I Walked Into My ­Shortcomings: 
Book presentation and homage to Ken and Flo Jacobs

Two key figures of US experimental film were lost with the passing of Ken and Flo Jacobs in 2025. After an event held in their memory during this year’s Forum Expanded, we will pay tribute to them once again on the occasion of a recent book publication.

Ken Jacobs was not only one of the most prolific and inquisitive figures of the US film avant-garde, but also a gifted, incisive and exceptionally witty writer whose texts spanned a range of registers. Whether programs, reviews, commentaries on global politics or texts related to his role as a professor Binghamton University, New York, his profound, often mischievous and sometimes relentlessly biting writings are as knowledgeable, surprising and ambiguous as his films. "Ken Jacobs: I Walked Into My Shortcomings" (The Visible Press 2026, ed. William Rose) now offers, for the first time, a comprehensive insight into this side of the artist, bringing together not only the writings of Ken Jacobs but also interviews with him and Flo Jacobs.

Over two evenings, London-based curator and publisher Mark Webber will introduce the book and present a film program curated from the Arsenal collection. It will feature films from different periods of Ken Jacobs' career that were created in close collaboration with Flo. (Ulrich Ziemons)