Preparing For US Tour – What I’ve Been Up To
Mulch – Pencil Drawing – P. Emerson Williams – One of the many original pieces of art available on PANICMACHINE.
Over on PANICMACHINE I’ve been selling off original art at absurd prices. At the start of this sale the reason behind this could not be shared, but now enough details have been announced for me to share part of it. I will be on guitar and vocals playing with Jarbor and BALEYYG on the Nachtmystium, Jarboe and Weapon tour criss-crossing the US this coming November.
Now, the music and art has been covering basic living expenses and poast success bought me many years supply of basic art supplies. But there has been no extra. I work to buy myself more time to work. To buy myself the time away from pimping music and other projects so I can rehearse, get enough sets of guitar strings, for people who have seen me play live know I go hard, and get myself to where the tour begins and home from where it ends.
Vomiting Light – Acrylic on canvas by P. Emerson Williams – Available at PANICMACHINE
Supporters, friends and collectors have come forward and have gotten me partway there already and I’ll be posting more art even after the end of September. If you have seen a piece of mine and want it but it hasn’t been posted, get in touch. I’m ready to give better deals than ever, and buying several pieces will get you an even better deal.
Nachtmystium, Jarboe and Weapon tour
From tour sponsor Brooklyn Vegan:
Dates are starting to trickle out for the previously-discussed, in-the-worksNachtmystium/Jarboe/Weapon tour. Though the full tour-sched is forthcoming, a chunk of dates have been released and are viewable in handy list form below. Those dates include the previously-mentioned stop at Saint Vitus on 11/19 (tickets). BrooklynVegan is proud sponsor of the
Nachtmystium/Jarboe/Weapon jaunt. More details are on the way. If you missed it, make sure and check out the interview/new song stream with Weapon. All known dates are listed below along with the tour flyer. Nachtmystium, Jarboe and Weapon are hitting the road for a string of dates this fall surrounding Blake & Co’s appearance at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin in early November. The confirmed dates have the bands in Portland, ME on 11/10 and then at Saint Vitus on 11/19. Tickets are on sale. The shows are in celebration of the Chicago band’s new LP Silencing Machine. In semi-related news, Jarboe’s old band Swans recently added some new datesincluding 10/28 at Bowery Ballroom and 10/29 at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The band’s new LP The Seer is out now. All known tour dates are listed below along with a Nachtmystium video.
NACHTMYSTIUM, JARBOE, WEAPON – select 2012 DATES and Ticket Links:
Nachtmystium, Jarboe and Weapon are hitting the road for a string of dates this fall surrounding Blake & Co’s appearance at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin in early November. The confirmed dates have the bands in Portland, ME on 11/10 and then at Saint Vitus on 11/19. Tickets are on sale. The shows are in celebration of the Chicago band’s new LP Silencing Machine.
More date TBA and we’ll be sure to keep you updated and keep an eye on Brooklyn Vegan for more details.
Strange Factories – Trailer HD
Strange Factories – Trailer HD from FoolishPeople on Vimeo.
A writer, haunted by an idea for a new story hunts for four refugee performers of a theatre destroyed in a mysterious fire.
He locates his friends in a remote, pagan settlement founded by Stronheim; owner of a Strange Factory hidden deep in the local countryside that emits an infamous Hum.
Victor enters into a dangerous pact when a vow is made to re-build their theatre if the story is completed in time for it to be performed at the village festival, where bizarre rituals are enacted by the Villagers under the influence of a hallucinogenic effluence siphoned out of the Strange Factory.
Victor’s imagination and the fragmented memories of his friends collide in a violent fiction that not everyone can survive.
Strange Factories’ is an immersive feature film; a uniquely powerful and original project that fuses cinema with a dreamlike environment to create an experience like no other.
Principal photography on Strange Factories was completed in Prague and the UK in October 2011 and is currently in post-production with release scheduled for 2012.
http://www.foolishpeople.org
http://www.facebook.com/strangefactories
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2150487/
Update-O-Rama – Counting Down the Days of November 2011
Just a quick note that might end up long on a few things going on, completed and just starting. First off:
Inner-X-Musick Iz Back!!!
We have Choronzon – Ziggurat of Dead Shibboleths, Veil of Thorns – Necrofuturist, Veil of Thorns – Salon Apocalypse available on CD again and more coming. Watch out for Choronzon – FIAT NOX on CD and a brand new releases from the infamous SLEEPCHAMBER, called SCOPOLAMINE, which includes one P. Emerson Williams among performers.
Hie thee hence to innerxmusick.com and check it out.
Veil of Thorns – Vampire Wars Is Now Available On CD
We have the CD of the Vampire Wars album available now for a special price of $5. You can go purchase the CD here. Soon the CD and “pay what you want” digital versions will be made available through Inner-X-Musick.
8,632 Downloads and counting! Veil of Thorns – Vampire Wars
A huge thanks to those of you who have downloaded this album and shared it with fiends & foes. We’re proud to find that as of this week, more than 6,000 of you have downloaded it. (Not counting the music blogs and Russian file sharing sites. They use their own uploads and we have no way of knowing how many downloads, or even how many sites are hosting this release by now.)
Of course, the free download option will continue to be available for as long as the sites and trackers hosting them exist.
And in a related note:
There is a brand new Veilofthorns.com
Nattehimmel Sound & Vision
Will be Distributing several releases, including selections from the Veil of Thorns and Choronzon back catalogues. What is most notable is their incredible selection of out of print and rare Industrial and experimental musick releases on CD, vinyl, cassette and DVD.
Modern Mythology Are in the Midst of a Year-End Fundraiser
Observant readers may have noticed me mentioning this before. Right now I’m in the process of tweeting every one of the 300+ articles that have run on modernmythology.net in 2011. Think of how much work that entails, and then consider that there were three books published already this year, and an anthology on its way. Then there’s the music.
[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]
Myth, Narrative and the Occupy Movement – An Interview With James Curcio
James Curcio of ModernMythology.Net & HooDooEngine.com interviewed by Rev. R4D4 Leech on Myth’s relevance today, the Occupy movement & narrative, the Grey aliens and much more. All tracks from Murder the World on http://hoodooengine.bandcamp.com/
Here is what some of those who have contributed to our fundraiser campaign have said about this project:
“Modern Mythology’s work is way too important to not support. We need this discourse. Rock on guys!”
“You’re doing good work; I’m proud to support that.”
“Myth is something that even our technological, interdependent and global society cannot escape. Myth can illuminate and unveil aspects about ourselves and where we are going, where we have come from. Myth, in short, is self-knowing. As an essential dimension of human experience, it would behoove us to try to contextualize myth—or more appropriately see how myth contextualizes—the modern age.”
“You rock so hard, rocks are jello in your very presence. Neutron stars are tied neck and neck in the races. Your stuph is dense, and heavy. Keep it up. Way up.”
9 days left! We are presently running an ongoing tweet-a-thon under #myth on twitter. Listen in or join the discussion.
Even a donation of $1 gets you a free eBook and helps to keep us going.
[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]
Crowdsourcing the Mythosphere – Case Study: Robert Llewellyn and Unbound
Cities crumbling, zombies attacking, tsunamis engulfing, brutal regimes or killer machines crushing the human race to dust. Dystopia has now become so pervasive it’s almost engulfed the entire science fiction genre.
I felt driven to search for an alternative to the tiresome predictions of everything getting much worse; I wanted to imagine a world where everything has got much better.
Thus begins the pitch for News from Gardenia, the forthcoming novel by one Robert Llewellyn. The nerds among us will recognize the name which will forever be evocative of a head covered in rubber as Kryten in the belived scifi comedy Red Dwarf. Yes, I said pitch, not press release, not announcement, for the publication of this book is funded with support from fans and readers. Here’s where it gets interesting to one who has been involved in two crowd funding campaigns in 2011, namely the successful bid to fund the filming of Strange Factories and the current campaign to help bring Modern Mythology to the next level.
Unbound is a platform for authors to pitch their book ideas directly to readers for readers to support through funding, or as they put it: Unbound is a new way of bringing authors and readers together. We believe both deserve a greater say in which books get published. Wired mag called Unbound “The Kickstarter For Books”, but with a targeted domain of authorial endeavour and curated list of authors, which I note includes Terry Jones and one Mrs. Stephen Fry, could prove to be of much more use to writers. What makes the service stand out is that those who pledge to fund a project get to be in on the process of its creation through access to a private area, called the author’s “shed”, and they get a copy of the book and several levels of goodies depending on the level of financial support they give, much like Indiegogo and Kickstarter, but here the turtles al the way down are books.
Here’s the rest of the pitch for News From Gardenia:
A world where we eventually get it right, where we don’t oppress each other, where we don’t burn anything to make anything else, we don’t rip the planet to shreds to maintain our way of life and we don’t need to rely on endless growth to achieve contentment.
News From Gardenia will be a science fiction novel; a man called Gavin Meckler who was born in 1979 arrives 200 years into the future where he discovers a world that is recognisable and yet utterly different. It’s a place where it’s possible to travel from one side of the world to the other in a matter of minutes without burning fuel, but it’s also a place where everyone is a gardener because that’s how they can be sure to eat.
It is at once extraordinary and mundane. It is not finished, it is, as in any period of history, a world which is
constantly changing, but the changes are sustainable, gentle and by default put people first.
As Gavin learns about this new world and the society he eventually becomes a part of, he also begins to learn about himself.
Everything in News from Gardenia could happen, there is no technology in Gardenia that hasn’t already seen the light of day. In the current turmoil it could be argued that such optimism could only be suggested by a fool, indeed, such benign developments may not be very likely, but we may need to be reminded that they are entirely possible.
I would think that this premise would be immensely challenging to a writer. In contemplating a fictional future where humanity has “gotten it right”, first thoughts go to the world of Herman Hesse’s Glass Bead Game and its owlrd where culture and conflict has been settled in amber, as it were, the chaos of new creation and thought wiped out and dad culture is in the hands of the Magister Ludi of the Glass Bead Game. Another one that springs to mind is “Amelior”, the saccharine, turgid runaway bestseller of a novel within a novel in Martin Amis’ “The Information”. In The Information Amis describes Amelior thus:
In Amelior itself twelve youngish human beings forgathered…. Each of them boasted a serious but non-disfiguring affliction: Piotr had hemophilia, Conchita endometriosis, Sachine colitis, Eagle Woman diabetes. Of this twelve, naturally, six were men and six were women; but the sexual characteristics were deliberately hazed. The women were broad-shouldered and thin-hipped. The men tended to be comfortably plump. In the place called Amelior, where they had come to dwell, there was no beauty, no humor and no incident; there was no hate and there was no love.
Above: Wet Liberal Whenever: Occupy Wall Street
I’ll be interested in seeing where it falls either within or outside this spectrum. The latter case is quite unlikely, coming from a man who comes across as pretty self-aware, a self confessed “wet liberal” and being possessed with the bite and wit in the authorial voice in evidence in previous work. Characteristically, Llewellyn entertains conversation on his G+ stream. Here’s what he says on the reception of the funding campaign:
…I do want to try and find ways to develop ideas and take input from a wide variety of sources. Google+ strikes me as the ideal platform to try it. I now have to be patient and read that book about delayed gratification I’ve been delaying reading.
So far the reaction to the Unbound book launch of News From Gardenia has been nothing short of record breaking. Unbound have never had such a response, I am equally nervous and proud, it’s a big thrill but I have to believe the book will live up to expectations. Okay, I’ve got all my digits crossed which makes typing a little tedious.
www.unbound.co.uk
An announcement for my new book. A utopian vision of how the world could be, a science fiction novel set 200 years in the future. Gavin Meckler, an engineer from 2011 arrives in a new world that is oddly familiar yet incredibly different.
This use of new media tech is nothing new for Robert Llewillyn, nor is writing fiction:
I wrote my first novel at the age of 12. By the time I’d published The Man on Platform 5, my first grown-up work of fiction, 30 years had passed. In the intervening period I’d worked as an artist’s model, a bespoke shoemaker, a tree surgeon, a screenwriter, a comedian, actor and TV presenter.
I’ve appeared on British television regularly since 1987 in various guises including under quite absurd amounts of rubber in Red Dwarf, covered in grease and dust inScrapheap Challenge, in terrifying machines on How Do They Do It? and sitting in a car chatting in Carpool.
I write under a rack of solar panels in Gloucestershire and News From Gardenia is my fifth work of fiction.
I was delighted to come across his web show Carpool when there were but a dozen or so episodes and was struck by how simply and effectively he used the means of production at hand, a simple premise and services like blip.tv with their lost and much missed multi-episode player embedded in the front page of a hosted wordpress site.
Carpool is a web series presented by English actor and comedian Robert Llewellyn. In each episode he interviews a guest while giving them a lift in an eco-friendly car (normally a Toyota Prius hybrid electric vehicle). The guests are often well-known British television personalities such asJonathan Ross or Ade Edmondson. However Llewellyn also interviews less-well-known figures as long as he feels that they will prove to be an interesting subject. The guests have also included Llewellyn’s fellow Red Dwarf actors, Danny John Jules, Craig Charles, Chris Barrie and Hattie Hayridge (as well as Tony Hawks, Arthur Smith and Ruby Wax who all appeared in cameo roles in Red Dwarf).
The show became very popular His early adoption of, massive presence on and enthusiastic evangelizing of twitter has become somewhat of a calling card. Combine the media production with committed engagement on youtube, facebook and G+ with free services like Audioboo, which lets one record messages and share to twitter quite easily, (and lately using the latter for transmitting a complete audio book, which is a first, as far as I know), and you have an example of someone from “old” media (BBC) transitioning into a combination of self-produced projects while still doing Red Dwarf and the televised version of Carpool for Dave TV. So for the creative types who are fleet of mind his example show one need not panic because the big house is collapsing.
Linkage:
http://www.unbound.co.uk/books/news-from-gardenia
https://plus.google.com/u/0/114018232303831249060/posts
http://www.youtube.com/user/carpoolUK
http://www.youtube.com/user/fullychargedshow
http://audioboo.fm/channel/rubbermask
http://www.facebook.com/drtyrell?ref=profile#!/pages/Robert-Llewellyn/47513367808
http://llewblog.squarespace.com/
http://www.wired.co.uk/podcast/episode-37
http://igg.me/p/43250?a=150751&i=shlk
http://d10x3fy7puydyz.cloudfront.net/17332/wired/podcast/wired-podcast-37.mp3
Crowdsourcing the Mythosphere Tier One: Friend of Modern Mythology
Tier One – Fiend of Modern Mythology: When you contribute a mere One Dollar, you will receive an eBook copy of Fallen Nation: Party At The World’s End as a gift.One dollar is a hell of a deal, and you and your e-reader of choice will that us. Those of you familiar with James Curcio’s previous novels “Join My Cult” and “Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning” will know that within these pages a wild adventure awaits, and in this latest book, even you will be shocked and amazed. When contributing, PLEASE include your email so you can receive it
Fallen Nation: Party At The World’s End is a mad ride past the event horizon of sanity with a group of young, escaped mental patients that come to realize—or believe—that they are demigods.
They form Babylon, a band that captures the spirit of the age as sex, drugs, and chaos reign in the final years of the American Empire.
This is the beginning of a modern mythology that spills off the page: the ticket to the Party At The World’s End is inside, if you dare to search for it. It starts right here, but it won’t end here-
http://www.partyattheworldsend.com/.
At Modern Mythology we are engaged in an effort to fund our growing operations through IndieGoGo. This continues our general approach, which manifested itself through active engagement with readers, critics, scholars and an open and open ended invitation to potential collaborators from the very beginning.
In fact, our site has a page inviting those who dare enter to Join Our Cult:
WANTED: Genius Lunatic Mythmakers and Cultural Creators.
The contributor roster here at Modern Mythology is beginning to fill out nicely. However, there is room at the table for a few more if you have fire in your belly and are looking to contribute to a growing collective. What are we?
There is no “we.” But if there were, it’d be a group comprised of situationist collectives, sacred clowns, hive brains, corporate and academic moles and sleeper agents, ontological terrorists, unlicensed psychologists, toxic armchair philosophers, and out-and-out sex and drug fiends. Our books are making their way into classrooms and subway cars, our albums are tunneling into someone’s earholes on the other side of the planet right now. However you want to label us, we’ll take it and keep upping the ante. We’ll use whatever angle will give us the spin we’re looking for at that moment from the media.
Look around our sites and you’ll see we’ve created a large body of work. We feel it’s important that we keep publishing thought-provoking pieces on pop culture philosophy and social commentary, and to keep expanding the scope and ambition of our art and scholarship.The work of Modern Mythology goes beyond comparative religion and philosophy into the core of humanity’s myth making capacity, the very tendencies that allow some to gain power, some to be enslaved, some to shape how every one of us sees the world and more very real and powerful ways Living Myth shapes who we are.
The Immanence of Myth is Published
This has been a long time coming, verily a monumental undertaking that brings a whole new set of perspectives on the stories we in which we live. Thought provoking writing and great art is lovingly gathered and edited by James Curcio.
(And my drawings are found throughout…)
Weaponized is proud to announce that ‘The Immanence of Myth’ is published today.
The book will begin to show as in stock with retailers in the coming weeks.
Due to the titles popularity, pre-orders of the book should arrive with our customers in the next two to three weeks as we work through our back orders.
The Immanence of Myth is available from Amazon and all major retailers.
Where can we begin a genuine discussion of immanence in myth? Do we engage the tools of analysis on the dissection table of academia? Or perhaps it is best not dealt with in sterile light, being rather an arcane synthesis, a syncretism.
If myth is something long dead, a corpse exhumed with philosophical disinterest, then please consider this work an attempt at necromancy. But if myth is considered something dangerous; full of falsities, dead ends and mazes luring the unwary into a fugue of superstition, then consider it a whispered pass-phrase into another world: the world beyond the wallpaper. A world that recognizes the real is in the effect rendered, rather than in the thing symbolized. Conflicting fictions drive Holy wars. How is a history born of spilled blood unreal? How is it meaningless, even if all the Gods are just shadows cast on the wall by finger-puppets? Myth is not dead, nor is it false; it is living, and misunderstood.
This anthology is a book. For the philosophers Deleuze and Guattari, a book is an assemblage:
“Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and rupture. All this, lines and measurable speeds, constitutes an assemblage. A book is an assemblage of this kind, and as such is unattributable. It is a multiplicity[.]” (A Thousand Plateaus)
It is an assemblage of voices gathered together to speak on the immanence of myth. It is, as already stated, a multiplicity, which is fitting as myth embraces multiplicity.
Contrasting Mythos with Logos, we contrast those multiple voices against the singular, the transcendent. Whereas the logos is the word of God, the divine fiat that structures and moves our universe, so the mythos is an indefinite set of articles, tales told for the telling itself, with no hard and fast authority, no assertable Ultimate Truth, no attributable origin grounded in cold solidity. It is immanent rather than transcendent because it is the codification of our direct experience, forms and ideas ground from our collective bones and flesh.
-Mr. VI and James Curcio, from the chapter “Immanence and Butchery.”
More info at http://www.modernmythology.net/ and you can purchase this volume at http://www.weaponized.net/ and all your favourite online retailers of fine books.
P. Emerson Williams Interview in the First Issue of Aftermath Magazine
Just out, an interview with me in Aftermath Magazine #1 covering Choronzon, Veil of Thorns, Foolish People, Strange Factories, art and the underground. Read on for interviews with: Dean Francis, Killjoy Desade, Kaylee Williams (no relation…), Timothy Pope, Laz and Ivy Asphyxia.
All brought to us by the good folks at Katzenjammer Records.
AFTERMATH MAGAZINE ISSUE #1
Aftermath Magazine #1
FEATURING INTERVIEWS WITH:
DEAN FRANCIS – DIRECTOR – ROAD TRAIN (AKA ROAD KILL)
KILLJOY DESADE – MUSICIAN / HORROR ENTHUSIAST – NECROPHAGIA
KAYLEE WILLIAMS – ACTRESS – SLICES OF LIFE, ZOMBIE BABIES, THE LASHMAN ++
TIMOTHY POPE – MUSICIAN – THE AMENTA
P EMERSON WILLIAMS – MUSICIAN / ARTIST – CHORONZON
LAZ – TATTOO ARTIST – SLEEVEMASTERS SYDNEY AUSTRALIA
IVY ASPHYXIA – BUSINESS OWNER / MODEL – ASPHYXIA CORSETRY
Hettie – Strange Factories
“I feel the heat all around me, smell the velvet burning, the stage is on fire and I know it’s too late.” – Hettie
This short video introduces you to Hettie the clown, one of the characters of Strange Factories, played by Annalisa Astarita.
Strange Factories is FoolishPeople’s first feature film, which explores the power of stories and myths and how they are ultimately given life by those who engage with them.
We would like you to become part of our story. You’re a crucial element of how this project is produced, created and experienced.
Join our IndieGoGo campaign and become a part of the ‘Strange Factories’ story.
indiegogo.com/strange-factories
strangefactories.com
info.strangefactories.com
foolishpeople.org
Milestone VI – Stronheim’s Village
“Have you ever had a dream so strange and unusual you felt that it wasn’t your own?”
Stronheim’s Village – $500 / £310
For braving to venture to Stronheim’s village, you will choose a framed photograph by DOP Yiannis Katsaris from the story world to take home as a souvenir and an invitation to the Theatre of Manifestationworkshop. You will also receive two tickets to the live event screening the film, a collector’s edition DVD of ‘Strange Factories’ and a thank you in credits.
You are at the heart of our story and we have left a space for you to interact with our film and venture into Stronheim’s strange world. In addition to thesubscription of experiences you will receive, you can also send in details of dreams, stories and secrets to the switchboard, and enter yourself into Stronheim’s Tombola to win a weekend away to his mansion in the Czech countryside.
Image by Bettina Fung Wan Shan
Strange Factories on Indiegogo
Tune it to our second 48 hour tweetathon next Friday 15th July- Sunday 17th July to hear some of FoolishPeople’s stories and secrets as well as our audience.
Follow us: twitter.com/foolishpeople
Lady Thayn – Tereza Kamenicka – Strange Factories
“Blood is spilt, the red curtains are pulled back.” – Lady Thayn
This short video introduces you to the mysterious Lady Thayn, one of the characters in Strange Factories, played by FoolishPeople core member Tereza Kamenicka.
Strange Factories is FoolishPeople’s first feature film, which explores the power of stories and myths and how they are ultimately given life by those who engage with them.
You are at the heart of Stronheim’s story. You’re a crucial element of how this project is produced, created and experienced.
Have you received the access code for Radiogram Iyet?
Join our IndieGoGo campaign and enter Stronheim’s Tombola to start your journey.
http://www.indiegogo.com/strange-factories
http://www.strangefactories.com
http://www.info.strangefactories.com
Salomé (1923) – P. Emerson Williams Score
Working on this brought to mind a million different thoughts and connections. I’ll be pulling the chaos together into something relatively linear soon.
Salomé (1923), a silent film directed by Charles Bryant and starring Alla Nazimova, is a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play of the same name. The play itself is a loose retelling of the biblical story of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist (here, as in Wilde’s play, called Jokaanan) at the request of his stepdaughter, Salomé, whom he lusts after. Salomé is often called one of the first art films to be made in the U.S. The highly stylized costumes, exaggerated acting (even for the period), minimal sets, and absence of all but the most necessary props make for a screen image much more focused on atmosphere and on conveying a sense of the characters’ individual heightened desires than on conventional plot development.
I think the mythical Salome is both a product of and a window into the minds of those who told it. There’s a flavour to the tale that feels more like one from the old testament than the new.
http://etext.virginia.edu/subjects/salome/salome2.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2848
Milestone V – The Village Pub – “That’s the way to do it!”
You’ll have to make a move right now on this one, for the number of slots is limited and they’re filling up fast. No matter what form of art you create, learning about Theatre of Manifestation will add a new dimension to every creative act on which you embark.
-P. Emerson Williams
For Milestone V of our campaign for ‘Strange Factories’, FoolishPeople will be running a professional theatre and arts workshops in London in August, with the proceeds going directly into our funding campaign for ‘Strange Factories’.
This is a rare opportunity for actors, performers and artists to introduce themselves to the core techniques and concepts of FP’s working practice, Theatre of Manifestation.
Theatre of Manifestation combines mythology, shamanism, drama therapy and open source collaboration to create immersive experiences that have the power to raise a numinous experience within the audience. It dismantles the notion of the spectator being a passive recipient of a theatrical experience; active engagement and participation is vital and absolutely necessary.
The workshop will take place on Saturday 13thAugust from 10am-6pm in central London, venue TBC. Over the course of the day, you will work withJohn Harrigan, Artistic Director and founder of FoolishPeople to explore the core techniques and skills needed within immersive theatre and how you can unlock and open the essence of your imagination and creativity.
You will be taught techniques to dismantle creative blocks, attain a truthful performance and formulate new ideas and processes for each project you undertake. This will offer participants a focused framework for their continuing artistic development.
This workshop will leave you feeling confident and empowered with new skills and techniques that you can apply to your own working practice within a variety of mediums and performance styles. This workshop is open to all arts professionals and those interested in exploring their creativity.
Previous workshops have been held in collaboration with organisations such as the University of Hertfordshire, the BBC and The Central School of Speech & Drama.
You can book onto this course online via our online funding campaignwww.indiegogo.com/strangefactories
You can purchase your ticket in two ways:
- By contributing $65 (£40) to the campaign, using the ‘Contribute now’ button.
Spaces are limited- there are 10 places available.
You just need to scroll down and enter $60 into the total contribution amount, enter your personal details and choose payment method.
Alternatively, please contact us to arrange a bank transfer in GBP.
Once you’ve purchased your ticket, please e-mail us at switchboard@strangefactories.com.
Once the workshop date has been sold out, we will make an announcement on our update page, so be sure to check this before you book your place. Please note, invoices can be provided for the workshop for either payment method.
- By purchasing Milestone V – The Village Pub in our subscription of experiences. The Village Pub perk costs $250 (£156) and includes access to both workshop dates, a Collector’s Edition of ‘Strange Factories’ and a pair of tickets to the live event screening the film.
The Village Pub
Milestone V: The barman gives you a strange-coloured spirit on the house, which you down in one. “That’s the way to do it!” As you start to hallucinate, you will meet Punch, who adds your name to the list of attendees for the Theatre of Manifestation Workshop by Director John Harrigan that he tells you explores FoolishPeople’s working practice. As you stumble out, you’ll also find a pair of tickets to the live event screening the film & a DVD copy of ‘Strange Factories’ in your bag.
Photography by Yiannis Katsaris, Director of Photography for ‘Strange Factories’
Introducing Victor – John Harrigan – Strange Factories
Follow @foolishpeople on twitter. In progress is the Strange Factories Secrets, Dreams and Storytelling Tweetathon, in which we’re making worlds overlap. Let us pour the myths and stories we live into a common vessel.
“Words administer existence, yet also deliver oblivion.” – Victor
This short video introduces you to Victor, a story maker haunted and obsessed by a mysterious fiction, played by the founder of FoolishPeople John Harrigan, who created and developed FoolishPeople’s working practice ‘Theatre of Manifestation’ over the last twenty years.
‘Strange Factories’ is FoolishPeople’s first feature film, which explores the power of stories and myths and how they are ultimately given life by those who engage with them.
We would like you to become part of our story. You’re a crucial element of how this project is produced, created and experienced.
Join our IndieGoGo campaign and enter Stronheim’s tombola to become a part of ‘Strange Factories’.
indiegogo.com/strange-factories
strangefactories.com
info.strangefactories.com
We have some great news, due to all of the generous contributions we’ve received, we’ve now past our $3,000 milestone. The ‘Strange Factories’ campaign now stands at $3,361.
Today we’re releasing a new ‘Strange Factories’ video featuring FoolishPeople core member Lucy Harrigan, who plays Rose in the film.
Please remember to share our campaign with all your friends and family.
Strange Factories
“Have you ever had a dream so strange and unusual that it felt like it wasn’t your own” – Rose
This short video introduces you to Rose an actress who has lost herself to the characters she portrays, sacrificing her life to her art, played by FoolishPeople core member Lucy Harrigan.
Strange Factories is FoolishPeople’s first feature film, which explores the power of stories and myths and how they are ultimately given life by those who engage with them.
We would like you to become part of our story. You’re a crucial element of how this project is produced, created and experienced.
Raw Effluence 06/11
Is It Art? Is IT Legal? Is It, Bugger…
There have been multiple declarations of ART WAR in the last few years, but things rarely update after the manifesto is posted, usually on a free blog platform. Hey, we did that! Well, not declare ART WAR, but post a manifestooo right here. We may be developing more music, now that we broke it, or something entirely different. The process is the product and the conversation will determine what, how where with the who being every living and dead creature…
Modernism to Postmodernism to Postmortemism
We cultural types do love to declare death wherever we cast our jaded blood-shot eyes. When our imaginations are exhausted, hard-ons for the latest arising only with greater efforts require new extremes of fetishism. A point comes when completed work crowds out attention. Art, empire, economy, politics look to us to be sated with days and ready to give in to sweet oblivion.
Far Flung, the Rose Madder Crowd
The best place for an artist is to not be beholden to anything but the work. Well, that’s the ideal. What is often forgotten is that in the continuum of creation to curation to collection only creation is production. Dealers, A&R people and publishers tend to be more aware of this than the people at either end of the process and keeping that in mind helps one understand the minds and actions of the middle-men who usually end up with most of t …
Subsumed - P. Emerson Williams
Raw Material 06/16/11
Some of the input I’m shutting the tabs on as I move on to digestion mode. What is more interesting – the issues raised in these articles or the story-scape they all contribute to. (Or do they really relate at all?
Is the use of assistants in the creation of art still common? there’s something very 1980′s about that…
The Art Assembly Line
It’s a phenomenon that’s rarely discussed in the art world: The new work on a gallery wall wasn’t necessarily painted by the artist who signed it. Some well-known artists, such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, openly employ small armies of assistants to do their paintings and sculptures. Others hire help more quietly.
Make/Do
“Vainglory,” an anachronistic term meaning an unjustified and excessive pride in one’s own achievements or abilities is one of the primary forces animating and shaping contemporary culture. The phenomena that is American Idol owes its considerable popularity both to its role in discovering legitimate, almost freakishly superhuman singing skill, but also as a window into contemporary culture’s vainglorious soul.
http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/make-do/27998/0
A Call to Arms (In the War Between Art and Survival)
If you haven’t noticed, there is an ancient and ongoing war between Art and Survival.
And yes, I’m serious. It is a War — and Art has been losing. Whether we are writers, painters, directors, actors, poets, dancers, or musicians, the artists of the world face a fundamental problem: we live in a society in which Art has little value. No amount of ambitious self-hypnotism or L.A.-style positive affirmation can change that. Since we were children, our behavior has been modified by rewards and punishments. And in modern society, we primarily respond to a form of social conditioning called Money.
Tied to the Wheel - P. Emerson Williams 1994
http://www.writersstore.com/a-call-to-arms-in-the-war-between-art-and-survival
CLICK THIS? MySpace & the Pornography of Corporately Controlled Virtual Life
I also wrote fictional pieces about myself and some of the regulars who contributed comments to my blog. In doing this I often adopted postmodern literary techniques, by for example taking newspaper stories and adapting names and other details to make them about me and my readers. For example: “A kinky sex escapade ended this week with the electrocution death of a Belfast man and the arrest of his boyfriend for manslaughter.
Strange Factories offers up ‘subscription of experiences’ to fan-funders (Wired UK)
Wired UK talks to my amazing brother in art John Harrigan about Strange Factories. Click through and you’ll learn more and see the gallery of the incredible and haunting images by Yiannis Katsaris, Director of Photography for Strange Factories.
A theatre troupe has blended the mystery of performance with crowdsourcing and gaming principles to create a new form of storytelling. Strange Factories, the brainchild of creative types Foolish People, allows the audience to get involved every step of the way — from funding the film to altering its narrative.
Strange Factories offers up ‘subscription of experiences’ to fan-funders (Wired UK).
Please Stand By – Strange Factories
Please Stand By. Those who have contributed to the manufacturing process of ‘Strange Factories’ will soon receive Radiogram 1, containing pertinent data to aid your Field Study. If you also require delivery of Radiogram 1 then sign up forthwith for Milestone I
Emma – Strange Factories from FoolishPeople on Vimeo.
“I know why I existed. There’s so many that don’t, some are even born half imagined.” – Emma
This short video introduces you to the mysterious and alluring Emma, a character of Strange Factories, played by FoolishPeople core member Rachael Blyth.
Strange Factories is FoolishPeople’s first feature film, which explores the power of stories and myths and how they are ultimately given life by those who engage with them.
We would like you to become part of our story. You’re a crucial element of how this project is produced, created and experienced.
Join our IndieGoGo campaign and become a part of the ‘Strange Factories’ story.
http://indiegogo.com/strange-factories
http://www.strangefactories.com
Strange Factories – Punch Thanks You
Have you ever had a dream so strange you were sure it wasn’t your own?
Punch would like to personally thank everyone who has helped take us over $2,500. We’re now well on our way to our goal, but still have far to go, so please help us spread the word!
Look out for the video of Sam that we are releasing very soon, so you can meet the face behind the mask.
‘Strange Factories’; an immersive feature film that tells the story of a world haunted by a phantasmagoric fiction. A unique and powerful project that fuses cinema and theatre within a dreamlike environment to create an experience like no other.”
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Storyteller: On the writing of ‘Strange Factories’ by John Harrigan (via awakeningartsnetwork)
John Harrigan lets us in on the writing of Strange Factories and his thoughts on the vital role of stories in being human. It is my distinct privilege to be involved in the art of John Harrigan and FoolishPeople. Any encounter with John’s creations is an active participation, and that is one of the many unique and profound aspects that makes this living art such an amazing transformative experience.
Read on and look into the heart of creativity.
Phantasmagoric Environments
As the immersive art of FoolishPeople extends into the realms of cinema, the immersive art that is the essence of our work is brought into another realm. Those of you who have experienced the living narrative of FoolishPeople know that what is to be created with Strange Factories will transcend what we think of as cinematic form.
The Phantasmagoria of Strange Factories from FoolishPeople on Vimeo.
This film explores the ideas and background to FoolishPeople’s first feature film ‘Strange Factories’.
Stories and myths are given life by those who engage with them and we would like you to become part of our story. You’re a crucial element of how this project is produced, created and experienced.
Join our IndieGoGo campaign and become a part of ‘Strange Factories’.
http://www.indiegogo.com/strange-factories
Dream Quest of Unknown GaGoth
My article this week for Dominion Mag pointed out a new appreciation for things goth, darkwave and generally creepy and went into some questions that arose as I looked the situation over. Some answers presented themselves as I wrote, more from reactions to the piece and this acknowlegment of dark creative endeavours contiues to spread with no signs of slowing down. Later this month, the ICA wioll gather boffins together to dissect gothic manifestations of culture in their two day meditation Template for Terror: The Revival of the Gothic.
Quoth the ICA event page:
From Dracula and Frankenstein to Twilight and Shaun of the Dead, contemporary culture continues to appropriate the stock themes of the eighteenth and nineteenth century gothic novel. This weekend of panel discussions, presentations and screenings will explore the societal impulse that draws us to the darker side of life, looking at the influence of the gothic in contemporary art, literature, film and music.
Mulch by P. Emerson Williams
Well, dip my balls in sweet cream and roll me in flour if this doesn’t bring to memory other times Big Art deigned to cast an eye for a brief moment to what the outsiders are doing. Back in the -90′s as the US was climbing slowly put from another foray into the financial ditch, art consultants were traversing the Deep South in search of «Outsider Art», which they would buy in bulk for a song and sell to galleries, collectors and corporate collections for a many-fold profit. When the establishment art world goes on a tourist jaunt to the realms of chaos where things develop and thrive without their patronage, they either clear the land and scorch the earth or colonize the territory. Does anyone remember Altermodern? The conceit was that cultural colonization was coming to an end, both between fine and popular art and between first and third world art.
I addressed this in a post on the kkoagulaa blog:
Hmmm… The Market As Performance Art, Art As Commodity, taste makers seeking for a raison d’etre, journo’s and commentators whipping themselves into a froth. Case in point: Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009, an event, a declaration and a curator that have the art press twisting themselves inside out. Postmodernism has died a thousand deaths, but we do wait for curators at large institutions in visionary and creative stasis to tell us when the nightmare is over before we accept it.
This connects with an article I posted to Alterati.com around the wild and wooly entertainment spectacular that was the 2008 US election. Admittedly, I held the thing together with spit and duct tape, but those protest didn’t turn out to be more than the prisoner’s last meal before execution, did they? A couple day of noise and the livestock went back to their pens and accepted whatever was handed to them as slops.
What is this all about?
Well, what is presented by living artists at such edifices as the Tate is art sanctioned by the moneyed classes, it either confirms or showcases their control and soothes their sensibilities, or is “edgy” and “provocative” in the same way the jesters filled that function at court. The middle-class identified are often thrown a bone to keep them coming, and to move them to pledge to institutions in the US. (“Middle-class identified includes the actual middle class, but also those who are not middle class financially. There are those groups of low wage earners who don’t get their hands dirty in their work who are encouraged to identify as middle class to keep them on the hamster wheel, as well as retail management proxies who kept the appearance of financial comfort by buying into the credit ponzi scheme which has been the illusion of prosperity from Reagan up to the recent bank and credit collapse.)
That ponzi scheme is being wound down as the dungeon masters of that game are gathring up their pieces and going home. The resulting devastation may have something to do with the appeal of darker forms of expression. Consumers and underground cultural efforts may join the “Useless Eaters” when it all shakes out, but we’ll be making sweet music of the night in our encampments.
Now, I do remember finding Mick Mercer’s Hex Files: The Goth Bible in the anthropology section at the Harvard bookstore. Where this connects for me with the artists emerging outside the established goth scene and outside entities covering them and to varying extents covering the scene is this same establishment way of dealing with outsiders. Where goth promoters, writers and dj’s may be accused of ignoring the new non-scene artists, (n accusation I’m not sure lines up with the actual situation, but it doesn’t hurt us to discuss the matter), when tastes change in our favour, the romance will always be a one-night stand. Whomp, yog-sothoth, thank you Goth…
I want to be clear that I may have come across sharper than I intended on some points. I pulled a quote from The Sky’s Gone Out blog about the commercial peak of goth in the -90′s to point out two of the releases referred to were not goth, though the artists (Peter Murphy and The Sisters), certainly were.
Replied Jason Pitzl-Waters in part:
…it was the only time I can remember when music of this particular pedigree was taken with any degree of seriousness by college radio, MTV, or the music press. Instead of The Cure, Siouxsie, Murphy, and the Sisters opening doors, Goth quickly vanished in Grunge’s wake (and a very different sort of earnestness reigned). The commercial torch, if one could said to have been passed, went to Nine Inch Nails, and Manson, who were working from a different angle.
I will give him that point very happily, and I think we largely agree on most points covered on his end. I follow his blog on tumblr because what he writes is very insightful and thought provoking. His conclusion that the scene will be with us for a long time is correct, and I think this crop of dark indie bands and witch house artists offer more promise than the aforementioned NIN and Manson. You should read the rest of the entry and follow his blog if you have any interest in the topic.
Deathless by P. Emerson Williams
Hand-wringing over «Mall-Goths», EBM, or any temporary fling with the greater world of filthy commerce is something we’re strong enough and have genuine enough intentions to safely ignore. But sometimes there are windows of opportunity that should not be dismissed out of cliquishness or fear of being co-opted. The relationship between the noir rock bands and the goth scene bands will develop.
What may transpire at the ICA, I can’t say. I’m interested to find out, and reserve the right to point and ridicule any scholarly misinterpretations I may see.
Linkature on the blinkature:
http://theskysgoneout.org/post/6044261416/long-live-the-new-goth-flesh
http://www.ica.org.uk/29191/Talks/Template-for-Terror-The-Revival-of-the-Gothic.html
http://truecultheavymetal.com/index.php/dominion/2011/05/31/long-live-the-new-goth-flesh
http://kkoagulaa.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/kkoagulaa-vs-altermodern/
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/the_gops_useless_eaters_no_more_food_for_you_poor_people/
http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=2093
CHORONZON
Incunabula Papers – Ong's Hat
PANICMACHINE
Veil Of Thorns
