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Phallic/Image

In the early 1990s in San Francisco Jack Davis and Keith Hennessy, supported by musician Jules Beckman, facilitated a series of ritual workshops for men called Phallic/Image. During the bleakest years of the AIDS pandemic, Phallic/Image was an exploration of the different ways that men could be sexual with each other. It was part of a wave of queer and gay male sex and intimacy events that nurtured male-male sexuality as beautiful, healing, generative, and holy.
Phallic/Image was naked, hands on, affordable, and open to all men.

This video documents a Phallic/Image ritual workshop in San Francisco in 1991.

  • Keith Hennessy
    Director
  • Jack Davis
    Director
  • Keith Hennessy
    Producer
  • Jack Davis
    Producer
  • Circo Zero
    Producer
    Sara (the smuggler)
  • Keith Hennessy
    Key Cast
  • Jack Davis
    Key Cast
  • Jules Beckman
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes 33 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 13, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    2,800 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Hi 8 video (1991)
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • Contact the directors info@circozero.org
Director Biography - Keith Hennessy, Jack Davis

Keith Hennessy, MFA, PhD, is a dancer, writer, choreographer, activist, and ritualist. Raised in Canada, living in San Francisco since 1982, he tours internationally. His performances engage improvisation, ritual, and protest as tools for investigating political realities. Prioritizing relationships, Hennessy experiments with queer and decolonial practices of intimacy, healing, touch, negotiation, and collaboration. Awards include Guggenheim, USArtist, NY Bessie, Sui Generis, and a few Bay Area Izzies.

Jack Davis is a visual artist, activist, seamstress, producer, teacher, caregiver, priestess, ritualist, witch, faggot, radical faerie, and a drag queen. He works in the intersection of radical queer politics, art, fashion, performance and ritual. His iconography includes antlers, faggots, pink triangles and pearl necklaces. He has dedicated his life to naked men dancing blindfolded.

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