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  • A movie projector shining its light through a swirling mist
  • People wearing VR headsets, sitting in front of a southwest landscape backdrop
  • silhouette of a person standing in front of a wall with colorful lights and multi-colored wheels

The Cinema Arts Program

Established in 1983, Cinema Arts at the Exploratorium has defied expectations by focusing on artist-made and independent cinema at the crossroads of art and science.

Throughout 2023, the Exploratorium will present a special series of curated screenings, public events, and immersive filmmaking experiences celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Cinema Arts. The series will acknowledge Cinema Arts’ history, pay tribute to the accomplished filmmakers who over the decades helped ferment the program’s innovative direction, and showcase and amplify the voices and visions of a new generation of curators and emerging interdisciplinary/media artists.

Approaching movies as an active experience, Cinema Arts sees the projection screen as a portal to investigation. We engage with filmmakers who create works that inspire the imagination and instigate conversation. Animation, documentary, poetic observations, and abstract visuals serve a broad spectrum of curious audiences while blending the methods and aesthetics of artists and scientists. Through our programming, we create a space for deep observation and provide an opportunity for visitors to explore compelling people, places, and ideas that extend through the museum and beyond.

 

Help us celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Exploratorium’s groundbreaking Cinema Arts program.

 

Our collection of films and events offer a rich resource for public audiences, and also provide an important research collection for both our teaching programs and exhibit development teams.

 

Upcoming Events

Apr
6

Gilded monstera leaves against a black background. Event: After Dark 4-6-2023
After Dark: Vitality

Thursday, April 6, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.

Spring is in swing and new life is popping up everywhere. Tonight, be inspired by flora in our ¡Plantásticas! exhibition and enjoy a life-giving cabaret of art and science with the Gold Beams Social Club.

Apr
8

Photo of a dahlia
Saturday Cinema: Floral Prints

Saturday, April 8, 2023 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. Screenings | 2:00 p.m. Plant Printmaking Workshop

Enter a whimsical world of flowers brought to life through the cinematic lens. In between screenings, get hands on with plants by creating a plant print using screen-printing techniques.

Apr
20

Black and white sketch of a tule boat. Event: After Dark 4-20-2023
After Dark: Landscape Is Homeland

Thursday, April 20, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.

Celebrate Earth Day as we honor our landscape’s original care keepers and explore the complex bonds that Indigenous communities have with the land that gave birth to them.

Past Events

A flock of birds circles a figure standing on a flight of stairs. Event: After Dark 3-9-2023
After Dark: Integrating Ecologies

Thursday, March 9, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.

Where do the boundaries between the built and natural worlds blur? Explore how we can meaningfully integrate them into one ecology, and enjoy a special screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes.

A figure is silhouetted in front of a colorful display of projected light. Event: After Dark 3-2-2023
After Dark: Extended Cinemas

Thursday, March 2, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.

The passive act of watching turns to listening, peering, touching, and interacting as Exploratorium Cinema Arts takes over museum spaces to provide experiences created by artists and filmmakers from the Bay Area and beyond.

Still image from Luminae by Dominic Angerame
Saturday Cinema: Shimmering Phenomena

Saturday, January 28, 2023 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.

Animated and abstract short films shimmer in the theater’s darkness to conjure luminous worlds, both kinetic and contemplative.

Still from the short film Light Year by Paul Clipson
Saturday Cinema: Luminous Landscapes

Saturday, January 14, 2023 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.

Animated and abstract short films shimmer in the theater’s darkness to conjure luminous worlds, both kinetic and contemplative.

Still from the short film White Out by Jeffrey Scher
Saturday Cinema: Gleaming Worlds

Saturday, December 10, 2022 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.

Animated and abstract short films shimmer in the theater’s darkness to conjure luminous worlds, both kinetic and contemplative.

Still image from the short film Con Brio by Sandra Eber
Saturday Cinema: Let Your Light Shine

Saturday, December 3, 2022 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.

Animated and abstract short films shimmer in the theater’s darkness to conjure luminous worlds, both kinetic and contemplative.

Still from the short film Twyla Tharp by Kathleen Quillian
Saturday Cinema: Radiance

Saturday, November 19, 2022 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.

Animated and abstract short films shimmer in the theater’s darkness to conjure luminous worlds, both kinetic and contemplative.

Film still from Attraction by Emily Scaife
Glow Cinema: Illuminated Frames

Thursday, November 17, 2022–Sunday, January 29, 2023

The dimmed atmosphere of the microcinema sets the perfect scene to luxuriate in these abstract, transportive, and luminescent motion pictures.

Still image from the animated short film Please Press One Key of a man riding a bicycle in the sky.
Saturday Cinema: The Art of Tinkering
With Artist Joyce Cheng in Person

Saturday, September 3, 2022 • 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.

An array of animated and kinetic short films explore the inventive ways that amateurs, artists, and tinkerers manipulate the moving image in surprising and/or captivating ways.

In a Manual Cinema production of Hansel and Gretel, two silhouetted figures approach a house in the woods.
Multimedia Shadow Play
With Manual Cinema

Tuesday, August 9–Sunday, August 14, 2022

Create your own form of live cinema in an installation designed by Emmy Award–winning Manual Cinema.

A person casts the shadows of a forest on white canvas using a light source and small model trees.
Facing West Shadows: Phantasmagoria
With Facing West Shadows

Saturday, July 30, 2022 • 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 31, 2022 • 2:00 p.m.

Join us for the premiere of Facing West Shadows: Phantasmagoria, a live, multimedia, shadow-theater opera inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Robber Bridegroom.”

Team Spain stands above a table of Lego robots at the World Robot Olympiad in the documentary short Me and My Robot.
Saturday Cinema: Me & My Robot
With Filmmaker Mark Decena

Saturday, July 16, 2022 • 1:00 p.m. PT

In celebration of our summer exhibition The Art of Tinkering, we are pleased to be joined by filmmaker Mark Decena for the Bay Area theatrical premiere Me & My Robot, which documents the 2018 World Robot Olympiad in Thailand.

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For questions about the Exploratorium Cinema Arts Program, please contact us at:
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