FRIDAY, JUNE 26 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 27 – 7:30PM
BUY TICKETS – THIS EVENT IS $10
For two nights only, Spectacle presents…GRAVITY AND OTHER THINGS THAT GO DOWN, the hometown manifestation of an 8-city, countrywide tour featuring experimental video and live performance by artists France Rreally and Mr. Mysterease along with two special guest collaborators. Attendees can expect nothing less than the total upheaval of mythmaking through cyclic cycling and eschatological fairy tales. Leave your corporeal form at the door. Enter and join us in abundant primordial goop before the meteor hits, before you cuff your pants and head out to work and head out to work and head out to work.
The screenings will feature two new video works, both featuring live interventions from the artists. Fasten your seatbelts and secure your valuables for a Spectacle 4D experience. THE INEVITABLE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD BY NATURAL OCCURRENCE by France Rreally will include a live aromatic experience, an experimental dip into the age-old Smell-O-Vision tradition. THE MYTH OF SISSYPANTS, a modern parable by Mr. Mysterease, will be accompanied by a live score from the artist. The video program will be preceded by a live performance from noise musician and puppeteer, MAKS, and new work performed remotely through proxies from video spellsmith and dance archivist, Benja Thompson, on the first and second night respectively.
THE INEVITABLE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD BY NATURAL OCCURENCE
Dir. France Rreally.
United States. 34 min.
In English.
THE INEVITABLE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD BY NATURAL OCCURRENCE is an experimental narrative video about a naive wayfarer encountering different paranormal phenomena embedded in the natural landscape, all while a meteor descends fatally closer to the surface of the Earth. The protagonist, played by the artist, sits down with something between God and the unconscious for a talk show interview, practices a quite literal interpretation of radical self-love, and provokes synthetic responses from the natural forest.
THE MYTH OF SISSYPANTS
Dir. Mr. Mysterease.
United States. 27 min.
In English.
THE MYTH OF SISSYPANTS is an updated version of the Greek story of Sisyphus told through narrative video with live score by the artist himself. Sissypants’s world is one of abundance, daily plastic sacrifice, and work (if he ever gets there). After his morning routine, made easy with modern conveniences, he begins a bike ride with no end – or maybe more accurately, a ride that ends at its beginning over and over.
About the artists:
France Rreally is an artist and filmmaker. He creates world-expanding works investigating alienation and anxiety around systemic collapse—whether societal, ecological, or bodily. He has shown and performed his work around North America and Europe including at Anthology Film Archives, Dia Beacon, Millennium Film Workshop, Vox Populi, and various film festivals such as the Mono No Aware Festival of Cinema, Film Diary, Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest, and Cactus Club Independent Film Festival. He has been an Artist in Residence at Arteles Creative Center, Casa do Xisto, and RUD AIR. His work and writing has been included in publications including Almanac Press Journal of Trans Poetics, Cursor Magazine, and Crater Magazine. He is a union cinema and museum worker and has been a volunteer at the collectively-run microcinema Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn, NY since 2019. He lives and works in New York City, where he is always becoming and re-becoming himself.
Mr. Mysterease is a musician and collage artist. He is also a mystery ease.
A practicing queer archivist, Benja Thompson interweaves obscured truths with radical imagination. They established Marin County’s (CA) queer archive, preserved LEIMAY’s experimental performance history as a 2024 Dance/USA Archive Fellow, and presented an hour of LEIMAY’s archival footage for the 2025 AMIA Conference. Their filmwork has shown in microcinemas and festivals across the country, including Other Cinema, Northwest Film Forum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Film-Makers’ Coop. They are currently developing an emerging performance practice of embodied cinema, as well as producing and curating Pollen, an expanded cinema marathon series.
Max Abeles or MAKS (Musically Advanced Kinetic Systems) is an artist, musician, and performer. Max founded the performance collective Guerilla Theater in 2020, staging harsh noise rituals in which the group combines elaborate handmade costumes with pseudo-organic animatronic puppets. He has performed in Estonia, Indonesia, and Japan and has been interviewed on ABC Morning News Rochester and WNYU.