One couldn’t be blamed for mistaking artist and filmmaker Frank Heath for a time traveler sent back with the impossible task of figuring out where it all went wrong. Government surveillance? Technological arms races? Nuclear fallout or an act of God? Each as plausible as the last if you’re inclined to believe what Heath uncovers across an array of conspiratorial prank phone calls, metadocumentaries, and room-shaking music videos.
Heath’s work can be seen as a part of a post-9/11 aesthetic shift in art away from subjectivity that curator Paolo Cirio refers to as evidentiary realism, which aims to make visible the complex networks of capital and bureaucracy that construct our reality. Grounded in rigorous journalistic research, Heath uses historical events, declassified materials, and government facilities as the backdrop for a cast of real-life characters who are more often than not in the middle of doing their job. The videos often resemble portraiture, catalyzed by conversations with customer service and caretakers of hidden spaces. We learn intimate details about attitudes and interiorities of Heath’s subjects. All the while, it’s unclear if they’re coconspirators in Heath’s agenda or simply playing along because of their obligations to their employers.
In Heath’s phone call videos, an actor speaks with real people to file fake complaints or order bizarre custom products. Elsewhere, a “documentary” crew searches through a KMart while working on a project about the Large Hadron Collider. This playful mix of documentary, fiction, and improvisation infuses Heath’s work with its signature uncanny and comedic tone. Heath deploys this humor to push bureaucratic capitalism past its ability to anticipate the needs of consumers, forcing its functionaries to answer questions beyond the scope of their duties into the realm of the implausible where phone booths spout molten metal.
We first highlighted Heath’s films in 2013 in our “& Other Works” series organized by C. Spencer Yeh. In the thirteen years since, Heath has continued tirelessly producing films that reflect back to us the absurdity, doom, and humor of our time. Wrong Number offers a comprehensive four part series showcasing an almost complete retrospective of Heath’s diverse oeuvre. Spectacle is thrilled to host the world premiere of Heath’s latest work, A REAL GREY AREA, as well as the second ever screening of Heath’s critically under-seen, landscape horror film, CENTRALIA.
From burial rites, to spy networks, to numerology and gene banks, Heath probes at what lies below the surface of our world and of ourselves. His films are at times portentous, at others hilarious and often a mix of both. A sense of synchronicity suffuses his work — a feeling that there’s no such thing as a wrong number.
PROGRAM 1
THURSDAY, MARCH 5 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 – 7:30PM + Q&A with Heath moderated by Jon Dieringer (This event is $10)
BUY TICKETS
THE HOLLOW COIN
Dir. Frank Heath, 2016
English, 12min
A caller reaches 311 attempting to leak information regarding the combustion of a phone booth and its possible significance as it relates to the AT&T Long Lines Building, a windowless skyscraper in downtown Manhattan. Depositing a hollow nickel containing a microSD card, the individual speaks with a telephone operator who assists in discerning the essence of this ominous image. Shortly after the film was made, the building was reported to be a major communication node in a covert NSA surveillance network.
THERE IS NOTHING UNDERNEATH THE WEST VIRGINIA WING
Dir. Frank Heath, 2018
English, 16min
Deep below the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, is a vast and elaborate underground bomb shelter. Established as part of the secret Continuity of Government program, to house members of Congress in the event of a nuclear attack, the bunker is now declassified and open for public tours. This film documents the eerie spaces of the vacant shelter, its remarkable blast doors which were engineered by the Mosler Vault Company, and the dedicated staff who continue to care for it.
PROTECT YOUR HOME
Dir. Frank Heath, 2021
13min
Spanning the 1950s to the present, this montage of archival commercials and DIY footage explores the many permutations of ‘home security,’ from alarm systems and end-times bunkers to gun ownership and sage-burning rituals—revealing a persistent undercurrent at the intersection of personal, social, and environmental anxieties. Music: Ches Smith, ‘Interpret It Well.’
WAR PIGEON
Dir. Frank Heath, 2017
English, 13min
Recounting an unnerving encounter involving a building from the Manhattan Project, a suspicious bird, and a Shamrock Shake, a caller consults with a customer service representative from a bank regarding his apparently corrupted memory and the ethical imperatives of one’s vocation.
PROGRAM 2
MONDAY, MARCH 9 – 7:30PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 – 10PM + Q&A with Heath and actor/collaborator Jesse Wakeman moderated by Jon Dieringer (This event is $10)
BUY TICKETS
INVASIVE SPECIES
Dir. Frank Heath, 2012
English 11min
Haunted by a cipher transmitted from invasive wildlife in Greenwood Cemetery, a caller hires a local advertising firm to address the situation and assess the link between organic systems and encrypted data.
MINIMALISM
Dir. Frank Heath, 2024
2min
A chronicle of shrinking technology that follows the drive towards miniaturization, from early cell phone ads and pocket-sized gadgets to neural implants and simulated realities. Music: Laugh Ash (Ches Smith), ‘Minimalism.’
ON THE BEACH
Taking its name from a Cold War novel by Nevil Shute, which follows the sole survivors of a global nuclear fallout as they wait for the radiation to drift overseas, On the Beach traces the urgent and miscalculated efforts of a two-person film crew as they attempt to document and preserve key facets of modern civilization before it’s too late. Interviews with figures working at crucial sites related to the future of humanity—the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, an underground vault for the storage of films, and a gene bank carved into the side of an Arctic mountain—send the protagonists searching department stores, subway video retailers, and supermarkets for commercial solutions to their existential problem. Originally produced as a web series for the online magazine Triple Canopy, this is the first time the work has been screened in its entirety.
ON THE BEACH 01: MADE TO BE FOUND
Dir. Frank Heath, 2014
English, 21min
Peter and Dwight struggle with their assignment as they survey a department store in search of props for a film shoot inspired by the wisdom of CERN physicists.
ON THE BEACH 02: A PRIME CONDITION
Dir. Frank Heath, 2017
English, 19min
Peter and Dwight study the contents of a massive underground storage facility for Hollywood films, located in a salt mine in Kansas, to ascertain the crucial monuments of cinema history with the guidance of a local video retail expert.
ON THE BEACH 03: MIDNIGHT SUN
Dir. Frank Heath, 2018
English, 15min
Peter reports a supernatural occurrence he experienced at a local supermarket while contemplating footage sent from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
PROGRAM 3
SUNDAY, MARCH 15 – 5PM + Q&A with Heath and composer Nate Wooley moderated by Isaac Hoff (THIS EVENT IS $10)
FRIDAY, MARCH 27 – 7:30PM
BUY TICKETS
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES
Dir. Frank Heath, 2022
5min.
Despite an encroaching inferno, the party rages on in this video, compiled entirely from film and television programs that include the eponymous 1933 song by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. Music: ‘Combustion 2’ by Cory Smythe from the album Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (2022).
ASYMPTOMATIC CARRIER
Dir. Frank Heath, 2013
English, 14min
The lone resident of North Brother Island in the East River attempts to procure a new flag and finds out just how long he’s been away during his self-imposed isolation, which has surprising correspondence with the infamous quarantine of Mary Mallon (aka “Typhoid Mary”) on the same island nearly a century before.
CENTRALIA
Dir. Frank Heath, 2022
English, 57min
This portrait of Centralia, Pennsylvania—a near ghost town slowly consumed by what lies beneath—captures the blighted and largely depopulated landscape, widely known as the inspiration for the horror franchise Silent Hill, as well as the futile efforts of government agencies to contain the catastrophe and control the local population. Devoid of dialogue or diegetic sound, the film is set to the entirety of Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes, the LP by Columbia Icefield (Nate Wooley), excavating a sense of synchronicity between the unaltered soundtrack, particularly its use of field recordings, and the uncanny ruins of a once-thriving community of coal miners.
PROGRAM 4
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 27 – 10PM + Q&A with Heath moderated by Manny Unger (THIS EVENT IS $10)
BUY TICKETS
A REAL GREY AREA
Dir. Frank Heath, 2026
English, 11min
Attempting to stage an historical reenactment on Coney Island, a contractor working for a powerful client speaks with a representative from a rental company regarding the unconventional use of an electric generator.
PATH OF TOTALITY
Dir. Frank Heath, 2018
English, 13min
Against the backdrop of a total solar eclipse, this film follows a motley crew of spectators, entertainers, and vendors gathered in St. Joseph, MO—the artist’s hometown—capturing the anxiety, cosmic wonder, and commercial opportunities inspired by the brief moment of darkness at one of the prime locations within the so-called “path of totality.”
CRYPTS OF CIVILIZATION
Dir. Frank Heath, 2021
English, 23min
History professor Paul Hudson discusses The Crypt of Civilization, a time capsule at Oglethorpe University in Georgia, sealed in 1940 and slated to be opened in the year 8113 AD. Hudson comments on the particular material and ethical problems involved in the construction of time capsules and recounts his personal journey from discovering the Crypt as a student to becoming a founding member of the International Time Capsule Society, a group dedicated to the registry and study of all known examples of the form.
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
Dir. Frank Heath, 2021
English, 15min
Recent journeys through the Suez Canal and to Onkalo, Finland (home of the world’s first long-term disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel), prompt a man to consult an estate lawyer about an eccentric plan for his mortal remains, drawing a fine line between precious cargo and hazardous waste.
EARENDEL
Dir. Frank Heath, 2024
7min
A surreal travelogue from the molten interior of the Earth to the limits of the known universe, this film, assembled primarily from footage made by government agencies including US Geological Survey, NASA, and Space Force, investigates the paradoxical relationship between militarized technologies of visualization and sublime cosmic phenomenon. Music: ‘Earendel,’ by Patricia Brennan.
