We have the immense pleasure to invite you to ECSTASIES IN MONOCHROME at the Firehouse JT on Dec 18th at 8pm! Ectasies In Monochrome is a program of films by Tyler Hubby and Marne Lucas, two artists working at the threshold between the visible and the invisible—where places and bodies dissolve into light, shadow, heat and ecstatic transformation. Their work mines the ecstatic, the transgressive, and the liminal through experimental cinema and the stark poetry of monochrome vision.
Marne Lucas is an artist and end-of-life doula whose practice merges thermal imaging, infrasound, intimacy, and what she calls “artveillance.” A pioneer of infrared thermal (IRT) filmmaking, her underground classic THE OPERATION (1995) was the first infrared thermal video of its kind. It premiered at the New York and Chicago Underground Film Festivals and sold out its screening at the ICA London. Her IRT films have since screened internationally—from CPH:DOX and the Melbourne Underground Film Festival to the Exploratorium, Avanto Helsinki, and touring programs across the UK and EU—continuing to influence feminist, queer, and transgressive cinema.
Tyler Hubby is a filmmaker, editor, and photographer known for both his own experimental films and his collaborations with radical cultural figures. His work blends poetic minimalism, humor, and the uncanny, situating the body and the built environment within shifting psychological terrains. His films have premiered at Sundance and SXSW and screened at The Tate Modern, The Broad, the Volksbühne in Berlin and Rotterdam International Film Festival.
Together, Lucas and Hubby form a shared field of ecstatic monochrome—where heat becomes image, darkness becomes revelation, and the body becomes a site of dissolution, desire, and transcendence. ECSTASIES IN MONOCHROME reveals two artists in dialogue across decades, each exploring the thresholds where vision becomes sensation and bodies become myth.
There have been so many lovely tributes to Gregg @mrpharmacist72 . I wanted to add a few lesser-known accomplishments to his already heavenly resumé. Last year, when I started a mutual aid clothing drive for punk and goth kids who lost everything in the fires, Gregg was one of the first to donate, and his clothes were, obviously, amazing. ( imagine being a teenager with access to THAT closet) Then he volunteered to DJ two of our events, drafting @little_vampire and @___.t0.ny along the way. And if that wasn’t enough, he gifted a black Epiphone guitar to my friend’s daughter who lost everything. She was truly over the moon. I will always be grateful for his utterly ego-free generosity in the face of loss. ❤️
Pics 2&3 by @cassandrachurch
Our minds are increasingly fragmented, our attention split into countless simultaneous streams. As the world accelerates at an exponential pace, this screening and lecture offer something rare and essential: a meditation on sanity, endurance, and deep listening.
Guided by the life and work of Tony Conrad—a master rebel who questioned everything— it invites a recalibration of perception. Join us in the desert to step outside the noise and enter a space of sustained attention, vibration, and radical inquiry.
Spend the evening with Tony Conrad’s work. Tickets are available via the link in our bio, and the Substack is now live.
TONY CONRAD: COMPLETELY IN THE PRESENT
Film Screening • Director Q&A • Live Musical Performance
December 19, 2025 | 6:00 PM
Blak Box Theater, Joshua Tree Cultural Center
Join us for a special desert screening of Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present, Tyler Hubby’s acclaimed feature documentary chronicling the uncompromising life and work of one of the great artistic radicals of our time.
Tony Conrad (1940–2016) was a composer, filmmaker, activist, and educator who reshaped the fields of experimental music and structural film. A key figure in the development of drone and minimalism, Conrad’s influence spans everything from The Velvet Underground to structuralist cinema and sound installation. But beyond the work, Conrad was a relentless questioner—of systems, hierarchies, authorship, and the boundaries of art itself.
Tyler Hubby’s intimate and exhilarating film captures this spirit of invention, humor, and resistance through decades of archival footage, vérité documentation, and collaborations with artists like Le Monte Young, John Cale,Tony Oursler, Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, and Genesis P-Orridge. It is not just a portrait—it is a challenge to reimagine what art can be.
Following the film, stay for a conversation with director Tyler Hubby, who will reflect on his years working with Conrad, the process of making the film, and the enduring relevance of Conrad’s ethos today.
The evening culminates in a live performance by a group of local and visiting experimental musicians, reinterpreting Conrad’s durational, drone-based sound strategies for the desert night: Samara Lubelski, Tara Jane O’Neill, Caroline Partamian, Ellen Schloff, Brian Butler & Patricia Vernhes under artistic direction of producer Nicolas Vernhes.
In the Mojave Desert—where stillness, vastness, and time stretch wide—Tony Conrad’s work comes alive. The landscape itself mirrors the essence of his art: repetition, intensity, altered states of listening and seeing. This is not just a screening. It’s an invitation to dissolve boundaries—between film and sound, artist and audience, light and consciousness. Tickets available via our links in bio and at
TONY CONRAD : COMPLETELY IN THE PRESENT - This Friday, 6pm at the Blak Box Theater, Joshua Tree, CA - Join us for a screening w/ Director Tyler Hubby, followed by a live performance by
@the_fleeting_skies , @tarajaneoneil , @isabellarosselini , @ellen.schloff , @brianbutler11 & yours truly (as @summa_desert ) , under artistic direction of @rarebookroom_sandtosnow . Presented in collaboration with Table of the Elements.
“People like Conrad, so free of many of the conventional ideas and restraints that often just end up being selling points, reminds me that as down as you want to feel is just how much you want to deny the fact that there have been brilliant people in every decade, including this one, pushing in every possible way against mediocrity, conformity and ignorance. When in doubt, go to the museum, the gallery, the record store, anywhere you can find art. The world might not change, but yours could.” — Henry Rollins, LA Weekly
“Utilizing intimate footage of Tony and his collaborators shot over the last twenty-two years, as well as his own archive of recordings and films, Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present mirrors Conrad’s own playfully radical approach to art making. The non-linear structure allows Conrad to wildly free associate his streams of consciousness, revealing an honest and humane way of navigating a remarkable, creative life.”
The Joshua Tree Cultural Center is proud to partner with Table of the Elements: a rigorous curatorial network and publishing platform, lauded by Pitchfork as “a national treasure.” More than a record label, it is a member-powered engine that exalts ingenuity, repudiates convention, and inspires agency.
December 18, 8pm
The Firehouse, 65430 Winters Road, Joshua Tree @thefirehousejt
ECSTASIES IN MONOCHROME is a 93-minute collection of eight black and white short films by American artists Tyler Hubby @tylerhubby and Marne Lucas @marnelucas , showing together for the first time.
Hubby’s “City Quartet” comprises four films that confront the built environment as sites of wonder and terror. They feature unique musical scores by Robert Takahashi Novak, Emma Ruth Rundle @emmaruthrundle , VOWWS @vowwsband , and Imaad Wasif @imaadwasif and Nick Zinner @little_vampire
Lucas’ films, rendered in infrared thermal (IRT) video, explore the literal light of the human body and its relation to nature and the cosmos, concluding with a rare, adults-only, 30th anniversary screening of THE OPERATION, the world’s first infrared work of erotic science fiction.
Tickets will be available at the door.
Curtis Harrington
September 17, 1926 - May 6, 2007
Curtis Harrington was a true Hollywood original - filmmaker, author, and raconteur whose work ranged from avant-garde shorts to thrillers like "Night Tide," "What’s the Matter with Helen?" and a run of spooky TV movies in the 70s.
I first met Curtis back in 1998 thanks to my pal David DeCoteau while we were cutting his film "Leather Jacket Love Story." After a long day in the edit room, David said, “How would you like to meet Curtis Harrington?” We went to @mussoandfrankgrill where Curtis held court, telling stories he had been dining out on for years. One of them was about his 1974 TV movie “Killer Bees,” and how he tried to cast Bette Davis in the lead. It didn’t work out, but you’ll have to watch the clip to hear how that one ends.
When Curtis passed in 2007, his open casket memorial at @hwdforever was as unforgettable as his films.
As he was lying in his coffin, his long-time frenemy Kenneth Anger tried to take a picture of him in repose, insisting, as security dragged him away, “Curtis wanted me to do it!” Later, during a moving eulogy by Jack Larson, Anger kept interjecting and correcting details from his seat. Anger announced that his death would occur on October 31, 2008 and his funeral would be “by invitation only!” He ended up living another 16 years.
@bettedavisestate@kennethangerofficial #CurtisHarrington #NightTide #WhatsTheMatterWithHelen #KillerBees #70sTVMovies #HollywoodHistory #OldHollywood #ClassicHollywood #CultCinema #ClassicHorror #FilmHistory #AvantGardeCinema #QueerCinema #MussoAndFrank #HollywoodForever #KennethAnger #JackLarson #DocumentaryFilm #AutomatPictures #JeffreySchwarz #TylerHubby #GloriaSwanson #EdgarAllanPoe
🎬 “From razor blades to digital freedom.”
Tyler Hubby — experimental filmmaker, director & editor — reflects on the shift from analog to digital editing, and how it opened the door to a more fluid, experimental, sketchbook-like process.
👉 Watch the full Episode 37 of Ambitchiously Intelligent for more insights.
🎧 Listen on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
@eva_oskarsdottir@valerytheone@ambitchiouslyintelligent@tylerhubby
#FilmEditing #ExperimentalFilm #IndependentFilm #PostProduction #CreativeProcess #AmbitchiouslyIntelligent
In our 37th episode of Ambitchiously Intelligent 🎙️, experimental filmmaker, director and editor Tyler Hubby @tylerhubby shares how an “accidental on purpose” career became a lifelong practice of shaping chaos into story.
From his early days editing dialogue on Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills to Sundance-winning The Devil and Daniel Johnstonand his decade-long documentary on Tony Conrad, Tyler reveals why editing isn’t just technical — it’s about rhythm, intuition, and knowing when a film finally breathes.
He opens up about the shift from analog to digital, the beauty of experimenting “at the speed of thought,” and the challenges of weaving together fragmented lives into coherent narratives.
If you’ve ever wondered how raw footage transforms into art — or how editors find stories hidden in the mess — this episode is for you.
🎧 Watch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
#AmbitchiouslyIntelligent #TylerHubby #FilmEditing #DocumentaryFilm #Storytelling #FilmmakingLife #CreativeProcess #EditingMatters
