The Vladmaster Viewmaster Experience

Overview

Sitting in the dark, immersed in pictures, reading a story into the way they link. That's essentially what you do when you go to the cinema, and it's also what you do when playing with the plastic device known as the View-Master. The dinky red private viewers have apparently been littering toyboxes since 1939.

Now Portland's Vladimir has hijacked the classic toy for art purposes, crafting a narrative you experience click by click. Her Vladmaster Viewmaster Experience — a highlight among the cinematic tangents of the Sydney Film Festival Hub — contains a reel designed, photographed and hand-assembled by the artist. She also turns the usually private View-Master encounter into a public one. Here, you sit down with a 100 similarly adventurous nostalgics and click through together, following the cues from the soundtrack. The event was recently a hit at Melbourne's White Night, where it showed at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

The SFF Hub is not only returning for a third time but expanding its presence at the Town Hall to encompass the Treasury Room upstairs. As well as the View-Masters, this year it's decked out with designer furniture showcasing the legacy of the Eameses, a TITLE pop-up shop, Gelato Messina cart, vintage photo booth and the festival's discount ticket booth. Also featured are talks Altman on Altman (with son Robert Altman) and Eames on Eames (with grandson Eames Demetrios), film trivia, a film critics death match and Hugh Hamilton's Rosebud exhibition of film star portraits.