By Molly Sheridan

Thurs., July 1

A lot of people define themselves by the media they consume. They drop references to favorite albums, books and movies into their conversations and their blog posts at every opportunity. Freud would have connected this to sex; Jung, to personality types. The Film-Makers' Cooperative summer benefit concert might be a good place to take a new Friendster connection who lists avant-garde film, performance art and Philip Glass among his or her likes.

The star lineup really does include a solo piano performance by Philip Glass, who will provide a score to Harry Smith's film Early Abstractions. Lee Ranaldo, Tim Barnes, the Michael Gordon Band and Rebecca Moore's Prevention of Blindness round out the minimalist/experimental musical talent on hand. They're scheduled to add live accompaniment to a few films drawn from the Film-Makers' collection by artists such as Joel Schlemowitz and Bill Morrison.

Ken Jacobs, one of the co-op's founders, will perform a piece that you might term "light art." Using two projectors but no film, he'll manipulate the machines and their output to perform a work cryptically, though intriguingly billed as Dazzler for Two Analytics.

The event is intended to raise a portion of the funding needed to support the preservation and distribution of some 4000 films housed by the artist-operated cooperative, the oldest and largest of its kind in America. Member artists deposit their work in the collection and make it available for rental to universities and screening venues around the world.

Morrison, who is also the event organizer, attributes much of the collection's success to the "force of nature that is [co-op executive director] M.M. Serra. The benefit is the chance for the rest of us to help keep the thing afloat."

The benefit program emerged easily from among those musicians already well-versed in working with visual images and also aware of the service the archive provided through past experience and personal connections. "It ended up being just a great lineup," Morrison says. "And we didn't have to do a big sell job."

For those would-be arts patrons who can't quite come up with the cash to get a tier named after them at the Met, the night will also offer the chance to rub shoulders with some downtown glitterati and support a good cause.

Angel Orensanz Center for the Arts, 172 Norfolk St. (betw. Houston & Stanton Sts.), 212-267-5665, 8, $35.