On view through May 2026 in ATA’s Galleries: short films of legendary video artist Copper Giloth
Copper Giloth, Modeling the Female Body
Also on view:
Ballyoid Cardioids (1979)
Skippy Peanut Butter Jars (1980)
AS I SAID (1980)
Childhood Logic (1980)
Alphabet Song of A Young Girl (1986)
The Red Table (1986)
Modeling the Female Body: A Survey of Computer Generated Women, 1980-1993 (1994)
Gallery hours: 2-5pm on Sundays in May
or, request an appointment to view: alex@atasite.org
Copper Giloth‘s Feminist Computer Art explores a formative decade in the work of artist Copper Giloth, tracing her pioneering contributions to early computer art. After encountering computers while working as a welder in Massachusetts, Giloth pursued graduate study at the University of Illinois Chicago’s groundbreaking Electronic Visualization Lab, becoming part of the first generation of Chicago new media artists. During this period, she also embraced feminist liberation politics, which became central to her emerging artistic approach.
Focusing on the late 1970s through the 1980s, the exhibition highlights Giloth’s experimental integration of video and computer graphics, emphasizing her innovative use of programming as a creative medium. Her works investigate the expressive potential of code, foregrounding elements such as the glitch, repetition, and the generative possibilities of early programming. Through these strategies, Giloth transforms digital systems into sites of visual and conceptual exploration.
Crucially, Giloth’s engagement with emerging technologies constitutes a feminist practice. Working within a field historically dominated by men, she asserts authorship over computational tools while challenging assumptions about gender and technical expertise. Her use of code as an open, generative system resists fixed hierarchies and embraces multiplicity, aligning with feminist commitments to collaboration, process, and the destabilization of authority.
By revisiting this pivotal era, Copper Giloth‘s Feminist Computer Art underscores Giloth’s influential role in shaping the language of early computer art and affirms the lasting impact of feminist perspectives within technological practice.
–Helena Shaskevich,
Artists' Television Access
Weekly Newsletter
Coming Up This Month
Monday, May 25, 2026, 7:30 pm, classic-editor
Rewards Program
Wednesday, May 27, 2026, 6:00 pm, classic-editor
SF DocFest: Atomic Ed and the Black Hole & Gibtown
Atomic Ed & the Black Hole tells the story of a scientist-turned-atomic junk collector known as Atomic Ed. More than 30 years ago, Ed quit his job making “better” atomic bombs and he began collecting what he calls “nuclear waste,” non-radioactive high-tech discards from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. As the self-appointed curator of an unofficial museum of the nuclear age called “The Black Hole,” Atomic Ed reveals and preserves a history of government waste that was literally thrown in a trash heap. -2001 SF DocFest Catalog (Filmmaker Ellen Spiro expected to attend)
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Gibtown
The award-winning documentary Gibtown chronicles the unique town of Gibsonton, Florida and its remarkable inhabitants, and touches upon the common chords of human experience that bind all communities together. The film focuses on intimate personal stories of its aging subjects and captures many of their last documented performances and interviews, preserving this quickly fading facet of American culture for generations to come.
Tickets: Here
Wednesday, May 27, 2026, 8:15 pm, classic-editor
SF DocFest: Plaster Caster
One rock ‘n’ roll legend (or legendary footnote) determined not to just fade away, supergroupie Cynthia Plaster Caster notoriously began making sculptural molds of rock stars’ private parts some 35 years ago. These days she’s a middle-aged Chicagoan who calls said objets d’art “my sweet babies,” and keeps adding to the litter as an unreconstructed indie rock fan.
Cynthia — her real last name is off-limits lest a still-oblivious octogenarian mother find out just what she’s been up to — has spent intervening years since her late ’60s/early ’70s “glory days” as a humble office worker. But pic chronicles her recent return to, ahem, her roots; she’s quit dayjobbing and is prepping for a first-ever public exhibit of her oeuvre at an New York City art gallery.
Punkily youthful in her presumed early 50s, Cynthia recently won a drawn-out court battle to reclaim early anatomical statuettes from the erstwhile friend to whom she’d once entrusted them for safekeeping. With “babies” back in mama’s care, she’s trying to turn groupie infamy into a viable rent-paying career.
Though she wasn’t the sole original “Chicago Plaster Caster,” Cynthia was the one with the idea (which led her to lose virginity to Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders, she says), and former comrades have chosen not to maintain or admit that identity in later life. In their heyday, the Plaster Casters “did” everyone from Jimi Hendrix (a man of truly “epic” dimensions, as bronzed posterity attests) to Anthony Newley. Cynthia had standards, though. She refused purported entreaties from Kiss guitarist Gene Simmons, whom she thought “a jerk.” (He wrote a song called “Plaster Caster” anyway.) Frank Zappa actually contributed funds as a bemused “patron of the arts.”
In more recent years, Cynthia has “cast” punk stars including Pete Shelley (the Buzzcocks), Jon Langford (the Mekons), Jello Biafra (the Dead Kennedys) and one-man-band Momus, aka Nick Currie — all of whom are duly interviewed here. We also see the skittish — on both sides — preparations for personal historic preservation made by current underground faves Bill of SubPop retro-instrumentalists 5ive Style and the rather cretinous Danny of Demolition Doll Rods.
Other commentators tapped include early subjects Noel Redding (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), Eric Burdon (The Animals) and Wayne Kramer (MC5); plus art-world pundits as well as academe Camille Paglia, who credits Cynthia with enlightening her to “rock music as a pagan form” of primitive-orgiastic expression.
-Dennis Harvey, Variety, June 22, 2001 reviewed from SF DocFest 2001
Filmmaker Jeff Economy expected to attend.
Tickets: Here
Saturday, May 30, 2026, 1:30 pm, classic-editor
Right Window Closing Reception: Ivan Sokolov’s The Stars Above The Stars Below The Stars
Poetry reading by Joni Prince, Maria Malinovskaya & Jean Day.
Saturday, May 30, 2026, 8:00 pm, classic-editor
OC: AVANT TO LIVE; NEW EXPERIMENTAL WORKS
SEASON-ENDING SPECTACULAR!! A Double-Header of local Experimental Works, including 3 Live Performances! Here’s an hour-plus primo block of hand-processed, compilation, and live-action premieres…AND a complementary hour module of new Animation! In the Baldwin-curated half: Renwick, Quillian, Scobie, Boyce, Street, Vanderlip, Buchanan, Couey, McClain, Talamantes, Thompson, and Martin…ALSO: An equally impressive roster of animators, making up almost half of this season’s NEW: Pixilators Jeremy Rourke and Anna Firth in fact co-curated this expansive overview…and each with their own new work: Jeremy’s Three Tones in this Room and Anna‘s Send That. As to their Selections, most from local art schools: Law‘s live performance Spoon Echoes Shell, Montiny‘s Apple of my Eye, Wilson‘s Drip, Chu-Jacoby‘s We’ll Be Okay, Castanon-Hill‘s Grito, Shu‘s Smoky Tasty. PLUS Tommy Becker’s live performance De-Escalation Tactics, the special revival of Sally Cruickshank‘s Quasi at the Quackadero, and free pencils! $15
Sunday, May 31, 2026, 7:00 pm, classic-editor
TINAFF (This is Not a Film Festival): Program 3
This is Not a Film Festival (also know as TINAFF) is a monthly recurring film showcase, allowing local Bay Area filmmakers, artists and creatives to gather, connect, and present their work. No submission fees, no awards, no gatekeeping. Our goal is to provide a space where truly independent films can be shared and enjoyed the way they’re meant to be; with a live audience.
Program:
ReCapture (06:50)
A Cyborg man has an existential breakdown as he grapples with the organic and synthetic side of his existence.
Directed by Craig Smith
Sometimes in the Morning (05:27)
Two strangers cross paths. Directed by Omar Matias
Dreaming of Carhartt (09:00)
When a man gets a new Carhartt jacket, he finds confidence but loses himself. Directed by Tariq Stone
Fuel (20:00)
When two friends return in his life, an anxious and reluctant drug dealer (Vic) must find a way to escape his life of
crime before the lives of his family and friends are threatened. Directed by Noah Abel
Genieology (06:00)
A man on a hike discovers a genie lamp and grapples with the age-old question: what would you wish for if you had a
genie? Directed by Mani Sachdeva
Filial Economy (3:12)
Filial Economy combines TV clips, news footage, memes, and personal artifacts to explore how Chinese
Confucianism frames the parent-child relationship through moral and financial obligation. Directed by Y.S. Lau
Gnobert (04:57)
Gnobert is a gnome who lives in a stump and works in a tree. This short animated mockumentary gives a peek into
the world of gnomes, who might be the very reason why you can never find that other sock. Also, Gnobert’s having
an existential crisis. Directed by Diana Reyimjan
INTERMISSION 15 MIN.
Play Date (05:27)
A mother’s desire to make sense of a well-intentioned school play date results in an unfortunate chain reaction.
Directed by Chesi Ho
Burns like a Shot (07:00)
When her best friend accidentally drinks her truth serum, a driven young scientist must reverse the effects before the
unfiltered honesty between them burns down everything they’ve never said to each other.Directed by Chandonae Baskin
My Precious Child (10:00)
Directed by Ian Anderson
Gumboy (03:20)
Directed by Fabrice Ducouret
Tethered (17:54)
When a late-night confrontation exposes betrayal and emotional warfare within her relationship, a young woman must
decide whether to choose her unknown freedom, or stay bound to the familiar toxic love that is slowly suffocating her.
Directed by Miyoni Nelson
Troubled Conexxxions (05:41)
A black disabled phone sex operator has a zany session with a white client. Directed by E’Niyah Wilson
Autumn (09:50)
When a reserved teenager is caught by his friends while presenting as a woman, he must deice whether to retreat
into secrecy or accept who he really is. Directed by Brynn Casto
TOTAL RUNTIME: 2 HOURS
About Artists' Television Access
Artists' Television Access is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) artist-run
screening venue and gallery located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission
District. ATA is supported in part by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel
Tax Fund, The Christensen Fund, individuals members, donors and volunteers.
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA: Join ATA as a member and receive exciting gifts, including the 2008 DVD compilation, T-shirts, and free admission to screenings and more! Artists on the 2008 DVD compilation include: Yin-Ju Chen, Mike Rollo, Marthaxiv, Sam Manera, Wago Kreider, Federico Campanale, Paul Clipson and Carl Diehl. http://www.atasite.org/membership/
How to Reach Us:
Artists' Television Access
992 Valencia Street (at 21st)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 824-3890
ata@atasite.org
Gallery is open before and after screenings for viewing.
Screenings start at 8pm unless otherwise noted.
Directions: Take Bart to 24th Street Mission. Walk 1 block east to Valencia and 3 blocks north. ATA is located between 21st and 20th Streets.