Not My House Mobile Arts will present “Truck Stop Still Lifes,” an evening of film and music at WOW Hall on Jan. 16. The show features filmmaker Bill Brown of Lubbock, Texas, who will present works that reflect his travels in North America. The show will also feature films by Buffalo, N.Y.-based Stephanie Gray, whose films deal with her relationship to Buffalo and its buildings. Musician Owen Ashworth of San Francisco’s Casiotone for the Painfully Alone will provide tunes throughout the show.
Brown, who has been creating films related to the subjects of history and memory for the past 10 years, will present an hour of his “short, critical essays” and discuss his creations with the audience.
“My films are like postcards from various places in North America, and I sort of examine them,” he said.
In “Buffalo Common,” Brown discusses the dismantling of nuclear missile sites in North Dakota and larger issues of nuclear war and economic decline in the American Midwest. “Mountain State” looks at 25 roadside historical markers and gives a brief history of westward expansion. “Confederation Park” is a look back at Brown’s stay in Vancouver, British Columbia and a light take on the rivalry between French separatists and English-speaking Canada. Brown said that the film was based upon his experiences living in the country.
“‘Confederation Park’ is partially about when I lived in four different cities in Canada and the bizarre roommates I had,” Brown said. “It also asks questions about what constitutes Canadian identity and the conflict between French and English-speaking Canada.”
Brown uses an example of bathroom hand dryers in Canada. They originally displayed both English and French instructions, but the English instructions were torn off in French-speaking regions. Likewise, the French instructions were torn off in English-speaking regions. Brown said that he questions if Canadians will end up with wet hands when they come across a dryer without instructions in their native language.
“It’s a goofy approach to a serious topic,” he said. “My films don’t take themselves too seriously.”
Brown’s films include numerous landscape shots and also use time-lapse photography, whereby a half-second shot is taken of the same scene about once every half hour. All films are structured around Brown’s voice-overs.
“The most I’m hoping for is that the audience will get goosebumps,” he said.
Gray creates her films on 8 mm film, which is smaller than the standard film size and results in a grainier picture once enlarged by a big-screen projector. “Truck Stop Still Lifes” will show films that explore Buffalo.
It’s a “struggling city, with an abandoned downtown, a stagnant economy and beautiful old buildings that some are too quick to tear down without thinking of the historical preservation that could have taken place,” Gray said via an e-mail interview.
Among the topics that her films address are: frustrations about the numerous “For Rent” and “For Sale” signs, a forgotten female filmmaker from the 1950s and 1960s, the little things one notices on a bike ride to work and grain elevators. Some films include voice-overs and music; others are silent.
“Most of what you will see is old, old buildings that seem to have a personality of their own, a voice inquiring why we can’t save what’s left, and a reverence for the historical, the unpretentious, the solid and everything Rust Belt,” Gray said.
Ashworth will be singing and performing on old keyboards during the set-up time between films.
“It’s just one guy and a bunch of keyboards,” Not My House Mobile Arts founder Marc Moscato said. “He sings simple songs about people and places and uses keyboards from the 1980s. The old keyboards along with the old 8 mm film create a theme of using low-budget equipment.”
WOW Hall is located at 291 W. 8th Ave. The show begins at 8 p.m. and admission costs $5.