John Sanborn Movies

A short survey of the small-gauge narrative film, beginning with the Kuchars' Sylvia's Promise (1962). Primarily focused on East Coast artists, the...

A live adaptation of art rock band The Residents' 1988 concept album about a disgraced evangelist and his obsession with gender-fluid conjoined twins.

Commissioned for the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York, Olympic Fragments is a taut, expressive reinterpretation of athletic...

Short film by John Sanborn

Abstract video art by John Sanborn and Dean Winkler. Dedicated to Ed Emshwiller.

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...

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...

The Surrealist, "Exquisite Corpse" was a French Café parlor game. "Exquisite Moving Corpse" is more of an artist chain letter. 60 artists...

A video memoir in which artist John Sanborn explores the seismic artistic upheaval wrought by three great artists: John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Nam...

A sequel to Ear to the Ground, Ear-Responsibility finds avant-garde percussionist David Van Tieghem roaming the streets of New York, discovering the...

Italian video producer Magmart asked me to participate in their F.I.V.E. project - a collection of 25 artists exploring the five senses. This series...

Endance is a witty take-off of a public television documentary. Choreographer Tim Buckley solemnly discusses his life, work, and decision to stop...

With HOW TO FLY, Bowes abandoned plot entirely, finding other forms of structure. He wanted to show that stories do not have to obsessively organize...

In Ear to the Ground, David Van Tieghem uses the city of Manhattan as his musical instrument, playing the surfaces of the sidewalks, buildings and...

Sister Suzie Cinema is a fantasy about fantasies - about the way movies, music and other cultural artifacts shape what we feel.

Abstract video art set to the music of Philip Glass.

Employing single-frame edits from broadcast television, the artists construct a rapid-fire media barrage of sound and image.

Conceived & Performed by David Van Tieghem, Produced & Directed by John Sanborn, 1979

Buried inside the epic American opera for television, “Perfect Lives” are the boogie-woogie lessons being sold by Buddy to untalented...

Commercial for spray-on video