Craig Baldwin

Craig Baldwin
Craig Baldwin in 2015
Born	1952 (age 71–72) Oakland, California
Occupation	Filmmaker
Notable work	Tribulation 99,Mock Up on Mu

Craig Baldwin(born 1952) is an Americanexperimental filmmaker.He usesfound footagefrom the fringes of popular consciousness as well as images from themass mediato undermine and transform the traditional documentary, infusing it with the energy of high-speed montage and a provocative commentary that targets subjects fromintellectual property rightsto rampantconsumerism.

Early life

Craig Gartrel Baldwin was born inOakland, California.He grew up the youngest child in a middle-class family inCarmichael.During high school, he became interested inBeatnikculture. He went tounderground filmscreenings and started filming with aSuper 8 camera.

Baldwin attended college atUniversity of California at Davis.There, he took film classes through the theatre department and began collecting films. He was also politically active as a student. Baldwin left UC Davis in the early 1970s and later attended theUniversity of California at Santa Barbara.

Career

Early activities (1976–1990)

Baldwin made hisSuper 8 filmStolen Moviein 1976 by running into movie theaters and filming the screen. He made his next short film,Flick Skin,while working at porn theaters. Baldwin made his 1978 filmWild Gunman,a critical look at the figure of theMarlboro Man,using clips from the1974 Nintendo arcade game of the same name,as well as B-movies and advertisements obtained fromgrindhouses.

In 1984, Baldwin moved toSan Francisco's Mission Districtand contributed to the founding ofArtists' Television AccessIn 1987, he started his long-running Other Cinema series at the space.In 1986, Baldwin earned an M.A. fromSan Francisco State University.It was there that he first became interested incollage filmduring his studies withBruce Conner.

It was during this period that Baldwin started amassing a large collection of film works, many of which were discarded by institutions moving over toVHS.He drew from this collection for his 1986 filmRocketKitKongoKit,which narrates theCIA's role in establishingMobutu Sese Seko'smilitary dictatorshipinZaire(now theDR Congo) and the history of rocket testing there by a German weapons manufacturer. It often visually re-enacts the story with loosely associated footage, such as cartoons,industrial films,orscience fiction films.Like many of Baldwin's later works,RocketKitKongoKitused documentary techniques not to present an authoritative history but to counter official histories by presenting alternative histories and blurring the boundaries between them.

An early proponent ofculture jamming,Baldwin has altered billboards with political messages and has documented the work of theBillboard Liberation Frontthrough the 1990s.

Mid-career work (1991–2000)

Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America(1991) is an account of CIA intervention in developing countries (as well as a critique of paranoid conspiracy theories) presented in the form of apseudo-documentarythat recounts the history of an alien occupation ofLatin Americain 99 brief ramblings.J. HobermanputTribulation 99as #3 on his list of the ten best films 1991–2000.

Baldwin's¡O No Coronado!(1992) is a retelling of the invasion of the American southwest byFrancisco Vázquez de Coronadoin the mid-16th century. It was his first film to include original live-action footage. His next film,Sonic Outlaws,spotlights theConcord-based bandNegativland,which was sued in 1991 byU2over a parodysound collageit had made. Baldwin's film chronicles that case along with various activist groups working forcopyright reform.

Baldwin's 1999 filmSpectres of the Spectrumis a science fiction allegory that tells the story of a young woman with telepathic powers who travels back in time to save the world from an electro-magnetic pulse. The film takes a cautionary stance against the media outlets in charge of creating and perpetuating the popular mainstream, and in doing so, follows the trajectory, through collage, of media from its beginnings to the present. In 2000 Baldwin received the Moving ImageCreative CapitalAward.

Later work (2001–present)

Baldwin in 2012

Baldwin established Other Cinema Digital in 2003 to provide distribution for films by independent, underground, and experimental filmmakers. In 2005 the label partnered withFacets Videoto distribute a series of works on DVD.

In 2008, Baldwin createdMock Up on Mu,a fictional story based heavily on real facts of the lives ofL. Ron Hubbard,Marjorie Cameron,Aleister Crowley,andJack Parsons.Mostly assembled from found footage,Mock Up on Muincludes more original live-action footage than in earlier projects.

Baldwin has taught at UC Davis andUC Berkeley.Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live!,a 2023 book published bySan Francisco Cinemathequeand INCITE, surveys his work and career.

Filmography

• Stolen Movie(1976)
• Flick Skin(1977)
• Wild Gunman(1978)
• RocketKitKongoKit(1986)
• Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America(1991)
• ¡O No Coronado!(1992)
• Sonic Outlaws(1995)
• Spectres of the Spectrum(1999)
• Mock Up on Mu(2009)

External links

• Craig BaldwinatIMDb
• Other Cinema
• Profile of Baldwin on Flicker
• Profile of Baldwin at Disinformation
• Who Owns the Airwaves?
• Video Interview with Baldwin at Cargo Magazine
• Interview with Craig Baldwin