Admission includes Vores aftershow in the Ninth Ward.

As part of Hallwalls' 40th year celebrations, we will be showcasing selected portions of our prodigious and recently-preserved archives, new live performances by invited artists, and selected introductions and recollections. We would like to share some of our past and some of the present with our audience and community.

The event will take place in Asbury Hall on Friday, October 24, 2014 at 8:00 pm, with a 7:00 pm cocktail hour.

Forty years of multi-disciplinary events means a considerable heft of archival materials collected, piled, and thoughtfully hoarded throughout the decades—slides, video documents, catalogues, and ephemera. Much of the first 30 years of Hallwalls' history is safely housed in the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo Libraries, but even this storehouse of materials is neither completely indexed nor even completely complete, and documentation of our current programming continues as we speak.


Since our 30th anniversary, archive and preservation efforts have picked up steam. Under the direction of Carolyn Tennant, these efforts have moved into a higher gear: we have produced a more regular system of archive management that has facilitated the digitization of various materials, including the entirety of our history of printed calendars and the majority of exhibition catalogues, both of which are now available as downloadable pdfs on our website. And we continue to manage our documentation records, including nearly 20,000 35mm slides, and perhaps most delicately, our collection of older format audio and video tapes.

In April 2009, Hallwalls—in collaboration with Squeaky Wheel and the Experimental Television Center—launched a new partnership program, Migrating Media: Upstate Preservation Network. The new project, made possible by a generous donation of a SAMMA Solo by Jim Lindner, inspired the development of a new model to migrate analog videos to digital formats, assuring access and preservation for future generations. Today, the project is housed by our partner, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and has been made possible by funding from the Electronic Media & Film program of the New York State Council on the Arts and the Media Arts program of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Archive documents featuring:

• Tony Conrad
• Ethyl Eichelberger
• Karen Finley
• Mark Freeland and friends
• Yvar Mikhashoff
• The Original Hallwalls Crew

Live performances by:

• Cages
• Tony Conrad
• Nicholas Emmanuel
• Karen Finley
• Flatsitter
• VWLS

Selected Introductions & Recollections by:

Tony Billoni • Ron Ehmke • Don Metz

Hallwalls @ 40 Costume Contest! (optional)

Since Friday, October 24th is only a week before Halloween, audience members who opt to do so are invited to come to this event costumed as their favorite Cindy Sherman photo (Untitled Film Still or otherwise) or Robert Longo Men in the Citiesfigure. Such dress-up is optional, but we will take pictures of you posing and there will be valuable prizes awarded for the most convincing live recreation of two of two of our co-founders' iconic images of the '70s, '80s, or beyond.