Forging an Alternative Cinema: Sally Dixon, the Film Section, and the Museum-Based Media Center

Historians have discussed experimental media in the 1970s in terms of nontraditional sites of exhibition, such as expanded-cinema happenings and live media events. But less discussed is the widespread effort on the part of US art museums to exhibit avant-garde and independent film as a visual art form, as in MoMA's Cineprobe or the Whitney Museum's New American Filmmakers Series. Curator Sally Dixon contributed to this movement through her influential Film Section (1970–2003) at the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In particular, Dixon's Independent Film Makers (IFM) Series was a monthly event that exhibited experimental films and in-person presentations by visiting artists, including Stan Brakhage, Tony Conrad, and Carolee Schneemann, among others. This article discusses how the Film Section and IFM Series exemplified broader institutional dynamics and global exchanges around 1970s experimental media arts. It examines the notion of the media arts center as a wider rubric that facilitated public funds and infrastructural support for filmmakers based in the art museum and other venues. It also considers the practical challenges and conceptual implications of film presentations in the museum space, and how film was transformed by its comparison to fine art through Dixon's theories of the independent filmmaker as an artisan creating handmade cinema.