Carl Abrahamsson's Blog, page 46

Demonic Mnemonic Tech Rant

 

Apologetic introduction: How many more tech rants does the world need? I have no idea, but I’ve never feared ridiculous redundancy, so here goes…

The digital platforms fragment. Our attention spans get shorter and shorter, dictated by dopamine-driven success ”online.” Micro-movements, sedating necessities… ”I’m just going to…” ”Let me just…” Where is the dialogue? Where is our human poetry?

Everyone builds a little empire. At war, at peace, in crisis, at ease… Big Brother watches (or not)… Everyone succumbs and gets conditioned / imprinted, and always on display. ”I am visible, therefore I exist.” The utter hopelessness in awaiting a few more likes; a few more acknowledgements of bot-controlled defeat and dismay.

Lots of deafening, deathening noise, and barely any signal. Where are you in all of this? Unwillingly wallowing through necessary motions in order to simply exist. Technology-driven subhumans sharing platforms like the proverbial junkies’ needles. Needless to say, the more idiotic and cynical something is, the more successful it seems to become.

Irony rules supreme. I remember when the ”joystick” was presented. Genius, almost on Communist China level (I remember the ”Double Happiness” cigarettes sold cheaply in Tibet). And now, a few generations of hollow men and women later, humanity has sunk into total complacency and submission.

Pioneers and entrepreneurs skating on the thin ice of previous progress, where progress doesn’t actually mean steps forward but rather just the vain hope of amassing massive and invisible fortunes online. ”I have a great idea for an app…”

Gadgets and gizmos become more encompassing and ambitious (as well as epihytic / parasitic) as human resistance dwindles into narcotic and necrotic levels of self-esteem. Look at the screen, little human. There are other ghosts / shells inside the gadget. Befriend them (but not for real!). Look at the screen… Don’t think – Just LOL… OMG… Dream of online success while swiping frantically until your mind loses all focus.

Even critical tendencies get lured and lulled away by shallow narcissisms. Bling, bling, beautiful babes, to what degree can you look like everyone else today? The one with the least trace of character and personality wins.

Breaking away, logging out, shutting down… Becoming fully human and functional again. The real upper class is the one that is technology-free to the greatest extent possible, yet remaining fully functional and competitive. Let techno-serfs do the work and take on the detrimental impact of fragmentation.

Rest at ease, enjoy your envisioning a grand future. Technology is a tool, not a lifestyle. The worker works and he pays the price. The aristocrat watches and moves strategically, aware of the imminent and potential dangers of artificially illuminated screens.

We are far too attached to the technology and its premises / promises. But human magic exists in a de-tached mind-frame. The magic happens when you’re not paying attention. The problem with social media-technology and its data-driven despair is that it not only grabs your attention; it holds on to it and refuses to let go. Thereby we deny ourselves giving chance a chance, in-between the lines of the causal and binary. It is far more constructive to zone out and allow for deeper strata to send survival messages to the surface. If the surface is too stormy with digital anticipation, we are barred from listening to ourselves. Far too much noise, far too little signal.

If we take into account that it is currently pretty impossible to exist without online access, and that some of us exist somewhere in-between the digital serf and the analogue aristocrat, then perhaps it’s better to look at the opportunities (they are many!) rather than zone out far, far into cynicism-land. But the crux of the motherboard is that even the constructive and enthusiastic bursts online are also feeding the beast. Whether we take in digi-dross passively or try to build something of our own actively, the behavior is basically the same, and it has the same result: fragmentation. One could of course argue that there is a substantial difference in spirit: one takes in and one gives out. But the technology and the modus operandi are still the same.

To put it bluntly: I think we’re all pretty fucked.

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My film ”Cinemagician” is released today!

 

Iconic American filmmaker Kenneth Anger has inspired generations of creative storytellers since the late 1940s. He is a unique visionary who drifts from pure poetry within his magical filmmaking to sardonic gossip in his bestselling ”Hollywood Babylon” books. In-between these extremes we find a person who never tires of exploring his own creativity. In this intimate documentary, Anger lets us in on his fascinating life story, his approaches to filmmaking, and his relationship to British occultist Aleister Crowley.

A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2019. 48 minutes.

 

Cinemagician: Conversations with Kenneth Anger from Carl Abrahamsson on Vimeo.

 

For more information on the An Art Apart documentary series, please visit: trapartfilm.com

To support ongoing projects, please visit: patreon.com/vanessa23carl

 

Please support my new film about Anton LaVey!

 

I just basically wrapped up my film about Kenneth Anger (Cinemagician – Conversations with Kenneth Anger), which will very soon be released. But I can’t sit still. Ants in the cinematic pants, or what? Today, I launched the crowdfunder campaign for my documentary about Anton LaVey (Anton LaVey – Into the Devil’s Den). I have shot all the material, but now head into post production and acquisitions of archival material. Time and Money!

Please take a look at the trailer to get a feel for the project. If you like what you see and would like to support the film, please go to the project page at Indiegogo:

INTO THE DEVIL’S DEN CROWDFUNDER CAMPAIGN

(Please feel free to spread the link as much as you want!)

 

 

Thank You! It’s going to be one hell of a film!

Official Information:

In 1989, I met Anton LaVey for the first time. At this time in his life, LaVey was seeing only a select few people. For this film, I’ve met and interviewed some of them, to try and create a composite image of what he was really like, and what he meant to these people. It’s a memory lane trip, filled with personal stories, dark humor, great music and never before seen material with the ”Black Pope” himself. – Carl Abrahamsson, Stockholm, April 2019

 

Anton LaVey was many things to many people: musician, magician, writer, wild animal trainer, police photographer, film buff, founder of a magical group, and possibly of a new religion, and yes… He was a Satanist. With his creation of the infamous Church of Satan in 1966, and his bestselling book The Satanic Bible in 1969, Anton LaVey changed the ballgame in many ways. Here was a free-spirited San Francisco based group neither in favour of mind-expanding drugs, nor of peace & love for its own sake. Here was a group that was decidedly, outspokenly anti-Christian. Here was a group that brought dark pro-sexual psychodrama and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche straight into American living rooms and TV couches. Anton LaVey became a celebrity scapegoat who basked in the attention, and made a successful career out of it. But who was Anton LaVey behind the public persona that so easily provoked primitive American Christians and other intolerants? Who was this enigmatic “American Adversary”?

Where the film Satanis by Ray Laurent (1969) shows the publicity-conscious and media-savvy LaVey, Nick Bougas’s 1993 documentary Speak of the Devil shows a considerably more private high priest of the Church of Satan indulging in his own pleasures. Now it’s time for an even more nuanced image, painted by the people who knew LaVey personally and who carry on his work and ideas to this day.

My film ANTON LAVEY – INTO THE DEVIL’S DEN is a documentary that gives you exclusive insight into the man detractors called “The Black Pope.” The film contains never before shown interview material with LaVey, private photographs, rare recordings, plus in-depth interviews with Blanche Barton, Peter Gilmore, Peggy Nadramia, Bob Johnson, Kenneth Anger, Michael Moynihan, Mitch Horowitz, Ruth Waytz, Carl Abrahamsson, and more…

The film is on its way! But we still have a long way to go in the expensive struggle of post-production. This is where you can help out. The film needs more archival material, sound-cleaning and color grading, all of which requires TIME and money. If you support this film, you will not only reap the infernal benefits of association; you will also take part of some amazing “perks.”

For more information, please also visit: www.trapartfilm.com  and please consider supporting ongoing productions at: www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl  Thank You!

 

Tao oats for breakfast

 

Antidotes to the contemporary malaise: do nothing, and ambitiously so. If you need or want to do something, fine. But in terms of imposed agendas and habitual relationships, just hold your horses for a while.

Allow yourself to clearly formulate just how drained these actions and people actually make you feel. Why on earth do you allow it? If it’s a matter of extreme importance, urgency or sustenance, by all means accept. But never uncritically.

Most of our time is not spent in urgencies or extreme situations. The run of the mill, the everyday, the trivial regularities… These are the relevant barricades of your existential leakage counterforce.

Dare to say NO to what’s expected of you. You don’t have to justify anything to anyone. It feels great to reclaim your time and space, and it’s much easier than you think. Remember Nancy Reagan? “Just say NO!”

Please also note what the reactions are to your new attitude. These will be indicative of who or what constitute the greatest energy thieves of your life. If someone turns out to be irrationally and reactively unbearable you should applaud yourself: you have just exposed a psychic vampire!

Most people will salute your attempts at increased independence, in the hope that you will return the courtesy some day (when they reach your level of insight). But those who do not, or who even mock your attempts, reveal their epiphytic/parasitic perversion. You should be honoured; to some extent they cannot fully function without clinging to you. But if they give nothing back, you have to cut those ties with a very sharp object.

And then get back to doing nothing. Let the world know you’re enjoying it, if that’s genuinely relevant to you. If not, do nothing in the full-blown glory of your inner sanctum privacy. It’s the ultimate heretical act, and the ultimate luxury, in a devastated world filled with supreme stress, fickle fragmentation and parasitic perverts indulging in their own delirious death drives.

 

“Being centred, you will be calm.

Being calm, you will be enlightened.

Being enlightened, you will be empty.

Being empty, you will be in actionless action,

But with actionless action, nothing remains undone.”

(The Book of Chuang Tzu)

 

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The Hermetic Vessel

 

There is no need to tell anyone anything. The allure of social media is shortsighted, and especially in the long run. Being glued to dopamine-infused communicational needs spells l-e-a-k-a-g-e. Why spill the beans before it’s even time to cook?

Work, work, work. Then package, market, sell. But avoid leakage to the greatest extent possible because it will decimate the potency of the end result. It’s devious how this works: you think you’re informing – enthusiastically so! – but in actual fact you’re deforming both form and content by not keeping the process hermetic.

If you have a tight hermetic vessel, you’ll attract far more than with a wide open vessel with ten social media megaphones attached. It’s all in the silent force. Work, work, work. Then package, market, sell. Not the other way around.

By the way, this little text could actually be seen as leakage too, so I’d better… stop… writing…

 

 

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Confessions of a fetishist

 

The tools to really do what I need to do are definitely already there. Every little additional acquisition makes me drift slightly away from the core. Sometimes I’m attracted to an object and I can tangibly feel the inspiration it could provide. An example: a strong desire for the Leica Monochrome or even the Leica X-U. But as I’m not out and about hunting for that kind of image daily and manically, then what does it really matter?

Getting to the core is what counts, and not much is really required. Our recent trip to Egypt was a great example of that, with me traveling solely with the Canon G7X. That has never happened before… Just one camera! But still… a successful field trip with ample documentation.

It’s all in the writing anyway, with the photos backing up the stories. A camera really can’t (or shouldn’t) take a picture of itself, so what does it matter?

Blind tests are pretty great for people like me. Who can tell if I wrote this text with a Montblanc Meisterstück or a Bic Crystal? Can I judge if someone else’s photo was taken with a Canon G7X or a Leica X Vario or a Sony A7? A good camera is simply a good camera, isn’t it?

I notice as I write this what a tremendous snob I am. Why even consider a Leica Monochrome when history has shown me several times how mad rangefinder cameras make me? Why indulge in frustration? It makes no sense. I’m just fetishizing a romantic notion – or the tool of that romantic notion (i.e., a real ”fetish”).

Different cameras for different purposes, sure, but I certainly don’t need any more. I’m too much of a romantic and not enough of a pragmatic. I write. I take pictures. That’s about it.

 

 

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Another great review of ”Occulture”

 

Magonia Review of Books recently published an excellent review of my book ”Occulture – The Unseen Forces that Drive Culture Forward.” It was written by Clive Prince. You can check out more fascinating reviews HERE!

Carl Abrahamsson, Occulture: The Unseen Forces that Drive Culture Forward, Park Street Press, 2018

Although coined back in the 1980s, in the last decade ‘occulture’ has emerged as something of a buzzword in the art world and among cultural commentators in academia. As Carl Abrahamsson – a self-proclaimed ‘cultural entrepreneur’ and founder and editor of the ‘annual occultural journal’ The Fenris Wolf – notes, it has almost entered the mainstream. (There’s even an annual international Ocultura festival held in Leon in Spain, at which Lynn Picknett and I were invited to speak in 2017, together with Gary Lachman, who has written the foreword to this book.)

‘Occulture’ means more than simply art, music and literature inspired by the occult or popular movies based on occult themes. In Lachman’s words, it describes ‘the strange interzone between creativity and ritual, the liminal space blending magic and art.’ It encompasses creative endeavours that spring from the same impulses as magic, whether or not the artist has an interest in, or even awareness of, esoterica; Abrahamsson includes in this work figures, such as the American expat novelist and composer Paul Bowles (1910-99), who weren’t part of any occult scene.

Abrahamsson doesn’t confine the influence of those impulses – the hidden forces of the subtitle – to the arts. As he writes, the occult ‘has also been the breeding ground for ideas and concepts that have later on been integrated in the natural sciences, religion, and psychology.’

It’s difficult to do justice in a review to this anthology of articles and lectures, 21 in all, that Abrahamsson has written or delivered over the last decade, as they cover such a wide range of subjects, themes and ideas: the Lebensreform movement in interwar Germany; the moon in magic, folklore and the space race; a comparison of the systems of Crowley and Steiner (both of whom attempted to combine esoteric disciplines with the scientific method); the magical innovations of Anton LaVey; the place of myth in the psychoanalytic theories of Carl Jung; the similarities between ritual magic and psychotherapy; Crowley’s views on gender; the importance of dreaming – and much more.

For Abrahamsson, the crucible of contemporary occultism (and his own entry into the subculture) was Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth – ‘a mix between a magical order, a think tank, an archive, an experiment in intentional art, and many other things’ – established in early 1980s Britain by Genesis P-Orridge (coiner of the term ‘occulture’), which had an instant appeal to ‘a DIY generation frustrated with lies, blunt propaganda, and mass-market ersatz commodities.’ From the 1990s that impulse was carried on via the Internet, cyberpunk and movie series such as The Matrix and Lord of the Rings trilogies and even, in Abrahamsson’s view, Harry Potter: ‘Bland mass-market expressions, yes, but still probably very indicative of a world in need of some serious re-enchantment.’

That need for re-enchantment is a major theme of the collection, as is the de-enchantment that has given rise to it.

Several pieces, naturally, present Abrahamsson’s views on the theory and practice of magic, which for him is a creative, personal endeavour, not the robotic performance of time-hallowed rituals using traditional symbols and formulae. It should, he maintains, spring from a desire for self-transformation and not be, as it is for many self-professed occultists, just a form of escapism. There is, consequently, a focus on the magical systems of Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey (who was himself heavily inspired by Crowley), both of which emphasise individualism and creativity.

Individualism – an ‘enlightened egoism’ based on self-knowledge and will in which one takes responsibility for one’s choices and actions – is at the heart of Abrahamsson’s thinking, not just about magic and art but living in general.

Abrahamsson sees art as an essentially magical act, springing from the same place as magic. Both are ‘protohuman endeavors’ – all ancient art was magical in nature – and he decries the devaluation of contemporary art into the superficial and mass-market, ‘an aestheticized, commodified world of forms filtered through desperate and petty egos and their external commanders,’ a world run by ‘self-serving academics.’ He reserves particular loathing for ‘the art-world subspecies phenomenon’ that is the curator.

There’s a similar trenchant deconstruction of other aspects of our times, which ‘denigrate individuals to utilitarian units inside a soulless collective’, all sharply observed and succinctly expressed, as in ‘Social order is maintained by ever-stricter control, either blatantly dictatorial or via diametrical manipulations (freedom of expression more monitored than ever, freedom of movement scrutinized by surveillance, freedom of thought made ill at ease by the doublespeak of political correctness).’ It’s hard to disagree.

Abrahamsson isn’t a great fan of technology either, considering that it’s led to an ‘intellectual depletion’. Not only is our thinking done for us, but so is our fantasising. Children – and for that matter adults – no longer create their own inner lives through play and fantasy; the fantasy is now provided via their iPhones and tablets. He aims particular ire at Pokémon Go: ‘The invasion of the private sphere has now apparently gone public. It’s a dissolution of human dignity and a fictional entrapment that I fear will not be temporary.’

Abrahamsson draws attention to the paradox that our culture decries magic, myth and intuition as irrational but ‘still happily provides them via demagogic proxies like fiction and entertainment.’ This has, he argues, led to a devaluation of myth: ‘The result is a kind of anti-Jungian abyss. Stress and existential anxiety increase and are not treated therapeutically, but pharmaceutically.’

It’s not all negative, though. There are some more upbeat contributions, seeing positive developments in spontaneous outpourings of the imagination: ‘I would say that the reemergence of transcendental mind frames, sympathetic magical thinking, and ritualistic behavior fully constitutes a re-enchantment of the human psyche and of culture.’ He sees particular hope in the upsurge of interest in occult themes by artists and in academic interest in the relationship between art and the occult – which has led to the popularisation of the term ‘occulture’.

Although dealing with some deep matters – occultism, art, philosophy – that are often the object of pretentious or bombastic writing, Occulture is pleasingly free of either. Despite the breadth of his knowledge and experience, Abrahamsson never talks high-handedly to his readers, delivering his thoughts and arguments clearly. There’s much in the book for readers with every level of knowledge of the subjects discussed – although it does assume a familiarity with, for example, the ideas of Crowley, LaVey and Jung – and much to reflect upon.

– Clive Prince.

”Occulture” can be ordered at major online booksellers, for instance right HERE!

Photograph by Vanessa Sinclair.

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”Rendering Unconscious” is available on pre-order

 

A new TRAPART BOOKS title has just been made available on pre-order:

Rendering Unconscious – Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics & Poetry

Edited by Vanessa Sinclair

In times of crisis, one needs to stop and ask, “How did we get here?” Our contemporary chaos is the result of a society built upon pervasive systems of oppression, discrimination and violence that run deeper and reach further than most understand or care to realize. These draconian systems have been fundamental to many aspects of our lives, and we seem to have gradually allowed them more power. However, our foundation is not solid; it is fractured and collapsing – if we allow that. We need to start applying new models of interpretation and analysis to the deep-rooted problems at hand. 

“Rendering Unconscious” brings together international scholars, psychoanalysts, psychologists, philosophers, researchers, writers and poets; reflecting on current events, politics, the state of mental health care, the arts, literature, mythology, and the cultural climate; thoughtfully evaluating this moment of crisis, its implications, wide-ranging effects, and the social structures that have brought us to this point of urgency.  

Hate speech, Internet stalking, virtual violence, the horde mentality of the alt-right, systematic racism, the psychology of rioting, the theater of violence, fake news, the power of disability, erotic transference and counter-transference, the economics of libido, Eros and the death drive, fascist narratives, psychoanalytic formation as resistance, surrealism and sexuality, traversing genders, and colonial counterviolence are but a few of the topics addressed in this thought-provoking and inspiring volume.

Contributions by Vanessa Sinclair, Gavriel Reisner, Alison Annunziata, Kendalle Aubra, Gerald Sand, Tanya White-Davis & Anu Kotay, Luce deLire, Jason Haaf, Simon Critchley & Brad Evans, Marc Strauss, Chiara Bottici, Manya Steinkoler, Emma Lieber, Damien Patrick Williams, Shara Hardeson, Jill Gentile, Angelo Villa, Gabriela Costardi, Jamieson Webster, Sergio Benvenuto, Craig Slee, Álvaro D. Moreira, David Lichtenstein, Julie Fotheringham, John Dall’aglio, Matthew Oyer, Jessica Datema, Olga Cox Cameron, Katie Ebbitt, Juliana Portilho, Trevor Pederson, Elisabeth Punzi & Per-Magnus Johansson, Meredith Friedson, Steven Reisner, Léa Silveira, Patrick Scanlon, Júlio Mendes Rodrigo, Daniel Deweese, Julie Futrell, Gregory J. Stevens, Benjamin Y. Fong, Emma Lieber, Katy Bohinc, Wayne Wapeemukwa, Patricia Gherovici & Cassandra Seltman, Marie Brown, Buffy Cain, Claire-Madeline Culkin, Andrew Daul, Germ Lynn, Adel Souto, and paul aster stone-tsao

480 pages, 148 x 210 mm, perfect-bound. You can pre-order this title HERE!

There is also a hardbound edition with a jacket, limited to 100 copies. You can pre-order that HERE!

Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is an American psychoanalyst, based in Stockholm, who sees clients internationally. She is the author of “Switching Mirrors” (2016), and co-editor of “On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Laconian Perspectives” (2018) with Dr. Manya Steinkoler. Dr. Sinclair also hosts the Rendering Unconscious podcast, addressing the state of psychoanalysis and mental health care, politics, the arts, culture and current events. She is a founding member of Das Unbehagen: A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, and arranges psychoanalytic conferences internationally.

For more information, please visit: www.drvanessasinclair.net  www.renderingunconscious.org

Please note: This book is available on pre-order, and will be shipped late April.

Scrapped Metal

 

After suffering some work-related setbacks recently, it dawned upon me that basically all of the people who have caused me genuine consternation during the past years have been metal fans. What I mean by that is that these people have expressed a genuine delight in partaking of the music and culture of ”heavy metal,” and its various offshoots: black, death, speed, whatever.

Is there a real pattern here? The more I think about it, the more I can see how tangible the equation actually is. From my own very personal and therefore highly subjective perspective it’s as true as it gets: people who like metal ”for real” are people with whom I can have no working relationship. They have proven it for me over and over again. I should have learnt that lesson earlier, but alas…

From now on, whenever I initiate some kind of substantial creative or business relationship, I need to inquire what the person in question feels about heavy metal or black metal or whatever metal. If they give an inkling of surprised attitude, or, even worse, a blatant ”Hell, yeah, I love metal” then we simply can’t dance.

Why do I feel this prejudiced? Well, first of all, it’s absolutely idiotic music. As are the cultic cultures tied in with the variants. On top of that, metal is always an esthetic disaster that reflects the massive compensational forces involved. Whether it’s proletarian day-to-day life compensated by airbrushed monsters or middle class weaklings dreaming up some kind of ”evil darkness” to upset mom & dad, it’s all the same: evidence of extreme existential powerlessness. Instead of making powerful music (which would require sensitivity), these frustrated wannabe-demons create formulaic distortions and genuinely believe that volume is power. But we all know it’s not.

Anyway, to each his or her own. I know very well I don’t have to listen to the rubbish. And now I know I don’t have to (or should) listen to or work with people who like any form of metal. If I ever did it again – for old times’ sake, or out of courtesy or altruistic naïveté – I am utterly convinced I would be disappointed again.

 

 

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”My Silent Lips” is released today!

 

My psychological horror film “My Silent Lips” is released today!

Please spread the news and trailer as much as you can! Thanks!

Here’s the story: Young Swedish woman Alice travels with her abusive American boyfriend in the Balkans. As their relationship goes from bad to worse, Alice drifts more and more into an emotional void, which leads to violent repercussions. Lost in a strange land among bizarre characters, she’s forced to confront aspects of herself she’s utterly afraid of. As abuse and humiliations increase she no longer has a choice. Who will be the next victim? Alice herself or all of those who have ruthlessly exploited her?

Starring: Linn Sparrenborg, Robin Hayes, Robert Bolin, Thomas Gjutarenäfve, Katarzyna Jaskiewicz, Johan Hamrin, Stojan Nikolic, Vera Nikolic, Tea Shaldeva and Roy Sutherwood.

Written, produced and directed by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden 2019.

 

My Silent Lips from Carl Abrahamsson on Vimeo.

 

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