Carl Abrahamsson's Blog, page 58
November 4, 2017
Lunacy is released on VOD
Trapart Film’s Lunacy is released on Vimeo On Demand November 4th 2017.
Director Carl Abrahamsson writes about the film:
“Lunacy isn’t “about” the moon per se but could perhaps be seen as being permeated by lunar energies. Where my film Sub Umbra Alarum Luna (2016) was a very conscious tribute to Derek Jarman and his work, Lunacy is a free-floating onwards rumination about the moon’s constant (and necessary) presence.
The project began with me writing a text about the moon for the wonderful Danish art magazine Plethora. This text was later cut up by my wife, Vanessa Sinclair, and then randomly re-assembled and recorded by her. I put these four vocal recordings to music, which created a sonorous cycle of sorts: a lunar reflection, a dark brooding on the human need for sexualizing the planets.
We both quite quickly realized that this was good fodder for a film. So instead of making a spoken word soundtrack for an existing film, we made a film for an existing spoken word soundtrack.
After a successful ”Kickstarter” crowdfunding campaign for the project, I could buy a super-8 film scanner. As soon as that was in place, I started scanning material from my film archive, predominantly from the early 1990s (when super-8 filming was still a financially viable alternative!).
Gradually the film grew around the four quite distinct musical/reading pieces. Odd bits appeared/surfaced from my archive. An unmarked roll beckoned my attention. I decided on a whim to include sections from it, no matter what it was. This turned out to be an auspicious fluke. The film in question was one of those strange 15 minute condensed super-8 versions of feature films that were quite common in the 1960s and 1970s (pre-VHS). This film was Michael Reeve’s 1968 horror gem Witchfinder General (aka Conqueror Worm), in which Vincent Price ruthlessly hunts down alleged witches. A perfect inclusion, given witches’ association with lunar and magical forces. The film changed from a cosmic meditation on the concept level to a tangible tribute to Hecate and all the witches who ever suffered injustice at the hands of intolerant lower beings over the times and spaces.”
LUNACY (Sweden, 2017, 44 min)
Praising lunar forces and witches from all times and spaces, LUNACY acts as a conductor to emotional transcendence and illumination rather than to scientific analysis. The Moon is always there in various degrees of visibility to the human eye, but the power of Hecate and other lunar celebrities remains constant. It’s the only fact that’s relevant in the greater human scheme of things.
Words by Vanessa Sinclair.
Music & Film by Carl Abrahamsson.
Copyright © 2017 Carl Abrahamsson
For more information about the film, interviews, screenings, festival appearances etc, please contact: carl AT carlabrahamsson DOT com
November 3, 2017
The best review (so far) of my first novel
When my debut novel, Mother, Have a Safe Trip, was published late 2013 it was a great step for me. And a slightly nervous one. Being highly partial, I of course loved the book. But would anyone else? I didn’t have to wait very long though for a reassuring review to show up. The Swedish writer and psychedelic historian Henrik Dahl reviewed the book for UK magazine Psychedelic Press already on October 29th, 2013. This has been my favourite review so far. Not only is it a favourable one, but it’s also multifaceted and intelligent. A rare thing!
PSYCHEDELIC PRESS, October 29, 2013.
Literary Review: ‘Mother, Have a Safe Trip’ by Carl Abrahamsson
Published in the autumn of 2013, ‘Mother, Have a Safe Trip’ is a novel written by Stockholm based writer, photographer and musician Carl Abrahamsson. Although described as an “occult sex thriller”, its acid-soaked story is a perfect example of fictional psychedelic literature. At less than 200 pages, Abrahamsson’s book – his fiction début – is written in a straightforward and accessible prose, packed with references to key figures and events in psychedelic culture, beat literature and the occult.
For those not familiar with the Swedish author, Abrahamsson runs Edda Publishing together with visual artist Fredrik Söderberg. Apart from Mother, Have a Safe Trip, the Edda catalogue includes titles by Aleister Crowley and the anthology series The Fenris Wolf. The latter brings together a plethora of underground writers and themes. For instance, the latest issue deals with German writer and psychonaut Ernst Jünger’s “psychedelic approaches”. Furthermore, Abrahamsson has collaborated with musician and artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and at the end of the eighties the Swede paid a visit to Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey in San Francisco, subsequently making a Swedish translation of LaVey’s The Satanic Bible.
As usual when it comes to titles published by Edda, Mother, Have a Safe Trip is a beautifully designed book in hardcover format with a ribbon bookmark. Captivating from the start, the novel begins with 60-year-old Mary Ritterstadt going through an old journal of notes from her time spent in Nepal in 1970. While in the country she gets to know the members of a band called the Fateful Head and samples the product of the “infamous LSD-wizard” Mosely-Manly: “We learned he was wanted by the FBI back home. We soon realized why. He wasn’t only wanted by the ‘feds’ but also by the ‘heads’: millions of kids worldwide” (Abrahamsson 8).
During Mary’s stay in Nepal she unintentionally gets pregnant. Her pregnancy is mysteriously revealed to her by an old Baba, who she follows to a yoga commune called PSYNC, short for “the Patanjali Society for Yoga and Neophile Culture”, in the Nepalese mountains. There, Mary gives birth to a son named Victor, the protagonist of the story, who is revered as a holy figure by the members of the commune. Not ready for parenthood and not knowing who is the father Mary decides to leave Victor at the commune and return to America, severing the ties with her son. It’s only after her parents are dead that she decides to get in touch with Victor, now 40 years old.
After getting in touch through telepathy, Mary and Victor decide to meet in real life. What follows is a fast-paced, heady mix including (in no particular order) secret agents, a UFO sighting, a telepathic dog, a Dionysian LSD-fuelled party, and the discovery of a document originating from Serbian inventor Nicola Tesla that may solve the world’s energy problems.
Just like Abrahamsson, Victor Ritterstadt is a writer, photographer and musician and judging by his visual appearance the protagonist even looks like the Swedish author. Still, it’s unclear to what extent Victor is based on Abrahamsson. Although leading a seemingly interesting life, the protagonist turns out to be a rather self-centred character whose goal is to make lots of money. His materialistic side is noticed by his mother, who realises that Victor is “very much also a narcissistic egotist” (Abrahamsson 119). Interestingly, at the same time he is uniformly celebrated at the yoga commune, where no one seems to question his actions and persona.
The self-centred protagonist aside, Mother, Have a Safe Trip wins me over in its humorous, playful and witty writing style. Many of its characters evoke thinly disguised real life figures. Mosely-Manly is obviously modelled after the legendary LSD chemist Owsley Stanley, and the Fateful Head is based on – you guessed it – the Grateful Dead. Moreover, the name of the yoga commune includes the word “neophile” which is associated with Robert Anton Wilson. In addition, the number 23 appears in the novel. Both Wilson and William S. Burroughs, two likely literary sources of inspiration for the Swedish author, were interested in the number. Needless to say the reader will find many more similar references.
Even if Abrahamsson is less associated with Satanism than he was in the past, the satanic influence is nevertheless present in his novel and, to a greater extent, in his anthology. To my knowledge, few, if any, writers have put Satanism and psychedelics in the same saucepan. Admittedly, combining the two may seem like an unusual move. The appearance of LaVey’s ego-gratifying philosophy at the height of the “we decade” in late sixties San Francisco was the antithesis of many of the ideas expressed in the hippie movement. The Church of Satan founder was also strongly opposed to the use of LSD. In a 1966 article published in Alameda County Weekender LaVey said the drug “ought to be shunned like the plague” (Churchofsatan.com).
Abrahamsson’s interest in Satanism serves as a reminder that psychedelics can be placed in many different contexts. The current focus on ayahuasca may have us believe that mind-expanding drugs are primarily to be looked upon as shamanic tools for healing and spiritual development, yet history repeatedly shows us that these drugs are used for a variety of reasons.
Before reading a poem called Lucifer’s Rainbow Victor says, “I think we should pay our respects to everyone from everywhere who’s fought for freedom in life and in mind” (Abrahamsson 138). Although these are words from a fictional character, they illustrate that Abrahamsson clearly belongs to a tradition of western anti-authoritarian authors leaning towards libertarian or anarchist ideas. Whatever one may feel about the overriding sentiments of Abrahamson’s writings, Mother, Have a Safe Trip is a highly entertaining and thought-provoking novel. Chock-full of psychedelia, the book is also a much welcome addition to the far too few fictional works published dealing with psychedelic culture.
– Henrik Dahl
Mother, Have a Safe Trip is available HERE!
It’s also available as an eBook here:
Photographs and prints from the exhibition Imprisoned Sentences are available HERE. This was a show of environments/photos that inspired me when writing the book, plus a set of enlarged pages from the book proper.
November 1, 2017
Great interview in Ultra Swank
Anton LaVey 1989 © Carl Abrahamsson
California Infernal: Anton LaVey & Jayne Mansfield as Portrayed by Walter Fischer is doing really well, and is also getting a lot of attention. The most recent interview is by Baron von Schwankenstein at Ultra Swank. To read the interview at their site, please go HERE! Or just read on below:
Thank you for taking time to talk with Ultra Swank, Carl. Tell us a bit about your background and how it relates to the production of your book California Infernal.
For me, it’s been a strange time warp that I’ve enjoyed greatly. Many of these images were so seminal to me in my teens/formatting days. So it almost feels like they are coming back to haunt me. Especially having been in that ritual chamber myself at a later date. I wouldn’t say it feels like home, but it sure adds another fascinating dimension in my mind.
So there’s a personal connection beyond your involvement as publisher. So when and where did you first encounter these images ? How did they influence you ?
I would say I saw some of these images in Swedish men’s magazines from the 1970s. After all, Walter Fischer was a well syndicated photographer. In the mid-80s I was like a funnel or a sponge for trash culture from all over the world, but mainly from the US. I also had a strong interest in all things occult. So LaVey was like the quintessential synthesis of everything I found cool. Also, being a movie buff, I loved (and still love) American B-movies, and Jayne Mansfield has sort of always been the reigning queen. So seeing those images of the two of them together was just like a meltdown. “This is TOO cool!” And it stuck. I may have changed in different directions since then but the core remains, as it does in terms of all essential imprints. That’s why California Infernal has been such a great and trippy adventure for me. Also getting Kenneth Anger involved was amazing, as I met him on the very same first trip to the US in 1989 that I met LaVey on. Full circles, over and over. It’s like my subconscious is pressing a REPEAT button. Maybe it is?
And you knew LaVey personally. How often did you interact? What remains most in your mind about him ?
I went on three trips to San Francisco and on those trips visited the Black House several times, had dinners, et cetera. When I was in Sweden we communicated via fax or letter, specifically when I was preparing for the Swedish translation of the Satanic Bible, which was published in 1996. The last time we met physically was in 1993. He was very supportive of my antics in writing and publishing. So he was an initial distanced source of inspiration that turned into a tangible friend and teacher in a way. He had ways of transmitting things between the lines that were very helpful in my own magical process. To him it must have been weird and also hopefully helpful to have this Swedish brat coming over, eager to listen and learn but also to manifest things and create philosophical tangibility for the future.
Obviously, you didn’t know Mansfield. Does your fascination with Mansfield come from the same place as your initial fascination with LaVey? What remains most in your mind about her and her public legacy ?
Yes and no. LaVey fascinated as an actual inspiration, as someone who led a very interesting life and came up with new things within a sphere that was and is genuinely interesting to me. Jayne is fascinating more as someone who worked hard to achieve what she wanted in a very fickle world/sphere. Her story is more tragic in many ways. She wasn’t always on top. But I still like most of her movies a lot.
Though I disagree with his philosophy, I find LaVey a fascinating individual, a larger-than-life carnival showman. No other publicly engaged Satanist has captured the public imagination the way LaVey did in the late 60s. Why do you think that is ? Was it a matter of times of cultural upheaval being more receptive to LaVey’s permissive ideas presented in a flashy new way ? Or is it something else ?
I think the main impact was that it was a double whammy at the time – not only hitting Christianity as such but also the allegedly more open-minded hippie communities. LaVey at this time was both super-radical and traditional-conservative, depending on which camp was looking or being looked at. Although individual liberty was supported and encouraged, LaVey didn’t want that to end up in wishy-washy drug philosophies. And that’s basically what happened. Although many great upheavals and changes came out of the late 60s, there was also an all-too-human backlash where most people gradually espoused normality on one hand and heavier drug use on the other. LaVey was for indulgence, and neither abstinence nor compulsion. He was the man in the controversial middle in extreme times, just as he would have been extreme in lukewarm, safe times – the perspective of the Third Side, the Adversary etc. He was that. he used it. And he enjoyed it. That together with a surface that very well reflected the humorous as well as the terrifying (to many, I’m sure) made him a great public Satanist.
Yet LaVey’s Satanism borrows largely from the ideas of others — Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, Ragnar Redbeard. All of these can be studied and used independently of Satanism. So, is theatricality, glamour, and psychodrama the fundamental transformative elements that makes LaVey’s Satanism more than the sum of its parts ?
Yes. I think all of those things. And later on he was very active in concocting his own concepts, which I guess is what happens. First you make a splash with a synthesis that has made you tick. And then you evolve and crystallise your own gems. The same was true for Crowley pre-sex magic insight, which was Golden Dawn-infused, and post-sex magic insight, which was decidedly more Taoist and cosmic. I would say yes to LaVey’s overall concoction being the “glue”: a noir kind of libertarian occultism with decidedly hedonistic streaks. But the fundamental transformative element in his system, according to me, doesn’t lie there; it lies in the realisation of “Satan” as a symbol – an adversarial principle that evokes manipulatory powers and a very sincere kind of honesty. Eventually, all magical systems boil down to an empowerment of the individual. If they don’t they’re just another cult where smart people make use of not so smart people.
Currently making the festival and arthouse theater rounds is the film Mansfield 66/67. Ostensibly, it’s about Mansfield’s and LaVey’s relationship. But the makers tout the film as “a true story based on rumor and hearsay.” In other words, it’s more about the urban folklore of the relationship than the actual facts of it. Prior to that, Kenneth Anger’s oft-debunked book Hollywood Babylon was similar. The public is clearly more interested in the legend than the actual truth. What’s your perspective on that ? Is it just because it’s more fun ? Or is there something else going on in the folklore?
When it comes to a sphere where previously “normal” humans are catapulted into a “demigod” status (as in “Hollywood”, for instance) people’s projections (usually based on their own disgruntled emotions) take off and leave rationality, logic, decency etc behind. It’s as if that’s the real price you pay when you’re a celebrity. You’re open to be used and abused in the public sphere as it sees fit. So perhaps that term – “larger than life” – simply means that there are other rules at play for those so successful (most often unsuccessfully or unhappily so). I think this has been a constant in the human mind/need. Ventilation for the disgruntled. The figure of the jester comes to mind. Anger used a language directly inherited from Louella Parsons and similar women at the time: snide and cynical gossiping. And it works as long as the readers somehow feel that the victims deserve it… (“They shouldn’t complain because they have everything as celebrities… Look at them failing…”). The film about Jayne is an attempt at doing that. But it’s not a mean film. It’s just camp — perhaps actually doing Jayne justice that way? In the sphere of celebrities, whether something is true or not is besides the point. This is extremely evident in today’s culture, in which there are celebrities that haven’t actually done anything to merit their status. Any references made to them in the public sphere is not to them as real individuals because in a sense they aren’t real individuals. They are just targets for projection.
The lore says that Mansfield was a card-carrying Satanist. You made a point of shattering that illusion in California Infernal by requoting Mansfield’s own assertion that she wasn’t. Why do that when the legend is more useful to Satanists and the public is more interested in the legend ?
I can’t see how it would be more useful to Satanists if we knew for a fact that Jayne was a member (or not). It’s the same thing with that interesting photo with LaVey and Sammy Davis Jr. Was he a member? Was he not a member? As you say, the legend can be intriguing but the Church of Satan wouldn’t really be interested in members chasing romantic legends. They are interested in individuals who are interested in themselves.
Let’s go back to your book. I understand why you needed to make California Infernal for yourself but why does the public need this book ?
It pops up out of an in-between area which is fascinating. Is it occultism? Is it PR and pop? Or is it just California Infernal, which could mean all of those things. I’m happy to say that my initial desire to make the book turned into a publisher’s intuition that it would also interest others. I’m not sure anyone “needs” the book at all. But I’m happy to say there are many who find it entertaining. It’s a nice slice of weird Americana pie.
Most of the Fischer photos are typical photojournalism of the day. Why present them as art in an art book when most of the images don’t impact as art ?
For me, the mere phenomenon of both these proto-American individuals and the relationship between them is mind-boggling and transcending. That is art. They were also consciously aestheticised by their own design and by other people’s projections. Walter Fischer simply facilitated a documentation of the phenomenon and the people involved. The art in question is the actual sum of LaVey and Mansfield together.
How difficult was it to edit down the Fischer-Wahlgren collection to a publishable form ? Is there anything that wasn’t included that you wish you did ?
The book contains pretty much everything we wanted. Fischer, as most photographers, shot multiple images of the same scene, happening, or moment. We just picked the best of the best.
Currently, California Infernal is in a second edition with a pink “Mansfield Edition” cloth cover. Why a second edition ? Is it to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Mansfield’s death ?
No, it was simply because Alf had more images of Mansfield in color. We changed our mind after the first edition and just wanted to include another eight pages. And so we did.
Was there anything you accomplished with the second edition that you thought you didn’t with the first ?
Honoring Jayne a tad bit more.
Of all you’ve seen of the collection, what’s your favorite image ?
I’d say the cover image: Jayne and Anton together, and him holding her Chihuahua. It’s an incredible image.
Thanks, Carl, for your time and insight. And thanks for a great book.
Read more at: http://www.ultraswank.net/interview/anton-lavey-seduced-jayne-mansfield/
October 31, 2017
COVEN released on Halloween
Highbrow Lowlife proudly presents COVEN, a brand new compilation celebrating the life and work of Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge (1969-2007). Its executive producer, American psychoanalyst and artist Vanessa Sinclair, invited mainly female artists to participate and create a magical-musical coven. The result is a dynamic mix of talent and sounds that create a haunting yet inspiring impact. The album is now available all over the digisphere (iTunes, Spotify etc). If you would like to support the label, Highbrow Lowlife, please consider buying the album from their site: www.highbrow-lowlife.com
1. Jill Tracy: Sell my soul 2. Knifesex: Sex & death 3. Alice Genese: Jackie’s song 4. Freudian Slit: The secret life of Walter MIDI (Stephen Bartlett mix) 5. katie bishop: Adagio for woodwind quintet (2015) 6. People Like Us: Clouds 7. Carl Abrahamsson & Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge: Crossroads 8. Sharron Kraus: Nightmare 9. Delphic Oracle: Death Dreams (Skintown remix) 10. Serena Stucke: Sheisphased 11. Val Denham: Goldfish 12. Katelan Foisy: Make the witches come (with Vanessa Sinclair) 13. The Widow of Culloden: Ghost 14. Caleigh Fisher: Matina 15. Val Denham: Managers 16. Vanessa Sinclair & Carl Abrahamsson: Page 6.2 17. Invisible Candy: What? 18. MV Carbon: Staircase 19. Kim Boekbinder: Nothing is true (featuring Katelan Foisy) 20. Madame Deficit: The Conqueror Wyrm
Executive producer: Vanessa Sinclair
Cover art by Val Denham
Booklet cover art by Jen Smith & Vanessa Sinclair
Mastered by Carl Abrahamsson
Thanks to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Jen Smith, Val Denham.
October 28, 2017
Lunacy for everyone
Lunacy was first screened at the Occult Film Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 27th 2017. It was a truly honoring experience for me as the context wasn’t really a context but actually more like a temporary home for many cinematic gems of different kinds.
Anna Biller’s The Love Witch (2016, filmed and shown on 35 mm), Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Invocation of my Demon Brother, Lucifer Rising and The Man we want to hang (all shown on 16 mm) would have been ”enough” to blow many minds. But on top were also the 1920s stag film The Black Mass, the German masterpiece Wolkenschatten (2014) and Pierre Clementis Visa de Censure (1975). In all, a strange and hefty mix of truly artistic expressions of integrity. To have Lunacy screened in this mix was actually more than an honor. It was an acknowledgement, an approval, and decidedly an inspiration for further film projects.
Lunacy isn’t ”about” the moon per se but could perhaps be seen as being permeated by lunar energies. Where my film Sub Umbra Alarum Luna (2016) was a very conscious tribute to Derek Jarman and his work, Lunacy is a free-floating onwards rumination about the moon’s constant (and necessary) presence.
The project began with me writing a text about the moon for the wonderful Danish art magazine Plethora. This text was later cut up by my wife, Vanessa Sinclair, and then randomly re-assembled and recorded by her. I put these four vocal recordings to music, which created a sonorous cycle of sorts: a lunar reflection, a dark brooding on the human need for sexualizing the planets.
We both quite quickly realized that this was good fodder for a film. So instead of making a spoken word soundtrack for an existing film, we made a film for an existing spoken word soundtrack.
After a successful ”Kickstarter” crowdfunding campaign for the project, I could buy a super-8 film scanner. As soon as that was in place, I started scanning material from my film archive, predominantly from the early 1990s (when super-8 filming was still a financially viable alternative!).
Gradually the film grew around the four quite distinct musical/reading pieces. Odd bits appeared/surfaced from my archive. An unmarked roll beckoned my attention. I decided on a whim to include sections from it, no matter what it was. This turned out to be an auspicious fluke. The film in question was one of those strange 15 minute condensed super-8 versions of feature films that were quite common in the 1960s and 1970s (pre-VHS). This film was Michael Reeve’s 1968 horror gem Witchfinder General (aka Conqueror Worm), in which Vincent Price ruthlessly hunts down alleged witches. A perfect inclusion, given witches’ association with lunar and magical forces. The film changed from a cosmic meditation on the concept level to a tangible tribute to Hecate and all the witches who ever suffered injustice at the hands of intolerant lower beings over the times and spaces.
At the premiere screening, I realized how suitable the connection to Kenneth Anger’s work was, as well as that to both Wolkenschatten and Visa de Censure (although I hadn’t seen these gems before). Experimental film captures, like no other medium, the intricacies and complexities of spiritual experiments. The consciously willed dissociation through audiovisual arrangements (or re-arrangements) creates unconscious or subconscious possibilities for insights not available to the rational mind. Being inspired by Anger’s films in my youth helped me formulate an esthetic language of my own through which I show my own findings and speculations. Regardless if we’re talking about manipulatory uses of Eisenstein’s editing/montage ideas or free-flowing, psychedelic superimpositions in slow motion to facilitate epiphanic insights about basically anything, the leaving behind of rational narratives makes a different perspective possible. Or even inevitable. The transition or time/space between Sub Umbra Alarum Luna and Lunacy in my case has been one not only of changing perspective but also of direction. From the outside in has now become from the inside out.
As Lunacy now travels the world to festivals and screenings in different environments and contexts, it becomes like a proxy for my own mind and will. I’m very happy about where all of this is going and am genuinely grateful to everyone who supported Lunacy:
Margareta Abrahamsson, Annette Rawlings, Jennifer Smith, Peter Steffensen, Jack Stevenson, Dolorosa de la Cruz, Douglas Lucas, Evan Malater, Billie Steigerwald, Aleksandra Søderlind, Cecilia Ömalm, Jesper Aagaard Petersen, Nicolas Debot, Larry Farber, Robert Koole, Arild Strømsvåg, Apple Xenos, Sheer Zed, Fredrik Alm, Magnus Cardfelt, Caleigh Fisher, Chandra Shukla, Alexander Fox, Mikael Prey, Alf Wahlgren and Vanessa Sinclair. Thank you!
October 23, 2017
Occult film festival debuts ”LUNACY”
The Occult Film Festival in Copenhagen, organised by the excellent film historian Jack Stevenson, will host the world premiere of my new film LUNACY. In many ways, this film is a continuation of the state of mind inflicted by 2016’s SUB UMBRA ALARUM LUNA. Shot mainly on super-8 and carrying massive lunar respect, the film transports you to a different realm. The work process for this film was quite different though. Where SUB UMBRA is accompanied by a live soundtrack by Cotton Ferox, LUNACY takes off from cut-ups about the moon made, read and recorded by Vanessa Sinclair. I then made the music for these four long pieces, and these in turn constitute the structure of the film.
The Occult Film Festival takes place on October 26-29 at Husets Biograf in central Copenhagen. I will also introduce the films on the other evenings. Please follow these links for more information.
October 9, 2017
New interview at Heathen Harvest
Photo by Vanessa Sinclair
I was recently interviewed by Raul Antony for Heathen Harvest’s great podcast. More than an hour of interesting stuff, including plugs for my upcoming book OCCULTURE – THE UNSEEN FORCES THAT DRIVE CULTURE FORWARD. Enjoy!
September 26, 2017
Look for the future-past
Here’s some information about a recent film festival that Sub Umbra Alarum Luna was part of, curated by Marilyn Roxie.
”look to the future-past” is an online exhibition for isthisit? (isthisitisthisit.com) bringing together contemporary videos that make reference back to video art and experimental film of the past. Over the course of the week, these videos will be revealed to you in ones and twos, culminating in an hour-long compilation of the whole. Structural film, video feedback, collage…Brakhage, Jarman, Rosler, Paik, the Vasulkas…Styles, techniques, and hallowed names to deconstruct, update, and upend. Abstraction and ambience reign supreme in this collection of works, though the drama of the everyday too shines through.
Full artist bios and video descriptions available at marilynroxie.com/2017/09/01/look-to-the-future-past-curated-by-marilyn-roxie-1st-8th-september/
look to the future-past for isthisit? from Marilyn Roxie on Vimeo.
August 22, 2017
A meatpacking merger
So here I am at Robert Mapplethorpe’s grave. A copy of Patti Smith’s great Just Kids is pressed into the earth by other elements and almost overgrown. Is this some kind of Bruce Chatwin fantasy for me or what? Packing in the meat in the meatpacking district: one US beast and one mild-mannered Briton, both paying for it dearly. There was a resonance of aesthetic sensitivity (and sensibility) between them that transcended petty projects like the Lisa Lyon book. Chatwin’s writing (like Robert Byron’s before him) and ”Maxey’s” images take you on a (literal) drive towards patterns, light, shadows, reflections, bodies in movement. Chatwin: Walking. Mapplethorpe: Fucking, flexing. There is restraint. Restraint is a common denominator in these expressions. Economy of language in Chatwin’s case; visual, visceral economy in Mapplethorpe’s. The body is the key to experience these new (or perhaps eternal?) aesthetic dimensions. You have to walk there according to Chatwin. You have to have sex to get there according to Mapplethorpe. A submission to the road and the elements according to Chatwin. A submission to physical force according to Mapplethorpe. Eventually they’re all the same: paths to beauty or at least an apprehension of beauty. No matter what, I now invoke this sense of aesthetic sensitivity-sensibility-perfection and the ability to express it. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Robert.
August 20, 2017, St. John’s, Queens, NY. Photo by Vanessa Sinclair.
July 26, 2017
Interview on California Infernal in the Daily Mail
I was recently interviewed by the Daily Mail about the California Infernal project. Read all about it here:
