Born in 1963, grew up in NYC, worked with Paul Morrissey, Yvonne Rainer, Stuart Sherman, Squat Theatre, Tere O’Connor and John Jasperse, among others.   Has done lighting and set design for various artists at P.S.122, Movement Research and The Dia Foundation.  Ben worked as director of photography on music videos (The Ramones, David Lee Roth, Ricky Martin, Everything But The Girl), documentaries (Paris Is Burning, Treyf, Trembling Before G_d,) and feature films (The Delta, Junk, Mary & Max).  Moved to Melbourne, 2000; worked with Jenny Kemp (Still Angela), Ros Warby (Solos, Swift, Monumental), Shelley Lasica (History Situation), Scott Rankin (Ngapartji Ngapartji), Lyndal Jones (The Avoca Project) and Ross Gibson (Shadowlands).  Speth’s first feature film as writer/director/d.o.p., dresden (1999) was licensed by the Showtime Network and was shown at the Sundance, Belfort, Mar del Plata, New York Underground and Brisbane film festivals, among others.  In 2002, Speth was commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to make dummy.  His second feature film, Forever, was part of the ACMI/NGV show 2004: A Survey of Recent Australian Visual Culture.  In 2005 he completed Satellite, a feature film that premiered at the 53rd Melbourne International Film Festival.  In 2007 he wrote and directed an evening length play Make Me Cry.