Fashion in Film Lecture

On the evening of Wednesday, December 1, I am giving a short talk at the Horse Hospital  as part of this year’s Fashion in Film Festival. I have been asked by the festival organizers not to go into any specifics about the event, so here is their press release instead, which should give you some idea what to expect: 

Wednesday 1 December The Horse Hospital 19.00
total running time of films c.170min (with a short break in between).
Tickets £10, concessions £8

 You absolutely must come dressed as your own madness if you wish to be admitted to the Fashion in Film Festival’s opening ceremony, a special film club night co-hosted exclusively for your pleasure by the brilliant Ken Hollings and a pair of London legends Princess Julia and Felicity Hayward. The evening will kick off with a mystery double bill screening featuring one of cinema’s greatest mavericks, plus a fiendish mix of lavish costumes and masks, dark rituals and a profusion of sequins and sparkles.

Post-screening, Princess Julia and Felicity Hayward will DJ into the night. Make sure to dress up to the nines for this unmissable event, the stranger the better… unless your madness is called normality.

‘London Noir’ Meets ‘Londres Noir’

Asphalte Editions in Paris have just published a very fine French translation of London Noir, the anthology of stories based in and around the mother of all dark cities edited by my old friend Cathi Unsworth. Other contibutors include Barry Adamson, Max Decharne, Stewart Home, Ken Bruen and Martyn Waites. The Asphalte version is rather elegant, right down to the Jamie Reid colour scheme of the cover; and I am particularly pleased with how my story Betamax reads in French – in some ways I think I even prefer it to the original, particularly with regard to how the future tense works in this new version. You can find more details by clicking here. For those of you who still have to check out the original, available from Serpents Tail, you can order it by clicking here.

See also:

London Noir International
Cathi Unsworth Knows Where You Live

Found Objects Podcast Volume One Available Now

We viewed the evening with alarm/the British Museum Tavern had lost its charm. Dolly Dolly said he wanted to record our conversation for a Found 0bjects podcast. The pub we eventually chanced upon was called The Angel and offered us divine protection from a cold and hostile night, full of strange voices and even stranger behaviour. We were soon joined by Glimmung and Dr Champagne, who both miraculously found their way through the dark and crowded West End streets – we had things to see and much to talk about. The resultant podcast, mixed and edited by Dolly Dolly, is now available to download by clicking here. There is also a visual supplement available here. My thanks and warmest appreciation to all involved.

Pictured above: Found 0bjects Podcast logo; The Morning of the Magicians, Granada Publishing Limited, Published in 1971 by Mayflower Books Ltd, 3 Upper St James Street, London W1R 4BP, First published in Great Britain by Anthony Gibbs and Phillips Limited 1963. Copyright © Editions Gallimard, Paris 1960 – cover artist unknown.

Of Men and Machines

A fascinating invaluable anthology that probes deeply into the relationship between man and the machines he has created. Edited by Arthur O. Lewis Jr.
E.P.Dutton Co. Inc., New York
Copyright © 1963 Arthur O. Lewis Jr.
All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

Cover design by Seymour Chwast

Ray Scott Vs ‘Hollingsville’

Graham Massey, the official Hollingsville composer in residence, has sent me details of a recent event that took place in Manchester celebrating  Ray Scott, founder of Manhattan Research Inc and the man who took Twinkies into Outer Space during the early 1960s. As well as a screening of Stan Warnow’s Ray Scott documentary Deconstructing Dad offering an intimate portrait of his father’s life and work, after which Warnow took part in a Q&A session with the audience, Graham and associates served up some tracks either recorded in, or inspired by, the Manhattan Research Inc studio. As the set list featured above indicates, the performance included live renditions of pieces already familiar to Hollingsville listeners. We remain, as always, on the cutting edge of the past.

Pictured above: the Manhattan Research Transfer Project set list and scenes from the performance, photographs supplied by Graham Massey

Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire

A Panther Book
First published in Great Britain by Falcon Press (London) Limited 1946. Reprinted 1947. Panther edition published 1971

Cover illustration by Justin Todd

New Lecture Series Continues at Central St Martins

From Wednesday, November 10, and for the next four weeks, I will be continuing my series of lectures in the MA Communication Design Main Studio at 10 Back Hill, Clerkenwell, EC1R 5AD. Each talk will reflect some aspect of my new book ‘The Bright Labyrinth: Sex, Death and Design in the Digital Regime’ as explored in ‘Hollingsville’, my weekly show for Resonance 104.4 FM. Each lecture starts at 10.00 am and will last an hour with the possibility of a discussion afterwards. All are welcome. The second four in the series are as follows:

Lecture Five – Spaces: Buildings Dream Too, November 10 – for a Hollingsville podcast on this subject, please click here.

Lecture Six – Events: The Birth of Chance, November 17 – for a Hollingsville podcast on this subject, please click here.

Lecture Seven – Trash: The Gasp between Clichés, November 24 – for a Hollingsville podcast on this subject, please click here.

Lecture Eight – Cognition: How to Pass the Turing Test, December 1 – no podcast is so far available on this subject.

Please check this blog regularly for updates and further details.

Laurie Lipton – The Mother of All Machinery

My good friend Laurie Lipton has an exciting new show opening at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles this week. When she first told me about ‘Machine Punk’ during the summer I have to say it really got my wheels spinning, as I had been long been interested in documenting a sexual history of machines, which was also the subject of a lecture I gave at the Anti-Design Fair in September this year. With her customary excessive rigour, Laurie takes the collision of machinery and its deviants into completely new and extreme dimensions – all the more extraordinary for being painstakingly hand-rendered. After all, if machines really are extensions of our limbs and senses, then surely they should extend our neuroses as well? And would these neuroses not be present in every last little detail and fibre of our experience? Or to put it another way: never travel with your back to the engine. Those not in the vicinity of Hollywood Boulevard can preview the show online by clicking here. Learn to be afraid.

LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug

G.P. PUTNAM’S-BERKELEY MEDALLION EDITION, JUNE 1966

Essays include: ‘Psychopharmacology: The Manipulation of the Mind’ by Humphrey Osmond, D.P.M, ‘Culture and The Individual’ by Aldous Huxley, ‘The Hallucinogens: A Reporter’s Objective View’ by Dan Wakefield,’ ‘A Visit to Inner Space’ by Alan Harrington, ‘How to Change Behavior’ by Timothy Leary, Ph.D. and ‘Points of Distinction between Sedative and Consciousness-Expanding Drugs’ by William S. Burroughs.