their performance of "From the Plains to Mexico" and "Teddy Bear" on Night Music, and other TV appearances.
Infinite Escher
Story
A boy travels through the world of M.C. Escher.
Infinite Escher
Director
A boy travels through the world of M.C. Escher.
Luminare
Writer
Abstract video art by John Sanborn and Dean Winkler. Dedicated to Ed Emshwiller.
Luminare
Director
Abstract video art by John Sanborn and Dean Winkler. Dedicated to Ed Emshwiller.
Perfect Lives
Visual Effects Editor
An opera for television by Robert Ashley. Set in the American Midwest, it is “about” bank robbery, cocktail lounges, geriatric love, adolescent elopement, the changing of the light at sundown, et al. One of the definitive text-sound compositions of the late 20th century, it has been called "the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s".
Perfect Lives
Camera Operator
An opera for television by Robert Ashley. Set in the American Midwest, it is “about” bank robbery, cocktail lounges, geriatric love, adolescent elopement, the changing of the light at sundown, et al. One of the definitive text-sound compositions of the late 20th century, it has been called "the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s".
Perfect Lives
Director
An opera for television by Robert Ashley. Set in the American Midwest, it is “about” bank robbery, cocktail lounges, geriatric love, adolescent elopement, the changing of the light at sundown, et al. One of the definitive text-sound compositions of the late 20th century, it has been called "the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s".
Renaissance
Director
Created in 1984 for the opening of the Computer Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. By Dean Winkler and John Sanborn. Music by Jamaaladen Tacuma.
ACT III
Director
Abstract video art set to the music of Philip Glass.
The Super-8 Show: Beyond Home Movies
Director
A short survey of the small-gauge narrative film, beginning with the Kuchars' Sylvia's Promise (1962). Primarily focused on East Coast artists, the work of Eric Mitchell, Manuel DeLanda and Ericka Beckman is highlighted.
Black & White
Director
Employing single-frame edits from broadcast television, the artists construct a rapid-fire media barrage of sound and image.
Resolution of the Eye
Director
This work explores perception, time and memory, based on the concept that "science has yet to determine the actual resolution of the eye." Using time-lapse, slow dissolves, and ghostly, ephemeral images, the artists manipulate linear time and dimensionality. Evoking subconscious memory, Remains Vivid recalls childhood experiences through use of the "after-image," while Over/Time subtly transposes physical and temporal distance as contrasting, equally resonant landscapes. POV explores the subjective eye versus the camera eye, and the nature of artistic creation. Using a split-screen technique, Similar Nature dissects the activities of four people in a study of time, motion, and simultaneity of gesture. Sax and Violins is a conflation of sound and fragmented image in which the musicians perform separately and are brought together only in the post-production process.
Group Portrait: Six Artists in Video
Self
This is a documentary about video artists Bill & Louise Etra, Woody & Steina Vasulka, and Kit Fitzgerald & John Sanborn.