SUPER 8MM POETICS: THE FILMS OF STEPHANIE GRAY

FRIDAY JUNE 12TH – SUNDAY JUNE 14TH @ ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES – 7:30PM
32 SECOND AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY. OFF 2ND AVENUE F TRAIN

Mono No Aware is excited to partner with Anthology Film Archives and Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labsto co-sponsor a three-program, full retrospective of Stephanie Grey’s Super-8mm film work!

Anthology hosts the first film retrospective of NYC-based filmmaker/poet, Stephanie Gray, who has been making experimental and documentary Super 8 films (and videos) since 1998. Prolific and active in the Super 8 scene, Gray has made more than 57 short films, many diaristic or city-symphonic. Her work often deals with the city (or vanishing city), along with queer, feminist, and hearing loss themes.

Gray began making films in Buffalo, through community workshops at the pioneering media arts center Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources. Her early work grew out of her interest in the decaying urban infrastructure of Buffalo. Upon moving to NYC, she found herself documenting a similar urban transformation (though in this case the result not of economic stagnation but of skyrocketing rents and greed), an ongoing project that marks her work to this day. Gray’s work is distinguished as well by her approach to sound – many of her films feature sampled, distorted, or layered soundtracks, and her screenings are almost always accompanied by live musical performances, or by Gray’s own live voiceovers or readings from her poetry.

Coinciding with the publication of her second poetry collection, SHORTHAND AND ELECTRIC LANGUAGE STARS, this retrospective will encompass three programs: one highlighting Gray’s early work in Buffalo, another focusing on more recent work made since her arrival in NYC, and a final program devoted to films on the theme of “vanishing New York.” It’s an overdue showcase for an artist active for nearly 20 years, whose work simultaneously slows down and speeds up the urban transformations that have taken place in recent years, and meditates on, to borrow one of Gray’s film titles, “what we thought we knew/what we knew we thought.” – Anthology Film Archives

“This program is in partial honorific memory of Kodachrome, PacLab, Anne Charlotte Robertson, Super 8 sound film, and DeRobertis, reflected in 5 Roses Pizza’s windows, and which I didn’t get to film. RIP to all.”
– S.G.

FRIDAY JUNE 13TH PROGRAM 1:
Earlyness: queeahs, bflo, myles, metal, hearing

I LOVED THIS CITY (2000, 3.5 min, Super 8mm, with live reading)
THIS IS THE BIKE RIDE TO WORK (2002, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? (2000, 3.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w)
DEAR JOAN (1999, 3.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
KRISTY (2003, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w)
I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT EILEEN MYLES’ SCHOOL OF FISH POEM (2002, 3.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
NEVER HEARD THE WORD IMPOSSIBLE (2007, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w)
CLOSE YR HEARING FOR THE CAP(SHUNS) (2000, 32 min, video)
Total running time: ca. 70 min

SATURDAY JUNE 12TH PROGRAM 2:
Recentness: What You thought You Knew/What You Knew You Thought
With live sound performances by Rachael Guma

BALLOONS TIED UP YOUR SKY (2012, 11 min, Super 8mm, b&w, live sound)
ALSO KNOWN AS (2011, 3 min, Super 8mm, with live reading)
CAUGHT IN YOUR FLICKERING WEATHER (2011, 12 min, Super 8mm, b&w, live sound)
SATANIC BIBLE ON INTERLIBRARY LOAN (2011, 9 min, Super 8mm, with live reading)
SEEING THRU BUFFALOS (2010, 12 min, Super 8mm, b&w/color, with live reading)
WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW/WHAT YOU KNEW YOU THOUGHT (2014, 3 min, Super 8mm, live sound)
DRESSES AND MOUNTAINS INTO WINDOWS (2014, 7 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
Plus new film surprises!
Total running time: ca. 75 min

SUNDAY JUNE 14TH PROGRAM 3:
Too lateness: the vanishing new yawk city
With Jeremy Slater performing sounds with selected silent films!

MORE BREAD FOREVER (2004, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, live sound)
SOMEDAY BEHIND CONEY ISLAND (2006/11, 11 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
I BOUGHT THE LAST FOUR BAGELS AT JON VIE PASTRIES, NEW YEAR’S EVE, (2004 2004, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, live sound)
MAGIC COULDN’T SAVE MAGIC SHOES (2010, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w/color, live sound)
STOREFRONTS BEFORE OTHER STOREFRONTS (2008, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
IT’S NOT ROSES FOR FIVE ROSES PIZZA (2009, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, live sound)
NO BLUE SKY FOR THE BLUE SKY DINER (2008, 3.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, with live reading)
GERTEL’S GALORE LORE ORE (2007, 6.5 min, Super 8mm, b&w, live sound)
YOU KNOW THEY WANT TO DISAPPEAR HELL’S KITCHEN AS CLINTON (2010, 17 min, Super 8mm, b&w/color, with live reading)
Total running time: ca. 75 min