Ghosts. All right, it’s not the right word. I don’t mean something white and flitting, or an armoured man with his head held under his arm. The presences in Nash-world are something far less defined and less definable. It is haunted all through. Or that’s partly it. But I’m not sure that even Nash found the right words for his spell.
In his essay “The Life of the Inanimate Object”, he wrote about “the endowment of natural objects, organic but not human, with powers or personal influences…” The hills are alive – and the rocks and stones and trees are too! Yes, with any English outdoor art, especially one that is set in a handful of favourite locations, these Wordsworthian terms are going to be tempting.
A nice transatlantic response to the Avebury film:
The Georgia Guidestones [are] a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the “guides” themselves, directives carved into the rocks. These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely eugenic (GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY—IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY); others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (PRIZE TRUTH—BEAUTY—LOVE—SEEKING HARMONY WITH THE INFINITE).
Full article on these mystery megaliths at Wired, where you can also download a handy guidebook to the site.
A Shell country guide film to Avebury, narrated by John Betjemen – I think from the mid-1950s. It’s amazing how little the views around the town have changed, I felt a shiver of recognition as we swung past the burial mounds before Silbury Hill. And dig that ’sinister atmosphere’!
Since its appearance, the so-called Rider-Waite deck has sold gazillions of copies, inspiring brooding hermeticists and teenage Goths alike, and stamping its enigmatic images onto such key 20th century artifacts as T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” the classic noir Nightmare Alley, and the inner gatefold of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album.
The Rider-Waite deck earns a so-called because the name — which has been trade-marked by US Games, the current (and controversial) copyright holder — ignores the artistic contribution of Pamela Colman Smith, an American illustrator and occult initiate whose nickname, Pixie, seems preternaturally on target in light of the most widely-reproduced photograph of the woman.
Erik Davis on the history of the iconic Rider Waite tarot deck and its artist Pamela Colman Smith, over at Hilobrow.
Several of my photos from the Strange Attractor Salon are now up on Flickr. They’re just snaps but hopefully provide a sense of occasion for those who couldn’t make it.
The exhibition is now officially over: a huge thanks to everyone who contributed their work, time and energy to this wonderful event, and to everyone who came.
Meanwhile, I made field recordings of some of the discussions and performances; if the audio quality is good enough then I plan to post these on the web in the near future.
“I don’t think psychedelic research can be separated from the matrix of political, legal, economic, religious and social forces.. The ‘Establishment’ will, I think, never allow science to properly research LSD etc. because it is afraid – literally – of the Pandora’s box of possibilities it opens up for individuals to see beyond the tightly controlled society we live in and in which we think we are ‘free’.”
Natural Allies: Art & Other Life Forms
Tessa Farmer, Alison Gill, Eleanor Morgan, Bridget Nicholls
Three Salon contributing artists will talk about their work and their relationships with the other-than-human world, while Bridget Nicholls discusses if we should be consider animal behaviours as artworks, and whether we can make artists out of animals.
Voltage Control Live sonic arts from The Man from Uranus, Disinformation and Oscillatorial Binnage.
The closing event of the Salon is a night of raucous experimental performance – join us!
Live narrative performances from English Heretic and Welcome to Mars:
English Heretic creates verdant, darkly humorous soundscapes for the darkest recesses of the English imagination. The magical texts of Kenneth Grant and the occult fictions of Sax Rohmer form an uneasy alliance, accompanied by a musical backdrop that glides effortlessly from Motown to 70s progressive horror rock. From the liner notes to Tales of the New Isis Lodge:
Probably the first Musical inspired by the creative occultism of Kenneth Grant, Tales Of The New Isis Lodge presents 65 minutes of lush and occult exotica issuing from a transplutonic transmitter. Drawing its structure from the ultra decadent and ornate rituals described in Grant’s book Hecate’s Fountain English Heretic guide you through Egyptian pre-history to the fungi of yuggoth, re-imagine flower power in an indian tantric idiom, describe the workings of Chinese sorcerers, realise the neither-neither hidden within the jump rhythms of Count Basie and invoke Choronzon in the Crimson Desert. Aeons in its reification and packaged in delicious artwork, stylised as a homage to Grant’s Typhonian tomes.
Ken Hollings reads from his book Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century with a live, improvised soundtrack of 1950s electronica for analogue synthesisers and theremin from Mark Pilkington and Bruce Woolley. The reading will be accompanied by a special prepared film of footage culled from the amazing Prelinger Archives.
Artist and SA Pal John Cussans was in Haiti last December as part of the first Haitian Art Bienniale, an event that seemed to offer a great deal of hope and help to people in the troubled Cité Soleil district of Port-au-Prince. John’s photos of the Ghetto Biennale are here.
If you’re wondering who to donate to following last week’s devastating earthquake, John suggests Avaaz, a global online fund-raising activist group who are sending money directly to long-standing local groups working in Port-au Prince. Via Avaaz:
Based on expert advice from leading humanitarian NGOs who have been working in Haiti for over 30 years, we’ll offer donations to trusted local organizations, includingHonor and Respect for Bel Air, a big community-based network in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, which is also supported by our friends at the respected Brazilian NGO Viva Rio Coordination Régionale des Organisations de Sud-Est (CROSE), which brings together some of the most active community groups in the South of Haiti where the earthquake struck hardest. These groups include women’s groups, schools networks and local cooperatives.
Here’s a new video from SA Salon contributor Julian House of the Focus Group, for I See, So I See So. It’s a track from the albumBroadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of The Radio Age, just voted Wire magazine’s album of the year for 2009. Well done chaps!
Julian will be showing two short films on Friday 15th at the SA Salon as part of our film night, Luminous Aephemera, along with Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels (preview here), Blue Firth, John Lundberg, Eleanor Morgan, Drew Mulholland, Cathy Ward & Eric Wright, and a unique screening of a film brought to you from the Other Side…
Some of the film makers will be in attendance to discuss their work.
“I don’t think psychedelic research can be separated from the matrix of political, legal, economic, religious and social forces.. The ‘Establishment’ will, I think, never allow science to properly research LSD etc. because it is afraid – literally – of the Pandora’s box of possibilities it opens up for individuals to see beyond the tightly controlled society we live in and in which we think we are ‘free’.”
