THE AMATEURIST

11/13/2020

SERVICES

By Miranda July with Jay Benedicto for SZ-Magazin Edition 46

On March 13th I was heading to meet a friend at a cafe when I got a message from my child’s school announcing that they were shutting down indefinitely. This was the start of the pandemic for me, the first dawning that this was really happening, I could not ignore it. While I waited for my friend to arrive I texted my husband & everyone I knew, in shock, coming to realize this wasn’t just our school, our world, it was every school, the whole world. In the midst of this texting frenzy I got a phone call from an unfamiliar number. Right away it was clear that this was some kind of solicitation; the caller had a slight accent & the overt professionalism of someone offering “services”. Normally I would have hung up; I’m still surprised I didn’t. I suppose when your world has just been blasted open you are distraught, yes, but also: open. I stepped outside & began answering the caller’s questions. It became obvious that this offer was directed towards a very specific niche of hungry, unaffiliated people: self-published authors. Through some error I had ended up on this list. Was I interested in getting hundreds, maybe even thousands of new readers? “Well, my last couple books were on the New York Times best-seller list,” I said, “But sure, why not. New readers are always great.” I answered each question truthfully, kind of showing off in a way I would never usually do. It was as if I really wanted to impress this solicitor. When they were all done with their script they conceded that I did not, in fact, need their services. “Can I ask you some questions now?” The solicitor laughed, “What type of questions?” I asked where they were calling from (The Philippines), how old they were (27), what they liked to do when they weren’t at work (karaoke). “Are you a woman?” I asked. “Yes. I’m a trans woman,” Jay said. There was a rapport despite distances of all kinds. My friend arrived; I waved and held up one finger as I hurried to finish the call. I asked Jay if she used Instagram & she agreed to DM me. The following pages grew out of our exchange over the last six months, our first six months of this pandemic.

Graphic Design by Chris Svensson

Thank you Jamie Dornan

Interview by Mareike Neiberding with photographs by Elizabeth Weinberg.

11/16/2020

Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin Edition 46 Interview

10/16/2020

KAJILLIONAIRE STREAMING ON DEMAND (USA)

09/25/2020

KAJILLIONAIRE (USA RELEASE)

04/14/2020

MIRANDA JULY, MONOGRAPH, PUBLISHED BY PRESTEL

04/28/2020

CRITERION RELEASE OF ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

2020

KAJILLIONAIRE

Con artists Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) have spent 26 years training their only daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), to swindle, scam, and steal at every opportunity. During a desperate, hastily conceived heist, they charm a kind stranger, Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), into joining their next scheme, completely shaking up Old Dolio’s routine. Her unlikely connection with Melanie begins to challenge Old Dolio’s odd and stoic reality—and she finds herself suddenly caught between the only family she has ever known and the prospect of total freedom.

Written and directed by Miranda July; director of photography, Sebastian Winterø; edited by Jennifer Vecchiarello; music by Emile Mosseri; production design by Sam Lisenco; costumes by Jennifer Johnson; casting by Mark Bennett; produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Youree Henley.

A Plan B / Annapurna Production. Distributed by Focus Features in the U.S. and Universal Pictures internationally.

04/14/2020

MIRANDA JULY

“Filmmaker. Author. Performer. Shopkeeper. Miranda July — the most impressive cross-disciplinary artist of her generation — is brought into focus in this career-spanning retrospective.

Regardless of the medium, July’s daring, urgent, and idiosyncratic voice finds unexpectedly accessible forms that reflect the poignancy and strangeness of the human plight. In film, fiction, performance, public art, commerce, and even a smartphone app, July deftly explores themes of inclusivity, desire, fear, and fantasy. This chronological survey spans the artist’s entire career to date, including her early plays and fanzines, participatory works, and personal projects which illuminate the multidimensionality and timeliness of her work.

Miranda July is brought to life in an introductory interview with Julia Bryan-Wilson and candid recollections by friends, collaborators, curators, assistants, and audience members: Carrie Brownstein, David Byrne, Spike Jonze, Sheila Heti, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and July herself. This revealing, insightful commentary provides an intimate perspective on the artist’s ever-evolving process. July may be impossible to categorize, but the enduring importance of her work and her status as an essential cultural icon is irrefutable.”

Published by Prestel.

Link to pre-order.

1/25/2020

KAJILLIONAIRE PREMIERE AT SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL (PARK CITY, UTAH)

05/29/2019

“HURRY ON HOME” MUSIC VIDEO FOR SLEATER-KINNEY

03/18/2019

MIRANDA JULY X UNIQLO

02/17/2019

IN CONVERSATION WITH MAGGIE NELSON AT FRIEZE LOS ANGELES

05/12/2018 - 11/04/2018

I’M THE PRESIDENT, BABY AT THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON, UK

10/07/2018

CONVERSATION ON JOANIE 4 JACKIE AT FOTOFOCUS BIENNIAL, CINCINNATI, OH

09/21/2018

MIRANDA JULY FOR BLESS, NEUTRA VDL HOUSE, LOS ANGELES

01/22/2018

MADELINE’S MADELINE PREMIERES AT SUNDANCE

05/21/2018

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BEGINS ON UNTITLED MIRANDA JULY PROJECT

11/09/2017

PETRA COLLINS Q&A, HAUSER & WIRTH, LOS ANGELES

05/12/2018 - 11/04/2018

I’M THE PRESIDENT, BABY

By Miranda July with Oumarou Idrissa, commissioned for “The Future Starts Here” exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Four velvet curtains open and close sporadically, of their own accord. A short text by July hangs alongside each curtain:

On 22 August 2015 I called for an Uber, and a man named Oumarou Idrissa picked me up from my house in Los Angeles. He drove me to Malibu in a black SUV. On the long drive across the city, Oumarou told me the story of his life, which began in a village in Niger, West Africa. He came to the U.S. on a student visa, hoping to attend the University of Idaho. When he couldn’t afford the tuition, he faced the possibility of deportation and was forced into hiding. He needed to stay in America; his family was counting on the money he could make there. During the worst of these years he was often homeless, which he kept secret. And he always knew that immigration agents were looking for him. He woke up every two hours, thinking: ‘They’re here’. Now Oumarou is a U.S. citizen – but he still can’t sleep more than two hours at a time and never more than a total of four or five hours a night.

For this project, I asked Oumarou if he would share his insomnia in real time and he agreed, hoping that telling his story of sleeplessness might actually bring him the peace he needs to finally sleep. We installed a sleep tracker program in his bed, and he began routing his phone data through a custom server that silently detects which apps he’s using, since he usually looks at his phone during these restless hours. When it’s midnight for Oumarou, the day is just starting in Niger and also here, in London. As he generates information throughout the night, it’s sent to the curtains in the exhibition.

1. When the blue curtains are completely closed, Oumarou is asleep on his queen-sized mattress on the floor of his studio apartment in Los Angeles. If the curtains are partially open or moving, then he’s sleeping fitfully. His sleep data triggers this movement via a smart curtain track powered by a Somfy® motor. Sometimes he dreams of someone pushing down on him so he can’t move or get up. Sometimes he dreams he’s in Niger, talking to his mother about ordinary things. If the curtains are wide open, then he’s awake.

2. Each time the brown curtains open, Oumarou has opened WhatsApp – the free, secure, worldwide messaging service. Every night around 11pm he begins to talk and message with his friends and family in Niger. ‘I don’t have any close friends in America’, he told me, ‘so my phone is my everything’. He exchanges videos and pictures with his 21 sisters and brothers and responds to requests for money, most often to pay for food, school tuitions, christenings and medicine. He used to talk to his mum every night, but she passed away two years ago. Just before she died, Oumarou texted to tell me she was sick. We had sporadically kept in touch after our long drive together. Just a few hours later he texted me that she had died, and he was headed back to Niger for her funeral.

3. If the pink curtains are open, Oumarou has tapped ‘online’ on the Uber app, making himself available to receive calls for rides. Like most UberBLACK drivers, he leases a black SUV and often barely makes enough money to cover the cost of the lease. At times he has also lived in his leased cars, as many UberBLACK drivers do. ‘When you sleep in a new SUV you wake up sick from the fumes’, Oumarou told me. We met up when he got back from his mother’s funeral in Niger. He was frustrated that he had lost his place to live while he was out of the country. I rent a small house where I work from 9am to 5pm, so I suggested he live in it from 5pm to 9am until he got a new place. We shared the house in this way for seven months.

4. When the green curtains are open, Oumarou is looking at Instagram. He posts pictures of soccer games, family, luxury hotels and beaches (from his side job as a travelling bodyguard). On 8 November 2016, he posted a video of himself voting for Hillary Clinton: I vote for Her. First time voter, historic day. Since we were registered to the same address, I showed him our polling place and we voted together. On 9 November, he wrote: The way I feel last nite was the worst feeling I ever have in my life. We love you Hillary this pain will go forever. Later that day he wrote: Motherland we coming back, and I wondered if he really would go back to Niger. On 10 November he posted a video of himself in the black suit he wears to drive for Uber; he was standing tall by a rooftop pool in Beverly Hills. I’m the president, baby, he said. And then, speaking as the president, he told us to: Stay focused, stay humble, you know, be positive in life, enjoy, life is beautiful, baby.

Note: If Oumarou is sick, travelling, or needs privacy, this work runs on a pre-recorded script.

SUMMIT 2017, LOS ANGELES

10/19/2017

IN CONVERSATION WITH JEREMY DELLER, PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA, LONDON

10/05/2017

FRIEZE WEST END NIGHT, INTERFAITH CHARITY SHOP AT SELFRIDGES, LONDON

08/31/2017-10/22/2017

INTERFAITH CHARITY SHOP AT SELFRIDGES

Miranda with shop workers Yasmin Wall, Diana Ngonyama, Latifa Rahman, Natasha Hodes and Abhayanandi, 31 August 2017. Photograph: Hugo Glendinning © Artangel

Shop manager Diana Ngonyama and Miranda July adjust a wall display. Photograph: Matthew Andrews / Artangel

Bric-a-brac for sale. Photograph: Matthew Andrews / Artangel

A customer receives their purchase in the shop's bag, modeled after the iconic yellow Selfridges shopping bag. Photograph: Hugo Glendinning © Artangel

There are more than 10,000 charity shops in the UK and now there is a unique addition with the launch of artist, writer and filmmaker Miranda July ’s major commission for Artangel, an interfaith charity shop open to the public from 31 August – 22 October 2017 on the third floor of Selfridges.

The UK’s first interfaith charity shop is run and staffed jointly by four religious charities chosen by Miranda July: Islamic Relief, Jewish charity Norwood, London Buddhist Centre and Spitalfields Crypt Trust. The proceeds will be shared equally between the four partners, all of who run their own charity shops. Items for sale are typical of those traditionally sold in charity shops – second – hand clothes, books, games, DVD’s, kitchen ware, toys ornaments and bric – a – brac. Prices are the same as in any charity shop.

Net sales are divided equally between the four participating charity shops. Each is donating 2.5% of their share to another charity of their choice: Islamic Relief is donating to The Bike Project; Norwood to Carers in Hertfordshire; London Buddhist Centre to Praxis Community Project; and Spitalfields Crypt Trust to Providence Row.

Miranda July is known for artworks that depend upon the public’s participation — be they apps, performances or sculptures. Her interfaith charity shop at Selfridges will present customers with an unexpected retail experience that will resonate with founder Harry Gordon Selfridge’s famous pronouncement in 1909 that his store was created as an open house, where “everyone is welcome.”

Miranda July said: “For many years I’ve wanted to make a store as artwork; utilizing the inherently participatory conventions of commerce. When I first came to London, in my twenties, the sheer number of charity shops giddily amazed me, but it’s only in creating this store with Artangel that I understand what a radically unique economic model they are. The nuances of this come from my faith – based charity shop partners and from the site; Selfridges.”

Michael Morris & James Lingwood, Co – Directors of Artangel, said: “Artists continually lead Artangel into uncharted territory so we are delighted to be collaborating with Miranda July in joining forces with four faith – based charities on the third floor of Selfridges. Our shop within a shop, like London itself, is proudly open to the world.”

10/19/2017 Miranda July in conversation with Jeremy Deller

INFO ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS

Artangel view website

Artangel produces and presents extraordinary art in unexpected places in London, the UK and beyond. For over 30 years Artangel has generated some of the most talked – about art of recent times, including projects with Clio Barnard, Jeremy Deller, Roger Hiorns, Michael Landy, Steve McQueen, Rachel Whiteread, an d more recently Ryoji Ikeda, PJ Harvey and Jorge Otero – Pailos’s The Ethics of Dust at Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament. Appearing anywhere from vacant apartments stores to subterranean vaults and London’s night sky, Artangel produces art that surprises, inspires and wouldn’t be possible within the confines of a gallery.

Selfridges view website

The business was founded by American entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1909 and was widely regarded as the first and best example of a modern department store. Harry Gordon Selfridge ran the store himself until he retired in 1940. After several ownerships the company was de – merged from the Sears Group in 1998 and floated on the London Stock Exchange. In 2003 W. Galen Weston purchased Selfridges and under his ownership Selfridges has become an extraordinary global destination for fashion, luxury and retail theatre. In June 2010 Selfridges was named Best Department Store in the World for the first time by the IGDS (Intercontinental Group of Department Store s). The title, which Selfridges held until June 2012, is the industry’s highest accolade. Selfridges won the title again in June 2012, and again in 2014 for an unprecedented three times consecutively. In May 2016, Selfridges won the inaugural award for World’s Best Sustainability Campaign at the IGDS world summit. Selfridges has four stores in London, Birmingham and Manchester (Trafford Centre, Exchange Square) and our international website now delivers within the UK and to over 130 countries, trading in eight currencies. Selfridges today, continues Harry Gordon Selfridge’s legacy – a shopping experience that promises to surprise, amaze and amuse its customers by delivering extraordinary customer experiences.

Islamic Relief view website

Islamic Relief is an international aid and d development charity that aims to alleviate the suffering of the world’s poorest people in more than 30 countries, mainly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As well as responding to disasters and emergencies, Islamic Relief promotes sustainable economic and social development by working with local communities – regardless of race, religion or gender. In its 33 – year history, Islamic Relief has helped more than 110m people across the world. Islamic Relief is one of the 13 UK charities that form the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee).

Islamic Relief is rated 20th in the Top 500 Non – Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the world by the Swiss – based independent media organization NGO Adviser.

Norwood view website

Norwood is the largest Jewish charity in the UK supporting thousands of vulnerable children and their families, children with special educational needs and people with learning disabilities and autism.

Founded in 1795, Norwood is one of the UK’s oldest charities and the only Jewish charity to enjoy the Patronage of Her Majesty The Queen. It helps children and adults to maximize their potential at home, at school and throughout their lives, through personalized services designed to enable choice.

Each year Norwood needs £35m to keep its services running, £12m of which comes through voluntary donations. These services include a total of 55 residential, supported living and family centers across London and the South East.

Norwood currently runs eight charity shops across North and East London thanks to the support of 150 dedicated volunteers.

London Buddhist Centre view website

The London Buddhist Centre (LBC) in the heart of the East End teaches meditation, mindfulness, and yoga through daily classes, courses and retreats. Our aim is to help people from all walks of life lead more fulfilling lives, reach their highest potential and alleviate suffering in the world. Buddhists practice non – violence and believe our minds determine how we respond to our experience. We provide practical tools so that people can change their minds and develop greater wisdom and compassion for responding creatively to the world. The Centre offers an oasis of calm in the midst of busy urban life and is very much part of the local, diverse landscape in Tower Hamlets. Through its innovative mindfulness program, the LBC reaches out to people living with stress, pain, depression, and addiction. We also run events for families, carers, schools, and professionals as well as arts happenings. Many of our activities are by donation and teachers give their time and skills voluntarily for the benefit of others.

Spitalfields Crypt Trust view website

Spitalfields Crypt Trust (SCT) is an East London charity providing practical help for people recovering from complex drug and alcohol addictions. They provide homes, therapy, productive activity and a supportive community to help people to avoid relapses and lead healthier, happier lives.

They run:

A drop – in providing food and shelter for homeless people in Shoreditch
Shared homes in London for people to start and continue their recovery
A personal development center providing free life skills courses in literacy, computing and math, alongside creative classes in art, woodwork and gardening
Social enterprises to help people get work experience and gain from a more positive way of life
Social events to help build supportive relationships in the local recovery community

Their support isn’t a ‘one – size – fi ts – all’ approach but is personalized to fit each person’s individual needs and hopes. Their approach combines Christian values with best practice and innovation. They help people of all faiths and none.

09/04/2017

THE METAL BOWL, THE NEW YORKER

4/21/2017

American Dreams: A Festival, Presented by The Believer and Black Mountain Institute

08/31/2017-10/22/2017

INTERFAITH CHARITY SHOP AT SELFRIDGES

03/29/2017

“A Poster to be Ripped” Edition for Printed Matter membership drive

01/30/2017

JOANIE 4 JACKIE ARCHIVE ACQUIRED BY GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

2/1/2017

Joanie 4 Jackie Archive

Joanie 4 Jackie (aka Big Miss Moviola) was an underground film network for girls and women, formed in 1995. For more than ten years women sent their movies to Joanie 4 Jackie and received a “Chainletter” tape in return — their movie compiled with nine others. In a pre-YouTube world, this was one-way women could see each other’s work and know they weren’t alone. The project inspired girls to make movies for the first time, circulated work by seasoned artists and connected women across the country through screenings and booklets of letters that arrived with each videotape. By the time the project had run its course the work of over 200 filmmakers was distributed through 22 compilation tapes, and Joanie 4 Jackie had exhibited movies all over the world, from punk clubs to the Museum of Modern Art.

In January 2017 The Getty Research Institute announced the acquisition of the complete Joanie 4 Jackie archives. Twenty-seven boxes of tapes, posters, letters, embarrassing notes, to-do lists, and grandiose plans will be made available to researchers and preserved for all time in a feminist and queer context, alongside the archives of artists such as Yvonne Rainer, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Carolee Schneemann. The Getty Trust is a non-profit organization devoted to arts research, education, philanthropy, and the conservation and preservation of world heritage.

Simultaneously joanie4jackie.com launched — this site guides the viewer through the materials and the story of the Joanie 4 Jackie. It was created by Miranda July with Yuri Ono, Matt Wright, Astria Suparak, Vanessa Haroutunian, Jaqueline Goss and the students of the Joanie 4 Jackie Tutorial at Bard College. A labor of love; it took seven years.

New York Times, Miranda July Shares Her Vintage Feminist Film Archive

11/12/2016

In Our Time: A Year of Architecture in a Day, The Metropolitan Museum, New York

09/22/2016

Sun Valley Center for the Performing Arts presents Miranda July

07/08/2016

Lost Child!, WINSPEAR OPERA HOUSE, DALLAS, TX

05/14/2016

Learning to Love You More, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

04/14/2016

In Conversation at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Denver, CO

03/20/2016

Artists on Artists: Miranda July on Catherine Opie, MOCA, Los Angeles

05/14/2016

May 14th 2016 By Paul Ford and Miranda July

Seven on Seven 2016: Miranda July & Paul Ford from Rhizome on Vimeo.

July and Paul Ford (writer and co-founder, Postlight) collaborated to make a portrait of the Seven on Seven audience, using only the data audience members had shared online. Presented by Rhizome, the Seven on Seven conference pairs seven leading artists with seven luminary technologists, and challenges them to make something new together. They unveil their creations, and discuss their process, at this intimate public event at The New Museum.

Miranda July and Paul Ford Cyberstalked Me

03/09/2016

Lost Child!, New Zealand Festival Writer’s Week, Wellington, New Zealand

03/07/2016

Lost Child!, Wheeler Centre, Melbourne, Australia

03/06/2016

Lost Child!, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

2015

New Society

01/15/2016

The First Bad Man reading, Mona Bismarck American Center, Paris, France

01/11/2016

TateShots Interview

02/12/2016

ForYourArt and Good Reads present EVERBOOKS: Artists and Writers Read from Their Favorite Books

11/21/2015

This Is Not A Connection, Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

11/15/2015

The First Bad Man reading and signing, Altes Rathaus, Rathaushalle, Göttingen, Germany

11/14/2015

The First Bad Man reading and signing, Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany

11/13/2015

The First Bad Man reading and signing, Huxleys Neue Welt, Berlin, Germany

11/12/2015

The First Bad Man reading and signing, Kaufleuten, Zurich, Switzerland

11/12/2015

Interview with Agnes Varda for Cinelicious Pictures

10/17/2015

New Society, Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA, Los Angeles

10/12/2015

Rihanna profile, The New York Times Magazine

10/08/2015

THE FIRST BAD MAN SIGNING, MCNALLY JACKSON, NEW YORK

10/07/2015

New Society, BAM Brooklyn

09/17/2015

Miranda July and Sheila Heti in Conversation with Thao Nguyen, City Arts and Lectures, San Francisco

09/09/2015

THE FIRST BAD MAN SIGNING, VROMAN’S, PASADENA

09/03/2015

THE FIRST BAD MAN SIGNING, BOOK SOUP, LOS ANGELES

08/14/2015

ForYourArt presents: The Extreme Present with Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Miranda July, David Lynch, Patrick Belaga, Amalia Ulman

05/15/2015

The Amateurist, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

04/28–29/2015

New Society, Brava Theatre, San Francisco, presented by SFMOMA and SFIFF

04/22/2015

Somebody 2.0 launches

04/15–16/2015

The First Bad Man reading and conversation, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

03/27/2015–10/25/2015

Eleven Heavy Things, “Stories We Tell Ourselves”, Aspen Art Museum

11/25/2014

Finished recording The First Bad Man audio book

03/12/2015

Interviewed Sarah Manguso at Skylight Books, Los Angeles

03/09–12/15

A Nice Trip to Paris

02/26/2015

The First Bad Man Reading, Watershed, Bristol Festival of Ideas

02/25/2015

The First Bad Man reading, London Review Bookshop

02/25/2015

The First Bad Man reading, Cornerhouse, Manchester

02/24/0215

The First Bad Man reading, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

02/23/2015

New Society, Sadlers Wells, presented by Artangel, London

01/29/2015

The First Bad Man reading, Toronto Public Library, Canada

01/28/2015

Conversation with Lena Dunham, BAM Opera House, Brooklyn, NY

01/22/2015

The First Bad Man reading, Powell’s City of Books, Portland, OR

01/23/2015

The First Bad Man reading, Neptune Theatre, Seattle, WA

01/20/2015

The First Bad Man reading at City Arts & Lectures at the Nourse Theatre, San Francisco

01/21/2015

The First bad Man reading, Book Shop Santa Cruz, CA

01/15/2015

The First Bad Man reading at Mack Sennett Studios / Skylight Books, Los Angeles

01/15/2015

“Crazy for You” Nostalgia Piece for Vogue

01/13/2015

The First Bad Man Reading at Barnes & Noble Union Sq. New York

12/03/2014

The First Bad Man Store

01/13/2015

The First Bad Man

From the acclaimed filmmaker, artist, and bestselling author of no one belongs here more than you, comes a spectacular debut novel that is so heartbreaking, so dirty, so tender, so funny, so Miranda July. Readers will be astonished.

Here is Cheryl, a tightly-wound, vulnerable woman who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people’s babies. Cheryl is also obsessed with Phillip, a philandering board member at the women’s self-defense nonprofit where she works. She believes they’ve been making love for many lifetimes, though they have yet to consummate in this one.

When Cheryl’s bosses ask if their twenty-one-year-old daughter, Clee, can move into her house for a little while, Cheryl’s eccentrically ordered world explodes. And yet it is Clee—the selfish, cruel blond bombshell—who bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, provides her the love of a lifetime.

Tender, gripping, slyly hilarious, infused with raging sexual obsession and fierce maternal love, Miranda July’s first novel confirms her as a spectacularly original, iconic, and important voice today, and a writer for all time. The First Bad Man is dazzling, disorienting, and unforgettable.

“Miranda July’s ability to pervert norms while embracing what makes us normal is astounding. Writing in the first person with the frank, odd lilt of an utterly truthful character, she will make you laugh, cringe and recognize yourself in a woman you never planned to be. By the time July tackles motherhood, the book has become a bible. Never has a novel spoken so deeply to my sexuality, my spirituality, my secret self. I know I am not alone.”

–Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl

“Cheryl Glickman, Miranda July’s heroine in this unforgettable novel, is one of the most original, most confounding and strangely sympathetic characters in recent fiction. She narrates this very intimate epic that starts in a place of brittle, quirky, loneliness and progresses into a profoundly moving story of nontraditional love and commitment. This novel is almost impossible to put down, and confirms July as a novelist of the first order.”

–Dave Eggers, author of The Circle

“Miranda July’s first novel announces something new, not only in its invention, characterization, and pace, but emotional truth. With it, the esteemed artist and filmmaker joins the front rank of young American novelists—and then surpasses them.”

–Hilton Als, author of White Girls

“I am in awe of Miranda July. She is the person I want to be, the artist who feels free to work in any number of media, the artist who is so talented, expressive. The First Bad Man is a book that must be read, a book that must be purchased—in duplicate—one for you, one for a friend. Don’t think you can loan this book—you’ll never get it back.”

–A.M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven

“July’s work reminds us that the essential storytelling tool is voice. Hers is smart, funny, twisted, vulnerable, humane, and reassuring: a dazzling human consciousness speaking frankly and fondly and directly to you. If I ever start to doubt the power of language and intelligence, I only have to read a few lines of July to have my faith restored.”

–George Saunders, author of Tenth of December

“The ‘yes, that’s really the way it is!’ moments in this book came so fast and furious that I found myself propelled into a story that, despite its subtly off-kilter course, somehow—I don’t know how—ended up revealing the invisible and depthless emotional reality that roils and tugs beneath us all. Miranda July’s protagonist inhabits this uncharted world of unspeakable desires, embarrassing hopes and shifting conquests more fully than any in contemporary fiction I can recall. The First Bad Man is a strange miracle of a book, and despite the opinion of its main character, a truly great American love story for our time.”

–Chris Ware, author of Building Stories

10/02/2014

The Miranda

Miranda July Introduces The Miranda from WELCOMECOMPANIONS on Vimeo.

Artist, writer, and director, Miranda July introduces her collaboration with WELCOMECOMPANIONS, an obsessively personalized namesake handbag as part of our CLASSICS collection. Available in two versions, the first, a limited edition that takes the phenomenon of a named bag to its most extreme complete with Miranda’s contents and comments in specially fashioned and labelled pockets. The edition of 100 is a modern day Duchampian box by way of a nineteenth century trunk maker — a new world wunderkammer and a portrait of a lady. Launch party at Opening Ceremony, LA – a voyeuristic of the hosts’ personal handbag contents, likenesses by a hand portraitists, music by JD Samson.

To view the collection go to welcomecompanions.com/collections/classics

Video premiered on Vogue

11/20/2014

NEW SOCIETY at Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH

10/30/2014

NEW SOCIETY at the WALKER ART CENTER, Minneapolis

10/24/2014

ALIEN SHE, Curated by Astria Suparak + Ceci Moss, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA

10/15/2014

Vroman’s Bookstore presents Lena Dunham and her collection of essays, Not That Kind of Girl, Interviewed by Miranda July

10/10/2014

The Golden State: Panel at the New Yorker Festival With MICHAEL CHABON, RYAN COOGLER, and ROBERT TOWNE

10/09/2014

Somebody: An Evening with Miranda July at the New Museum, New York

08/28/2014

Somebody Premiere at the Venice Film Festival

2014

Somebody

“Test my soil. Deeper.”

Have you ever found it impossible to say something, face to face, to someone you know, someone you love? The words just won’t come out? A new messaging service, SOMEBODY, by Miranda July could help. It’s the star of her film for Miu Miu Womens’ Tales, the eighth commission in the acclaimed short-film series by women directors who critically celebrate femininity in the 21st century.

Jessica wants to tell Caleb she can’t be his girlfriend anymore. She opens up SOMEBODY, types in the heartbreaking message, and selects Paul from a list. Paul is in the park. Paul’s phone dings. He eyes Caleb having a picnic. Paul delivers the bad news—as Jessica. Eyes bawling. Arms flapping. Caleb is, devastated.

The SOMEBODY app then totally saves Yolanda and Blanca’s friendship, makes Jeffy’s marriage proposal to lonely Victoria, and initiates a curious ménage-a-trois between two prison workers and a parched potted plant named Anthony.

This latest addition to Womens’ Tales showcases Miranda July’s unique ability to capture the strange tenderness of contemporary relationships.

SOMEBODY takes our endless hunger for communication, technology, avatars and outsourcing, and blends it into what seems to be a surreal near-future — but it’s not. It’s right now. In close collaboration with Miu Miu, July worked with a team of developers to create this radical and complex app; when the movie ends we’re invited to visit somebodyapp.com to send or deliver our first message.

Premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

08/28/2014

Somebody

Somebody
A new messaging service by Miranda July

Texting is tacky. Calling is awkward. Email is old.
On August 28th Miranda July unveils a new way to communicate: Somebody — an app created with support from Miu Miu, available in the iTunes store as a free download (iOS only).

When you send your friend a message through Somebody, it goes — not to your friend — but to the Somebody user nearest your friend. This person (probably a stranger) delivers the message verbally, acting as your stand-in. The app launched at the Venice Film Festival along with a short companion film, part of Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series.
Since Somebody is brand new early adapters are integral to its creation — the most high-tech part of the app is not in the phone, it’s in the users who dare to deliver a message to stranger. “I see this as far-reaching public art project, inciting performance and conversation about the value of inefficiency and risk,” says July.

Somebody works best with a critical mass of users in a given area; colleges, workplaces, parties and concerts can become Somebody hotspots simply by designating themselves as one (details on somebodyapp.com).

Official Somebody hotspots so far include Los Angeles County Museum of Art (with a presentation by Ms. July on Sept. 11), The New Museum (presentation on Oct. 9), Yerba Buena Center for The Arts (San Francisco), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and Museo Jumex (Mexico City.) Museum-goers are invited to send and deliver messages in these spaces where there are likely to be other users.

With Miu Miu’s support, July worked closely with designer Thea Lorentzen and a team of developers at the award winning Stinkdigital to create the complex, GPS-based messaging system. Half-app / half-human, Somebody twists our love of avatars and outsourcing —every relationship becomes a three-way. The antithesis of the utilitarian efficiency that tech promises, here, finally, is an app that makes us nervous, giddy, and alert to the people around us.

“When you can’t be there…Somebody can.”

Visit somebodyapp.com for movie, media kit and details.
Contact us at [email protected]

Details:

• Add actions and directions for your stand-in, such as [crying] or [hug] — or write your own.

• The recipient always has the option of declining a delivery before it’s set in to motion, if now’s not a good time.

• The first sentence of the message is automatically “[Recipient’s name]? It’s me, [Sender’s Name]” — reminding the stand-in to assume the identity of the sender.

• Somebody™ uses GPS to locate your friend and users nearby, then presents you with photos and performance ratings so you can choose the best possible delivery person for your message.

If there’s no one nearby, you can choose to “float” your message indefinitely. Users interested in being a stand-in can browse nearby floating messages and pick one to deliver.

07/01/2013

WE THINK ALONE

WE THINK ALONE was a collaboration with Danh Vo, Etgar Keret, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kate and Laura Mulleavy, Lena Dunham, Kirsten Dunst, Sheila Heti, Catherine Opie and Lee Smolin comissioned by Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall for a show called On The Tip of My Tongue. A themed compendium of ten previously-sent emails arrived every Monday, between July 1 and November 11, 2013, to the inboxes of those who had signed up to receive it. When the final email went out on November 11, 2013, WE THINK ALONE had over 104,892 readers from 170 countries.
Week 1: An Email About Money
Week 2: an email that gives advice
Week 3: an email that mentions Barack Obama
Week 4: a business email
Week 5: an email that includes a picture of something you want
Week 6: an email to your mom
Week 7: an email that includes a dream you had
Week 8: an email that includes a picture of art
Week 9: an email where you describe what you’re working on
Week 10: an email you decided not to send
Week 11: an email that includes a picture of yourself
Week 12: an email with I love you in it
Week 13: an email with a link in it
Week 14: an email about being sad
Week 15: an email about a fear
Week 16: an angry email
Week 17: an email that includes a song
Week 18: an email that’s an apology
Week 19: an email about the body
Week 20: an email about a problem you’re having with your computer

2011

The Future

When Sophie (Miranda July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) decide to adopt a stray cat, their perspective on life changes radically, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves.

Written and directed by Miranda July; director of photography, Nikolai von Graevenitz; edited by Andrew Bird; music by Jon Brion; production design by Elliott Hostetter; costumes by Christie Wittenborn; produced by Gina Kwon, Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner; released by Roadside Attractions. With: David Warshofsky (Marshall), Isabella Acres (Gabriella) and Joe Putterlik (Joe/the Moon).When Sophie (Miranda July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) decide to adopt a stray cat, their perspective on life changes radically, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves.

Written and directed by Miranda July; director of photography, Nikolai von Graevenitz; edited by Andrew Bird; music by Jon Brion; production design by Elliott Hostetter; costumes by Christie Wittenborn; produced by Gina Kwon, Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner; released by Roadside Attractions. With: David Warshofsky (Marshall), Isabella Acres (Gabriella) and Joe Putterlik (Joe/the Moon).

view website trailer making of

2011

It Chooses You

In the summer of 2009, Miranda July was struggling to finish writing the screenplay for her much-anticipated second film. During her increasingly long lunch breaks, she began to obsessively read the PennySaver, the iconic classifieds booklet that reached everywhere and seemed to come from nowhere. Who was the person selling the “Large Leather Jacket, $10″? It seemed important to find out—or at least it was a great distraction from the screenplay.

Accompanied by photographer Brigitte Sire, July crisscrossed Los Angeles to meet a random selection of PennySaver sellers, glimpsing thirteen surprisingly moving and profoundly specific realities, along the way shaping her film, and herself, in unexpected ways.

Elegantly blending narrative, interviews, and photographs with July’s off-kilter honesty and deadpan humor, this is a story of procrastination and inspiration, isolation and connection, and grabbing hold of the invisible world.

Published by Mcsweeney’s.

07/30/2014

Contributed Mother’s Nightmare to Photographer’s Playbook: 307 Assignments and Ideas, edited by Jason Fulford & Gregory Halpern, published by Aperture

2008

The Hallway

The Hallway from The Hallway on Vimeo.

A 125 foot hallway lined with fifty wooden signs, hand-painted with text. As the viewer/participant walks down the seemingly endless hall, weaving between the signs, the text acts as an internal voice, “It’s too late to go back now, but the end seems far away…” The “you” in text realizes that you’ll be walking down this hallway for the rest of your life. And like life, the hall is filled with indecision, disappointment, boredom and joy – and it does end.
English in one direction, Japanese in the other.

Commissioned by the Yokohama Triennial, 2008. In the collection of The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan.

2009

Eleven Heavy Things

photo by Lukas Wassmann

Photo by Miranda July

Eleven Heavy Things, created for the 53rd International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, is comprised of eleven sculptural works installed in an enclosed garden within Giardino delle Vergini. The cast fiber-glass, steel-lined pieces are designed for interaction: pedestals to stand on, tablets with holes for body parts, and free-standing abstract headdresses. A series of three pedestals in ascending height, The Guilty One, The Guiltier One, The Guiltiest One, ask the viewer to ascribe their guilt relative to the people around them. A large flat shape, hand-painted with Burberry plaid, hovers on a pole, waiting to become someone’s aura. A series of tablets invite heads, arms, legs and one finger: This is not the first hole my finger has been in, nor will it be the last. A wider pedestal for two people to hug on reads, We don!t know each other, we’re just hugging for the picture….
July assumes and invites the picture — these are eleven photo opportunities, in a city where one is always clutching a camera. Though the work begins as sculpture, it becomes a performance that is only complete when these tourist photos are uploaded onto personal blogs and sent in emails — at which point the audience changes, and the subject clearly becomes the participants, revealing themselves through the work.

Eleven Heavy Things was installed in the Center Lawn of Union Square Park in New York from May 29 to October 03, 2010.

Eleven Heavy Things was installed at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles from July 23 to October 23, 2011.

Eleven Heavy Things is included in the exhibition Stories We Tell Ourselves at the Aspen Art Museum on March 27, 2015 until October 25, 2015.

Production of this work has been supported by Deitch Projects.

2007

No One Belongs Here More Than You

short stories, Scribner, published May 15 2007

view website

2007

Learning to Love You More

Edited by Harrell Fletcher & Miranda July, published by Prestel.

view website

06/28/2014

Somebody short film shoot in partnership with Miu Miu

2005

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Miles Thompson and Brandon Ratcliff in ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, a film by Miranda July, 2005, Photo credit Phoebe Sudrow(1)

Christine Jesperson is a lonely artist and “Eldercab” driver who uses her fantastical artistic visions to draw her aspirations and objects of desire closer to her. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), a newly single shoe salesman and father of two boys, is prepared for amazing things to happen. But when he meets Christine, he panics. Life is not so oblique for Richard’s seven-year-old Robby, who is having a risqué internet romance with a stranger, and his fourteen- year-old brother Peter who becomes the guinea pig for neighborhood girls— practicing for their futureof romance and marriage.In July’s modern world, the mundane is transcendent and everyday people become radiant characters who speak their innermost thoughts, act on secret impulses, and experience truthful human moments that at times approach the surreal. They seek together-ness through tortured routes and find redemption in small moments that connect them to someoneelse on earth.An IFC/FILM FOUR and Gina Kwon Production

view website blog trailer buy dvd

06/14/2014

Read for Eli Horowitz’s Silent History at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart

06/09/2014

TV short story published in New Yorker fiction issue

06/03/2014

Read Janet Frame’s Prizes for New Yorker fiction podcast

05/03/2014

Appropriation / Collaboration: Christian Marclay / Harrell Fletcher & Miranda July at the University of Michigan Museum of Art

04/27/2014

Lecture at Boston University

04/14/2014

You Reach Out—Right Now—for Something: Questioning the Concept of Fashion by Nakako Hayashi, Contemporary Art Gallery, Mito, Japan

04/04/2014

In Mid-Air essay for Akademie X, Phaidon Press

03/14/2014

Finished copy edits on first novel The First Bad Man

02/18/2014

Shoot for Ginza Magazine with(out) Takashi Homma

02/13/2014

Writer in Residence, University Central Arkansas

02/11/2014

My Autobiography, lecture at Hendrix College, conway, AK

01/31/2014

Objects without Meaning photoshoot AW14 Collection

01/14/2014

Sundance Film Festival Artist Edition Scarf

11/17/2013

LOST CHILD! at Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH

11/06/2013

Shoot for Women In Clothes with Molly Ringwald and Co.

10/05/2013

Performed NEW SOCIETY (work in progress) at Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA

10/04/2013

New Yorker Festival, NY

09/30/2013

Undisguised Woman introduction for Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors, published Hatje Cantz/Moderna Museet

09/21/2013

Alien She, curated by Astria Suparak & Ceci Moss, Carnegie Mellon Unversity

08/22/2013

Player on Can You Guess What This Is?, New York Times Opinionator column

06/15/2013

Reading, University of Tampa MFA ‘Lectores’ Speaker Series, Florida

04/01/2013

Stand Up Comedy video for rachelcomey.com

03/16/2013

Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle and Miranda July show, featuring The Hallway installation Hara Museum ARC, Japan

02/01/2013

More Love: Art, Politics, and Sharing since the 1990s, Ackland Museum of Art, North Carolina

01/19/2013

Japanese premiere of The Future

12/05/2012

Seattle Arts & Lectures

12/01/2012

Collaboration with On Paper Magazine, Henrik Nielsen & Andreas Omvik

11/29/2012

The Future on DVD

11/18/2012

Creative Minds, Connecticut Forum

11/29/2012

In conversation with Joshuah Bearman about It Chooses You at Central Library, Downtown LA through ALOUD, LFLA

11/18/2012

The Future screened at Ghent Film Festival

11/17/2012

It Chooses You book published

11/17/2012

Grand Opening of Partners & Spade It Chooses You shop

11/14/2012

Talk at Ukrainian National Federation, Montreal

11/08/2012

Guest editor, Du Magazine

11/02/2012

90 Days, 90 Reasons, Obama Campaign

11/01/2012

New Yorker Fiction Podcast: David Sedaris Reads Miranda July’s Roy Spivey

10/27/2012

German Premiere of The Future

10/23/2012

Sermon on Strangers at The School of Life, London

10/22/2012

BFI London Film Festival Masterclass, London

10/20/2012

The Future at London Film Festival

10/18/2012

The Auction (performance) at Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA

04/30/2012

Awarded Kindle Project’s Makers Muse Award

04/12/2012

Italian premiere of The Future

02/25/2012

The Auction (performance), San Francisco Jewish Community Center

11/30/2011

Appeared on City Arts & Lectures in conversation with Julia Bryan-Wilson

11/01/2011

Lost Child! reprint of 100 copies published by Nieves

11/16/2011

It Chooses You at Selected Shorts

2006

Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going to Talk About

Miranda July and audience member performing in

Miranda July and an audience member performing in

A tale of heartbreak and obsession that is so familiar you could tell it yourself. In fact, members of audience play lead roles in the performance. Performed at The Steve Allen Theater (Los Angeles), Project Theater Artaud/San Francisco Cinematheque, and The Kitchen (New York, March 2007).

10/10/2011

Shoplifting to Stay Free, The New Yorker

10/22/2011

The Future screening and Q&A at Tate Modern, London

09/20/2011

Swedish Premiere of The Future, Stockholm International Film Festival

09/16/2011

Learning To Love You More at Pace Gallery and Pace/MacGill Gallery

08/01/2011

The Future at Melbourne International Film Festival

07/31/2011

The Future at Durban International Film Festival

07/29/2011

The Future (USA release)

07/23/2011

Eleven Heavy Things, MOCA at Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles

07/14/2011

Movie Night with Miranda July: Jane Campion Shorts at IFC Center

04/29/2011

The Future at Boston International Film Festival

04/23/2011

The Future at SF International Film Festival

03/13/2011

The Future at SXSW Film Festival, Austin, TX

02/16/2011

pieces from Joanie4Jackie featured in Looking at Music 3.0 exhibition at MOMA

02/15/2011

The Future Premiere in competition at Berlinale (Berlin, Germany)

01/21/2011

The Future Premiere at Sundance Film Festival (Park City, Utah)

01/16/2011

SNARLA zines sold to MOMA

09/10/2010

Picture locked on The Future

09/01/2010

Majesty featured in I Found This Funny, Edited by Judd Apatow, published by McSweeney’s

06/29/2010

Eleven Heavy Things, interactive sculptural work, Center Lawn, Union Square Park, New York

04/22/2010

Learning To Love You More included in the SFMOMA collection

03/20/2010

The Hallway installed at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

10/01/2009

Cal Arts Visiting Artist lecture

09/09/2009

Governor at Toronto International Film Festival’s Talent Lab

07/02/2009

Looked at Washington Sq. Park for site of Eleven Heavy Things

06/20/2009

New draft of “Satisfaction” (original title for The Future)

06/16/2009

Extras shoot with Roe Etheridge for Vice

06/07/2009

Eleven Heavy Things, interactive sculptural work, Venice Biennale 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice, Italy

03/07/2009

Brainwave, discussion with Columbia University psychologist George Bonanno, Rubin Museum of Art, NYC

02/20/2009

Every Single Thing You Know, taught workshop with students ages 8 to 14, 826LA East, Echo Park, CA

09/24/2008

Taught class with Mike Mills at the Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy

09/13/2008

The Hallway installation made for the Yokohama 2008: International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Yokohama, Japan

09/01/2008

QPB New Voices Award for No One Belongs Here More Than You

06/01/2008

No One Belongs Here More Than You/É claro que você sabe do que estou falando, Brazilian edition, published by Ediouro

04/23/2008

Occupying Territory, featuring Haysha Royko, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, Turkey

04/01/2008

No One Belongs Here More Than You/Ingen Hör Hemma Här Mer Än Du, Swedish edition, published by Alfabeta

03/29/2008

The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics, featuring Joanie 4 Jackie related materials and explanatory video, Yerba Buena Center for The Arts, San Francisco, CA

03/20/2008

Writer and performer in How to Make a Button (web video), directed by Saul Levitz, VBS.TV

02/01/2008

No One Belongs Here More Than You/Zehn Wahrheiten, German edition, published by Diogenes

01/02/2008

Roy Spivey featured in The Book of Other People, edited by Zadie Smith, published by Penguin

12/06/2007

Uncertain States of America Exhibition, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague

12/06/2007

Thermostat: Video and the Pacific Northwest, featuring Nest of Tens, The Amateurist, Atlanta, Getting Stronger Every Day, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Video Lounge, Miami Beach Botanical Gardens

12/03/2007

No One Belongs Here More Than You/Un Bref Instant de Romantisme, French language book release reception, hosted by Flammarion and Colette, Paris

11/20/2007

The Sister, audio reading from NBHMTY, When Absence Becomes Presence (Exhibition), Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC

11/10/2007

Amateurist DVD with original production notes auctioned at “Small Works for Big Change” fundraiser to benefit the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Sara Meltzer Gallery, NYC.

11/04/2007

Featured in Cinema Now, by Andrew Bailey, published by Taschen

10/07/2007

Facilitated audience participation for David Byrne show, Davies Hall, San Francisco, CA

10/06/2007

Learning to Love You More Exhibition, curated by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher, the Journal Gallery, NYC

10/05/2007

Miranda July and A. M. Homes have a conversation about Deviants, New Yorker Festival, Anthology Film Archives, NYC

09/23/2007

Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award for No One Belongs Here More Than You, Cork, Ireland

09/20/2007

Learning to Love You More book published

09/03/2007

Reading/Performance, Bumbershoot, Seattle

09/03/2007

Getting Stronger Every Day, The Amatuerist, and Nest of Tens screened at Bumbershoot / 1 Reel Film Festival, Seattle

2005

Are You The Favorite Person of Anyone?

Sundance Institute Director’s Lab Fellow

2003

Haysha Royko

Haysha Royko, a video by Miranda July. 2003. Image 3

Three people negotiate space and energy in the Portland International Airport.

Animation by Jalal Jemison

4 minutes.

Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher.

view website

website designed and maintained by Yuri Ono

02/03/2003

Lecture and performance at Arts Technology Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

10/11/2002

The Swan Tool, On The Boards, Seattle, WA

10/05/2002

Performance at Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC

09/22/2002

Performance, Scottish Rite Theater, Austin, TX, following a performance by Forcefield (the Providence, RI-based art collective), Cinematexas International Short Film Festival

05/26/2002

The Drifters (sound installation), commissioned for the Whitney Biennale, Whitney Museum, New York

05/26/2002

Nest of Tens screened as part of the Whitney Biennale, Whitney Museum, NY

2002

Creative Capital Foundation Grant, Emerging Fields

04/02/2002

How Will I Know Her?

How Will I Know Her? is a web-based exhibit about being far from the one you love, for reasons that are out of your control. This project was launched in April 2002 and was initially commissioned by the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany for a program on the theme of “Catastrophe”.

07/01/2002

Guest Editor, Independent Film & Video Monthly, insert on experimental film

2000–2002

The Swan Tool

The Swan Tool combines video, performance, live music and helium to tell the story of a woman (played by July) who cannot decide whether to live or die. Rather than choose, she digs a hole in her backyard and buries herself. Following the self-burial she attempts to continue living and working, but the thing in the hole will not die and she is unable to forget about it. In this performance July stands on a narrow catwalk between two screens, one behind her top half, and one in front of her bottom half.

10/25/2000

Some Kind of Loving tour with Astria Suparak, The Swan Tool (work in progress) with original live score by Zac Love, Blinding Light!! Cinema, Vancouver, BC

2001

Getting Stronger Everyday

This one is about being lost and found, from moment to moment, and over the course of a lifetime. The spirit realm manifests in lo-tech effects and remembered TV movies.
Starring Richard Greiling, Carrie Brownstein, and Mia Cianciulli

Cinematography: Harrell Fletcher
Soundtrack: Zac Love
Editing: Miranda July and Keith
Edited at The Lux Centre

Commissioned by The Lux Centre for Pandaemonium 2001

7 minutes.

1999

Nest of Tens

Nest of Tens, a video by Miranda July, 2000

1997

A “professional” woman monitors an “amateur” woman (both played by July) via video surveillance, as she has for the last four and a half years. She has never had direct contact with the amateur, but creates a sense of communion through numbers, knobs and careful language.
Digital video: Vanessa Renwick
Surveillance video: Miranda July
Editing: Kelly McClean
Music: Miranda July and D. Ben Noble
Sound mixing: Tim Renner

14 minutes.

1997

McKenzie River Gathering Foundation’s Lilla Jewel Award for best multi-media artist

1997

Andrea Frank Foundation Grant

1997

Regional Arts and Culture Council, Technical Assistance Grant

11/01/1996

Margie Ruskie Stops Time, a collaboration with The Need, 7″ record, released by Kill Rock Stars (KRS271)

1996

ATLANTA

A 12 year-old Olympic swimmer and her mother (both played by July) speak to the public about “going for the gold”. Videoed by Miranda July, Wu La Dawson, and Summer Mastous. Edited by Miranda July.

10 minutes.

1996

Guest Lecturer, University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)

1995–1998

Performance Work

Before performing full-length work in more theatrical performance venues, July performed in music clubs, sharing bills with bands like Sleater-Kinney, Chicks on Speed, and Dub Narcotic. Most of this work was recorded and is available on the CDs The Binet-Simon Test (Kill Rock Stars, 1998) and Ten Million Hours A Mile (Kill Rock Stars, 1997). Before this, July was a member of the band The Need; this collaboration can be heard on the 7″ record Margie Ruskie Stops Time (Kill Rock Stars, 1996).

1995