This course will provide an historical survey of avant-garde cinema, concentrating on the major tendencies within this tradition. Topics presented will include dada and surrealist films, the camera as metaphor for the eye, structural film and expanded cinema, the filmmaker as poet, found-footage filmmaking, cinema and sexuality, abstract filmmaking multiple projection/installation, as well as cross-genre practices. Work by filmmakers such as: Hans Richter, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Shirley Clark, Kenneth Anger, George Kuchar, Martha Colburn, Peggy Ahwesh, Jack Smith and Craig Baldwin will be presented. The course will also explore various techniques, concepts and means of production employed by experimental filmmakers and should be of particular interest for students who wish to work outside the traditional mode of narrative filmmaking. The class will consist primarily of screenings and discussions about the work viewed and the context in which it was produced but will also provide a forum for discussion of the practical aspects of being a practicing film artist within the film community.