ABSTRACT
Tough Stuff from the Buff-Experimental and Activist Video from the Fringes of Buffalo, NY is a 70-minute program of lms and videos about Buffalo, curated by David Gracon, Marc Moscato, and Julie Perini. In the summer of 2009, the curators screened the program at venues in the Pacic Northwest, pedaling the work by bicycle throughout Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Later that year, they presented the collection at locations in Western New York. The program consisted of 14 short lms and videos produced during the 1990s and 2000s. All the works in the program are about Buffalo; they feature the city of Buffalo in some way, or they take a close look at the people who call it home. The program was culled from Gracon’s, Moscato’s and Perini’s personal collections and social and professional networks. The Tough Stuff works took many forms, but all belonged to the genres of either experimental or documentary lm and video. The curators included their own work among other lms and videos by established media artists such as Tony Conrad, Terry Cuddy, Critical Art Ensemble, Chris Ernst, Stephanie Gray, Esther Johnson, Meg Knowles, The Real Dream Cabaret, and Kelly Spivey, and work by two Buffalo high school students making their rst lms, Gabriella Citriniti and Paris Henderson.
