An Evening with Tiffany Shlain: Filmmaker, Author, and Webby Award Founder

Tiffany Shlain’s string of impressive successes began with a failure. As an ambitious new graduate of UC-Berkeley and winner of a prestigious Cal award for her creative achievements, she set out to make a feature-length movie. With a crew of volunteers and money from family, friends, and her three part-time jobs, she started filming Zoli’s Brain. The plot unfolds inside the brain of a sculptor who suffers from “sculpting block.” She never finished it.

Fast forward some 35 years: Shlain is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose many short films have won 65 awards; been viewed more than 50 million times; and are shown in theaters, on television, and on streaming services. She also is an accomplished, multi-disciplinary artist and a bestselling author. Along the way, she founded the Webby Awards, which honor excellence on the internet; she was named one of Newsweek’s Women Shaping the 21st Century; and she gave the main  commencement address at her alma mater.

“Taking many creative risks over the years,” says Shlain,  “I always feel like I’m envisioning a mountain I want to build, inviting people to join me in building it, and finally enjoying the view with them from the top when it’s done.”

In an illustrated talk at Arts & Culture on Wednesday, December 3, Shlain will trace the arc of her fascinating career, from the low point of Zoli’s Brain to the upper ranks of technology, film, and art. 

Tickets for this program are $5 for club members and students and $10 for non-members. Please register early so we can be sure to accommodate everyone comfortably. 

Shlain also will introduce us to her iconoclastic tree-ring sculptures, cross sections of trees, large and small, with her engraved captions on their rings. Inspired by dendrochronology, the science of tree-ring dating, the sculptures are her version of the tree-ring timelines often displayed in national parks. One of her best known is which highlights 32 milestones in women’s history. It was installed temporarily on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2023 and in Madison Square Park in New York City for a Mobilization for Women's Rights and the Planet in September 2024.

is an exhibit by Shlain and her husband and frequent collaborator, Ken Goldberg, artist and UC Berkeley professor of robotics. It will open January 20 at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in San Francisco and features six tree-ring sculptures — including Dendrofemonology. “The exhibit reimagines our past and collective futures,” Shlain explains, “and re-examines human narratives and their relationship to nature.” It debuted in Los Angeles last year, part of the Getty’s Art & Science Collide event.

 Shlain also is a writer. Her award-winning book, encourages people to give up their screens one day a week “to get more time, creativity, and connection.” One reviewer praised it as “a useful and much-needed guide to turning the clock back to a less frazzled, pre-internet, pre-smartphone day." In addition, she has been publishing an online newsletter, Breakfast @ Tiffany’s, for 29 years. Read by people in 108 countries, it includes her thoughts, current projects, and recommendations for art exhibits, films, events, and books. 

Invite your family and friends to meet this modern Renaissance woman!

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Berkeley City Club