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A warmly lit indoor gymnasium with a polished wooden floor and basketball hoops mounted on the walls. In the center, a small vintage film projector sits on a wooden stool, casting long shadows across the floor. Around it, several tall white panels stand upright in a semicircle, each with a doorway cut out, creating a maze-like installation. Sunlight streams in from high windows, adding a soft, cinematic glow to the scene.

Artist Talk by Bill Brand On His Piece "Pong Ping Pong"

Tuesday, April 7, 2026
6:00 pm
121 Peabody Hall
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This event, at 6pm in Peabody Hall room 121, is an artist talk by Bill Brand following the screening of his film "Pong Ping Pong" at 5pm in Sawyer Hall.

In 1971, while studying at Antioch College, artist and filmmaker Bill Brand created a custom device to transform the cinema into a 360-degree experience. A custom turntable swings and rotates a 16mm film around a circular ring of screens.

The film features a ping pong game captured by a camera set on the same device that slowly circles the players. The result is an activated audience experience that inverts the spaces of cinema and reveals the circular nature of film itself. In 1972, this project came to Western College for Women in Sawyer Gymnasium.

This spring, Brand returns to Oxford for the fourth restaging of this important artwork, in conjunction with the exhibition Rooted Here: Networks of Modern and Contemporary Art. Pong Ping Pong will then tour to Columbus and Pittsburgh!

This artist talk will also be livestreamed. Use this link to register for the livestream.

This talk is arranged in conjunction with the exhibition Rooted Here: Networks of Modern and Contemporary Art and is generously supported by The Western Center for Social Impact and Innovation; The Department of Art; The Department of Media, Journalism, and Film; The Humanities Center; and The Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum.

Bill Brand
Bill Brand
Artist