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Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son + Introduction

Open City Documentary Festival

,Cinema 3
A pig

Ken Jacobs’ 1969 structural film classic created from found footage, including the 1905 original, is a masterful investigation of perception itself. 

As a prologue to the retrospective Seeing Through Film: Ken and Flo Jacobs, this film includes the 1905 original from Billy Bitzer (D. W. Griffith’s cinematographer). 

One of the 3,000 movies made between 1896 and 1912 it only exists today because it was deposited at the Library of Congress as a paper print. 

Through various filmic manipulations, Jacobs transformed this 10-minute film into a two-hour study of filmmaking, vision and composition. 

Here Tom, Tom, the Pipers Son  (1905) “is most reverently examined” and becomes central to this masterpiece of found footage cinema and represents a turning point in Jacobs’ film work, refocusing his attention to investigating perception itself.

With an introduction by Mark Webber (The Visible Press).

Tagged with: Cinema Young Barbican Experiments in Film

Part of our ongoing series Experiments in Film. 

Mark Webber is an independent curator of artists’ film and video who has been responsible for screenings and events at institutions including Tate Modern, National Film Theatre, ICA, Barbican Centre and Raven Row (London), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Kunsthalle Basel, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Melbourne), the Brisbane, Rotterdam and Oberhausen film festivals and many other international museums, art centres and festivals.

Film information
  • Release year   1969
  • Country of origin   USA
  • Director   Ken Jacobs
  • Runtime   1hr 55mins

Bio

One of the American avant-garde’s most prolific figures, Ken Jacobs (1933-2025) enthusiastically embraced digital filmmaking in the late 1990s. From the monumental Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son to his Nervous Magic Lantern performances and more recent digital and 3D explorations, Jacobs was an artist whose work is an uncompromised declaration of love for cinema. An activist and a teacher as well as a filmmaker, Jacobs was an integral part of the New York alternative film scene since the 1950s. In 1966, together with his wife Flo, he established the legendary Millennium Film Workshop. Jacobs was also the co-founder – with Larry Gottheim – of one of the USA’s first cinema departments at SUNY Binghamton, where he taught for several decades, influencing subsequent generations of filmmakers and artists such as Phil Solomon, Mark LaPore, J. Hoberman, Art Spiegelman and Lee Ranaldo.

The retrospective Seeing Through Film: Ken and Flo Jacobs at Open City Documentary Festival 2026 celebrates the work and lives of Ken and Flo Jacobs, who both passed away in 2025. It coincides with the publication of I Walked Into My Shortcomings, an anthology of Jacobs’ writings edited by William Rose for The Visible Press.

Cinema 3

Location
Barbican Cinema 1 is located within the main Barbican building on Level -2. Head to Level G and walk towards the Lakeside Terrace where you’ll find stairs and lifts to take you down to the venue floor.   

Address
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS

Public transport
The Barbican is widely accessible by bus, tube, train and by foot or bicycle. Plan your journey and find more route information in ‘Your Visit’ or book your car parking space in advance.