On Doubling: Stretching the Frame

What would it mean to see oneself in a doubled other?

Join us as we sketch the possibilities of “double-consciousness” - a splitting of the Self as a means of subversive visualities. Reaching for the canon of American experimental cinema, William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) is our primary point of refusal. A film about a film. A documentary on a documentary. Symbio invites the viewer to attend to a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park. As multitudes of visions, narrations and perspectives unfold, Symbio cracks the  “auteur” to reveal the inherent ambivalence to filmmaking and spectatorship.

Leaping into the next decade, Barbara Hammer’s Double Strength (1978) reimagines this split from the vantage point of a lesbian relationship. Set against a soundtrack of voiceover and music, Hammer and her then partner and performance collaborator Terry Sendgraff are delineated through photo stills and sequences performed in the trapeze studio, bedroom, and in nature. To see Hammer through the lens of her partner, and to see again in the body double, the work complicates our own relationship with the screen/frame. 

It is the very reckoning with their identities that allows Greaves and Hammer to transgress Minoritarian politics towards a militant utopia. To swing with them is to begin to elaborate  a new topography of the possible.

Content warning: some flashing imagery

Event details:

Door at 6:30pm. Screening starts at 7pm. 

6th February 2026

Finch Cafe, E8 3SD

Tickets are pay-what-you-can on a sliding scale starting at £4. 15% of all ticket sales go to the Medical Aid for Palestine.

Total run time: 95mins + introduction 

Presented by Masha Roshchupkina & Alyssa Li

Poster by @kateford1542

Venue accessibility info: 


Maximum capacity of 45 people.

There is one step at the entrance to the venue, but a ramp is provided.

We have one gender-neutral toilet, however it is not wheelchair accessible.

The venue has dimmable lights, but we do not currently offer a designated quiet space.

Assistance dogs are welcome, just let us know in advance so we can designate enough space.

All screenings will include captions unless expressly stated otherwise.

No hearing loops available.

No designated parking area, but we’d be happy to help you plan your visit ahead of time.