tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15055420624828777042024-03-05T13:44:04.931+00:00Ken HollingsINFORMATION AS ART FORMKen Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.comBlogger433125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-22089220345897717702023-10-26T16:51:00.001+01:002023-10-26T16:51:27.198+01:00The Howling Hits Paris Fashion Week in September – Spooks the Horse Hospital in November<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9WdReSMQn80" width="320" youtube-src-id="9WdReSMQn80"></iframe></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEvZVHRHiqEHo2ZRl31-1htoUAn8dYd317PP_MoTUd6Rbhn6SOJaXOw6CSh3aO5qMOrM4lR0QtHg1HaTzKK4clAzAqj5xpfTMq3sfFdvfUSk169tjw6DXHiBvzOFFpUYmsHrDuJb8kA3-NXopeSZm2rQwUpftDsXMQdw2Nj8ZXtLH0u8sa8iTSvZSIZI/s1080/HH231103-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEvZVHRHiqEHo2ZRl31-1htoUAn8dYd317PP_MoTUd6Rbhn6SOJaXOw6CSh3aO5qMOrM4lR0QtHg1HaTzKK4clAzAqj5xpfTMq3sfFdvfUSk169tjw6DXHiBvzOFFpUYmsHrDuJb8kA3-NXopeSZm2rQwUpftDsXMQdw2Nj8ZXtLH0u8sa8iTSvZSIZI/s320/HH231103-1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmelb6abHpwCyAMWAXFKnV8sSMUqg5ZQDeDHeg6Htd5EOelkvqVtTupAMY8J5RUwGt2XPVEmWUwofT3eh4ONS4t75Yttx6KlubQsyOq4S106Y12Z-Fp4Npm-dWh8c6PgKEvgeFJi7YOWV_pIF373TppsfIPZeYPjtdSk_tfjZAsF2wxnfHsWvtTn7awI/s1080/HH231103-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmelb6abHpwCyAMWAXFKnV8sSMUqg5ZQDeDHeg6Htd5EOelkvqVtTupAMY8J5RUwGt2XPVEmWUwofT3eh4ONS4t75Yttx6KlubQsyOq4S106Y12Z-Fp4Npm-dWh8c6PgKEvgeFJi7YOWV_pIF373TppsfIPZeYPjtdSk_tfjZAsF2wxnfHsWvtTn7awI/s320/HH231103-2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN4S2e4Ml4mzQUluW33ogEyLysOr0-MWcZnSALPTR7HsFx4FaW51vGgDYf69K5oAE3r7UwgBEG5NYIYK-EnshtGnDCm3SMT4VioI634r238EDXBt_HgRZJ_YPHC7Z64oP8HZbF2IQmdQk43n7b0tJZAcK3lWPpN6R7nJ0QvdMpMsFK2W9f6EgX_WNXt4g/s1080/HH231103-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN4S2e4Ml4mzQUluW33ogEyLysOr0-MWcZnSALPTR7HsFx4FaW51vGgDYf69K5oAE3r7UwgBEG5NYIYK-EnshtGnDCm3SMT4VioI634r238EDXBt_HgRZJ_YPHC7Z64oP8HZbF2IQmdQk43n7b0tJZAcK3lWPpN6R7nJ0QvdMpMsFK2W9f6EgX_WNXt4g/s320/HH231103-3.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Friday 29 September 2023 was the official release date for The Howling’s latest album <i>Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway</i> – brought to you on CD by Tapeworm subsidiary <a href="https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/incredible-night-creatures-of-the-midway" style="color: #954f72;"><span color="windowtext" style="text-decoration: none;">Wormhole</span></a>. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">On the same day the fabulous house of Loewe unveiled their SS24 women’s wear collection as part of Paris Fashion Week. For reasons that still elude me, Loewe included in their runway show extracts from The Howling’s ‘David Gest, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’, which had been available since the start of September as a digital single release as a teaser for <i>Incredible Night Creatures</i>. The sight of so many models moving so elegantly to our work is one that will probably haunt me to my grave. If you want to share the experience, either check out the embedded video above or click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WdReSMQn80" style="color: #954f72;"><span color="windowtext" style="text-decoration: none;">here</span></a> – either way, it’s a moment to behold.<span style="font-family: AppleSystemUIFont;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The track has long been a firm favourite at Howling performances; but Howlround and I had no idea its fame had extended quite that far. If you want to find out for yourself what Loewe got so excited about, The Howling are performing at The Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury on Friday 3 November, when our good friend Travis Elborough is hosting ‘Bonfire of the BASF’, a sonic séance. Also on the bill are the fabulous Ruth Beyer talking to Caroline Wise about her ectoplasmic photography and Kemper Norton, back from the deepest deeps. You can find details and book tickets by clicking <span style="color: #dca10d; font-family: AppleSystemUIFont; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/basf" style="color: #954f72;">here</a></span>. Howlround and I will be performing material from <i>Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway</i>, including ‘David Gest Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’. So come early, come clean...and do please dress correctly.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The Tapeworm and Through the Looking Glasses present…<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">‘Bonfire of the BASF’ as part of MEMOREX – an evening of misremembering at<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The Horse Hospital, London WC1<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Friday 3.11.23<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Doors 19.00<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Tickets £10.00 available from the Horse Hospital website<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-38358398016463179772023-09-08T17:31:00.004+01:002023-09-08T17:31:56.775+01:00New From The Howling: Incredible Night Creatures of The Midway!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvykkbmuxAiR8wtOR_iUD31B_0CCJP3WcQxnRaYwjGcNcHL7ABLyvMT51cFY7jPhieZlZbHtBwNsXJamKuyKOjlPI9HIacz9x3jkG6k1rVj5jrufnjYhVlcOM1JIZcQYKn1eLg8uUBeYIEgk9rMDQh2Z6BWuLZvLL6z8o84arxBPJ6rkfEe1O2tn0UYRs/s1200/0033410933_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="1200" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvykkbmuxAiR8wtOR_iUD31B_0CCJP3WcQxnRaYwjGcNcHL7ABLyvMT51cFY7jPhieZlZbHtBwNsXJamKuyKOjlPI9HIacz9x3jkG6k1rVj5jrufnjYhVlcOM1JIZcQYKn1eLg8uUBeYIEgk9rMDQh2Z6BWuLZvLL6z8o84arxBPJ6rkfEe1O2tn0UYRs/w400-h364/0033410933_10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3mo8Zndmz-oKsl8RKG_Y9Mso4MynSZSako0beJjZhT_p8BY2jVRHWDwAzIlN3euUN5MSFuhV_IdClwvNrcbS2_OLt-SWRUWbhfAts31JEayWBlUApBGSYbfalq0k9RztFXAeTtezMK5o4HeohpsvvWl3_P5p13od18GmXZhRAkqn8sHLrGiXSzWHaVMw/s3000/unnamed-34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3mo8Zndmz-oKsl8RKG_Y9Mso4MynSZSako0beJjZhT_p8BY2jVRHWDwAzIlN3euUN5MSFuhV_IdClwvNrcbS2_OLt-SWRUWbhfAts31JEayWBlUApBGSYbfalq0k9RztFXAeTtezMK5o4HeohpsvvWl3_P5p13od18GmXZhRAkqn8sHLrGiXSzWHaVMw/w400-h400/unnamed-34.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD9RhLz4rb53WOM5TwzPx0HQ2PSnft9p_t8e4omFfRsp5oltD3gVq-Y6Ltz2RRdcSBhZ4Hei2cGxLr5-J67cz3LofbO4T1Ioo2RqqTB2DInaTcWs2U1vANHKAVyM2WbbsromBCevMA6rqszZzshwsQDp3wCpVR8Dgk-QyCvrREzMo6cjf5O0-RmNbt--s/s1200/0033410934_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="1200" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD9RhLz4rb53WOM5TwzPx0HQ2PSnft9p_t8e4omFfRsp5oltD3gVq-Y6Ltz2RRdcSBhZ4Hei2cGxLr5-J67cz3LofbO4T1Ioo2RqqTB2DInaTcWs2U1vANHKAVyM2WbbsromBCevMA6rqszZzshwsQDp3wCpVR8Dgk-QyCvrREzMo6cjf5O0-RmNbt--s/w400-h364/0033410934_10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Incredible Night Creatures of The Midway</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> is the latest album from The Howling, the collaborative project that Howlround and I started back in 2019, inspired by our deep love of Text, Tape and Trash. Available on CD or as a digital download, <i>Incredible Night Creatures of The Midway</i> is </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">intense collision of spoken word and analogue tape effects splattered across five tracks that provide the missing link between John Cage and Suicide. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">It’s the all-singing, all dancing follow-up to </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">our debut album <i>All Hail Mega Force</i>, hailed by <i>The Wire</i> as a ‘mesmeric disorientation’ when released by Tapeworm in 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> celebrates some of The Howling’s favourite exploitation movies. ‘Contents Warning’ pays tribute to the quantities of sex, horror and violence to be found in the genre as a whole, while ‘David Gest, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’ is a Trash favourite from our live performances and is currently available as digital single. Each of the remaining three tracks is devoted to a specific movie dear to our hearts. ‘The Skydivers’ is a deadpan exposition of a spectacularly lacklustre 1960s soap opera set on a California airfield, backed by the throbbing of a customised street rod engine. ‘The Picture of A Picture of Dorian Gray’ is a pounding response to a 1970s Italian soft-core porn adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic novel. Finally, Howlround and I are joined by Beth Arzy of Jetstream Pony and composer/performer Ela Orleans for ‘Miss Frost Miss Leslie Miss Frost’, an exacting dismemberment of <i>Miss Leslie’s Dolls</i>, a creepy Florida-based slasher flick rumoured to have been produced with money smuggled out of Castro’s Cuba. We dare you to play it in the dark!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">You can pre-order <i>Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway</i> direct from Tapeworm by clicking <a href="https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/incredible-night-creatures-of-the-midway" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>. Copies will be shipped on September 29. Order it from Tapeworm, and you also get The Howling Wormzine as a downloadable PDF containing full versions of all the texts from the album. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">‘David Gest, Lisa Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’ is available right now as a digital single – find it simply by clicking <a href="https://kud.li/who22s" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Howling will be doing a special performance based on material from the album at Iklectik Lab on September 19 as part of Vox Interruptus. For more details of the event and to book tickets, click <a href="https://dice.fm/event/m792l-vox-interruptus-19th-sep-iklectik-london-tickets?pid=5d823955&_branch_match_id=1156611368286077524&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA8soKSkottLXz8nMy9ZLyUxO1UvL1Q8zszAzNDFITjU3MrMvyEyxNU2xMDK2NDUFAJuKU3guAAAA" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>. Copies of Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway will be available for purchase on the night.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Howling – ‘The First Name in Excitement!’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Pictured above: </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Mind-bending artwork for the album, the digital single and The Howling Wormzine by the amazing Stefan Fahler.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway</i> front cover<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">‘David Gest, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth’ digital single <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway</i> back cover <o:p></o:p></span></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-41687391709886786122023-05-20T12:49:00.001+01:002023-05-20T12:49:44.691+01:00Utopia, the 1964 New York World’s Fair and The Dialectics of Oblivion<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRY-HaBl69i5PIfsEgPXfN1M7ApdRjYKUHfV3HTZe7quBquSPqHbEhXtbdyJXxIKEupwP4qVdEIG2ZEYh2I-HYoMgFz3PGPioS1EIh5mkKjDmEdBjuwijNTMH3zZWvs-57g1U5Ni1majJ6QcYXg9y1JK3D_tAyjPHub6XV1qVwcCPoWCpJwygPKInd/s3171/WHEN-THE-WORLD-FLOCKED-TO-THE-FAIR_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2559" data-original-width="3171" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRY-HaBl69i5PIfsEgPXfN1M7ApdRjYKUHfV3HTZe7quBquSPqHbEhXtbdyJXxIKEupwP4qVdEIG2ZEYh2I-HYoMgFz3PGPioS1EIh5mkKjDmEdBjuwijNTMH3zZWvs-57g1U5Ni1majJ6QcYXg9y1JK3D_tAyjPHub6XV1qVwcCPoWCpJwygPKInd/w400-h323/WHEN-THE-WORLD-FLOCKED-TO-THE-FAIR_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTzv4PQSdeehpnV98x2jAeqWaHiLBuPdP89se89-jEMe9fdE-EXHiGeNPGtupB0oLujtI0GUXdzNgNSGT4nsnlvfDuvGRYCblbbbLPXtqls2C4H0Sft5mqTh4smPT3ouYKUO5h0HQDiGs0hRAT9hl8JJM5MgyClfTt7_ww-jiEFqt5swEdqH1uhSkH/s1024/5545024753_403747c399_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="1024" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTzv4PQSdeehpnV98x2jAeqWaHiLBuPdP89se89-jEMe9fdE-EXHiGeNPGtupB0oLujtI0GUXdzNgNSGT4nsnlvfDuvGRYCblbbbLPXtqls2C4H0Sft5mqTh4smPT3ouYKUO5h0HQDiGs0hRAT9hl8JJM5MgyClfTt7_ww-jiEFqt5swEdqH1uhSkH/w400-h243/5545024753_403747c399_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq8v5wQFPkoaFtDNPVjBPCWx26_peJtMj7FlzYO8wBkj0F4T36V-P5ehxCeu8klyKYI6zM9PJAbITEoc7hf5RjHmPw2loU4vWt50CnWB6ymfWRgVM3HqUk145rncT1zu6vGo3Mpf2Lr0o6lbTmU2ZnHKGyQ8R7q2pkljdlOgJz3V27XFi8EEXFy0C-/s696/Invisible-monster-03.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="696" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq8v5wQFPkoaFtDNPVjBPCWx26_peJtMj7FlzYO8wBkj0F4T36V-P5ehxCeu8klyKYI6zM9PJAbITEoc7hf5RjHmPw2loU4vWt50CnWB6ymfWRgVM3HqUk145rncT1zu6vGo3Mpf2Lr0o6lbTmU2ZnHKGyQ8R7q2pkljdlOgJz3V27XFi8EEXFy0C-/w400-h266/Invisible-monster-03.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMnj_b4cy1eQYnAfnpzdwelVNgWjzjTNnttM_vXHH0ZBJweCzWS1i3b_PU9LyA2tD2jFQUs-1NIEDmwRQvg3qhQS26W7afZPv_aGPxuOETLj6hVrzh7JitzLbGTQZgosLENLgVoScM77q7G_KuBOC-_gj_Xig1ldL9x6PCfyXZRQf2jAdcx9D6U09/s817/behind-the-scenes-of-bewitched.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="817" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMnj_b4cy1eQYnAfnpzdwelVNgWjzjTNnttM_vXHH0ZBJweCzWS1i3b_PU9LyA2tD2jFQUs-1NIEDmwRQvg3qhQS26W7afZPv_aGPxuOETLj6hVrzh7JitzLbGTQZgosLENLgVoScM77q7G_KuBOC-_gj_Xig1ldL9x6PCfyXZRQf2jAdcx9D6U09/w400-h209/behind-the-scenes-of-bewitched.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">To mark the launch of the recent release, Utopia or Oblivion (CN5) </span><span style="color: #dca10d; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.constructivemusic.co.uk/" style="color: #954f72;">Constructive Music</a></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> have created a website ‘which will serve as a focal point for a series of essays, articles, artists work and information resources that will be derived from the same broad remit offered to the musicians’ who have contributed to the project, inspired by the writings of R Buckminster Fuller.</span></p><o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Their website announcement continues:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="color: #333333;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">‘Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment. Humanity is in a final exam as to whether or not it might qualify for continuance in the Universe.’ (Utopia Or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity R. Buckminster Fuller) Constructive are pleased to announce a compilation of work by 10 artists inspired by and in response to the work of R. Buckminster Fuller, specifically from the essays Utopia Or Oblivion first published in 1963.</p></blockquote><o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">In response to their request, I have written an essay on the theme on Utopia and the Dialectics of Oblivion, inspired by the 1964 New York World’s Fair. This global event, better known for the US corporations drawn to it rather the nation states it sought to represent, has always fascinated me. It opened the same year that Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man and McLuhan’s Understanding Media were published. It was also the year that Jonny Quest and Bewitched first appeared on American TV. ‘The Trip that’s Worth the Trip’ is a tribute to this unique moment in the history of progress. It is another in my series of occasional essays that take their structure directly from Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’. I follow the same numbering and divisions of his original text and retain all of the extracted quotes with which he begins and ends some of the sections. I also try and keep the relative length of each entry to approximately the same proportions as those used by Benjamin, even though the overall length of the text itself might vary. I first used this approach in the essay <a href="http://kenhollings.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-german-artist-and-author-olaf-arndt.html" style="color: #954f72;">‘On The Concept of History, Brexit, Covid and the Paradise of Sovereignty: <i>A fable in eighteen parts with two addenda and seven supporting quotations’</i></a> - which you can find in its entirety <a href="https://olaf.bbm.de/nummer-19-ken-hollings-on-the-concept-of-brexit-covid-exceptional-success" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>. </p><o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">You can find <span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Trip That’s Worth the Trip: Utopia – the Dialectics of Oblivion</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> on the Constructive website by clicking </span><a href="https://utopiaoroblivion.net/202304-2-2/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="color: #dca10d; text-decoration: none;">here</span></a>. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The Constructive album release details are as follows: CN5 Various Artists Utopia or Oblivion 2023 LP / DL</p><o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Pictured above:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The Pop Up New York World’s Fair<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The General Motors Futurama pavilion<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Jonny Quest gets his jetpack<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">From the Bewitched opening animation sequence<o:p></o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-86220394242223672112023-05-03T10:28:00.004+01:002023-05-03T10:28:22.741+01:00Let Me Die a Monster @ Camden Art Centre<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl2wypA12ARPdBUEtqXE1AA_0SaBEjpT4DYQWSLu7cg70pZG10xYs8nbgt7m9IZNtgQKaHEHJanTgsY4vp6O7Ao1cCwmKBcemoj69jUD4tfUr3vDykCcGzlq-l7rNp_PxpIChmWxeftrOjcCndFIk2wTqCPFkJ6Ko5M6cMCd9jHImHE_BHHyTocgmk/s1024/SAJ5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="729" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl2wypA12ARPdBUEtqXE1AA_0SaBEjpT4DYQWSLu7cg70pZG10xYs8nbgt7m9IZNtgQKaHEHJanTgsY4vp6O7Ao1cCwmKBcemoj69jUD4tfUr3vDykCcGzlq-l7rNp_PxpIChmWxeftrOjcCndFIk2wTqCPFkJ6Ko5M6cMCd9jHImHE_BHHyTocgmk/w285-h400/SAJ5.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYF851lWss0OMHvED_P1d3N80CME_XeHTg4RNACcg14r6s0Q8VmbbHIoqt_Dd30d5nGd86kdcX_avGS4NJK8CvmLBGex23_iDJnK76tB_Rr-rgKnqDTrkgjyoNhnDA7FSzdMk5OK5_pwQLjddQ80N3gxuwNvsTG_OK-xf3X4zcoUsN_i6aNSrE8qy8/s4032/IMG_1800.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYF851lWss0OMHvED_P1d3N80CME_XeHTg4RNACcg14r6s0Q8VmbbHIoqt_Dd30d5nGd86kdcX_avGS4NJK8CvmLBGex23_iDJnK76tB_Rr-rgKnqDTrkgjyoNhnDA7FSzdMk5OK5_pwQLjddQ80N3gxuwNvsTG_OK-xf3X4zcoUsN_i6aNSrE8qy8/w300-h400/IMG_1800.HEIC" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJv_f3V8-k-xF_-Lq9Bqzrc_Dx_l88DntZYg2OTUNaH7o59RWrgFAj8XczQ2s9oetBUp4qzcB9sEvSF9GwjAPRikZcmvR1rl1gOiigtqbtrUzMp0UfgObD3vbNvRnkdJ6s3ZRoDj_04DUMGX7zBgiakRv7AIQAbj7aFy_S9YpWqQs3mVPwf9_BykDB/s4032/IMG_E1770.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJv_f3V8-k-xF_-Lq9Bqzrc_Dx_l88DntZYg2OTUNaH7o59RWrgFAj8XczQ2s9oetBUp4qzcB9sEvSF9GwjAPRikZcmvR1rl1gOiigtqbtrUzMp0UfgObD3vbNvRnkdJ6s3ZRoDj_04DUMGX7zBgiakRv7AIQAbj7aFy_S9YpWqQs3mVPwf9_BykDB/w300-h400/IMG_E1770.heic" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidckYP0Ar8b67BBMiZjcwCiiA8NL-6XHeLw1PlR5cQ1qfPjg-fBGT6_Mco1QKAeTHMlaI7JSN6e8pUINqJ0mqCaKW6jG0JFolz1Y8wwlOCJzwxjIyuR9zLNaxtvnVzQJi4snMWPYveWTVXLF17XIO_squ3ojBFWmZWsKE0iLp2NTSvSf9gDHkYC6eS/s4032/IMG_1808.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidckYP0Ar8b67BBMiZjcwCiiA8NL-6XHeLw1PlR5cQ1qfPjg-fBGT6_Mco1QKAeTHMlaI7JSN6e8pUINqJ0mqCaKW6jG0JFolz1Y8wwlOCJzwxjIyuR9zLNaxtvnVzQJi4snMWPYveWTVXLF17XIO_squ3ojBFWmZWsKE0iLp2NTSvSf9gDHkYC6eS/w400-h300/IMG_1808.HEIC" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">To celebrate the publication of the long-awaited <a href="https://strangeattractor.greedbag.com/buy/strange-attractor-journal-five/" style="color: #954f72;"><i>Strange Attractor Journal 5</i></a>, my publishers hosted a special launch event at Camden Arts Centre on Thursday April 27, which included the staging of a couple of scenes from <i>Let Me Die a Monster</i>, an exploitation movie script I had cowritten with ‘the Truffaut of smut’ (BBC Radio 3) David McGillivray at the distant start of 1997.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The experience took me back nearly 25 years to the end of the previous century and the start of the new millennium. There were two things that struck me about this unique period. The first was a sense of looming catastrophe. It was a very apocalyptic time: one of mass suicides, technological terrors, potential alien invasions and the collapse of civilization itself. The message was in the mainstream media, out on the streets and in the air: everything must end. The second and more encouraging thing about this period was the sense of frivolity that went with the apocalyptic mood – if the whole thing was about to come crashing down, people’s attitude seemed to say, let’s at least have a party while it’s happening.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Living on the edge of a disaster that hadn’t happened yet produced a strange kind of gallows humour – and the screenplay that David McGillivray and I worked on together back in 1997 remains a good example of it. I have written a short account of how the project came about as a preface to the published version of the screenplay in Strange Attractor Journal 5 for those who wish to learn more. Perhaps a better introduction to the script might be to consider some of the forces driving it. At the time it seemed perfectly normal that the production company who had initially approached me and then later brought David and I together to write <i>Let Me Die a Monster</i> should be called Trash 2000 – it suited the times, or at least it suited how I understood those times. Trash 2000 had been making videos for Stereolab, Cornershop and Leftfield, which were using a lot of the imagery and attitudes that appealed to me, so when filmmaker Nick Abrahams approached me on behalf of Trash 2000 to ask if I had any ideas, I was ready.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">So, did I have any ideas? Well, no – I didn’t. It was only after the initial meeting that I recalled that there was a story I was very interested in writing – and that was the one about the American movie actor Nick Adams. He was one of a small bunch of Hollywood stars, including Russ Tamblyn and Joseph Cotton, who had made monster movies for Toho films in Japan. At the time, I’d been a consultant for a BBC2 history of the horror movie, dealing specifically with the kaiju phenomenon in general and Godzilla in particular. Nick Adams had appeared in one extraordinary Godzilla movie, known in the West as <i>Monster Zero</i> AKA <i>Invasion of Astro Monster</i>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">As far as I was concerned, Godzilla was the apocalypse incarnate. What made the Nick Adams connection so fascinating was not only that Adams died relatively young, overdosing on pills, but he had also been close friends with two other mythically self-destructive figures: Elvis Presley and James Dean. This connection was the starting point for Let Me Die a Monster. I developed a story that begins with Adams’ suicide – the pills producing a powerful hallucination in which Nick sees himself back in Tokyo making one last kaiju movie; but things are not going so well for him. His part keeps being rewritten, and he’s gradually being upstaged by a second American actor, who’s clearly after the starring role. Adams starts cracking up. The script for <i>Let Me Die a Monster</i> concerns itself with the flashbacks and fantasies unfolding in the dying actor’s brain.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">For the Camden Art Centre reading David McGillivray selected two scenes and assembled a wonderful cast to interpret them. I am particularly indebted to him, Kamura Atusko, Iain Stirland, Daryl Crick and Henry Galvan for such an extraordinarily special event.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Pictured above:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Strange Attractor Journal 5<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">David McGillivray and KH posing for the camera<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Stirland and Crick in character<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The cast and the writers from right to left: Henry Galvan, Daryl Crick, Iain Stirland, Kamura Atsuko, David McGillivray and KH<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-71303829294582202042023-03-28T11:48:00.006+01:002023-03-28T12:03:09.213+01:00Strange Attractor Presents ‘At the Gates of Purgatory’ @ Iklectik April 5<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxIOKYovQUt_hnvH5QVEJTOF-KnibT2J5wddpKy5INTF6tWu2yhmgs2aBqO3_qyLlN-dAsMft9jRqW0Bc6xr9i3zj4qYXQ6wgfyH37vGo_9Tv26__UwAWDlhF8kLiqVj1qvUaOP9RA7VztERZRM9LPYf7EJRpw99SkmXIhzyzLj5Hx7QBtkhxSlon/s5184/Ken%20Hollings.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3456" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxIOKYovQUt_hnvH5QVEJTOF-KnibT2J5wddpKy5INTF6tWu2yhmgs2aBqO3_qyLlN-dAsMft9jRqW0Bc6xr9i3zj4qYXQ6wgfyH37vGo_9Tv26__UwAWDlhF8kLiqVj1qvUaOP9RA7VztERZRM9LPYf7EJRpw99SkmXIhzyzLj5Hx7QBtkhxSlon/w266-h400/Ken%20Hollings.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="891" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0e3CEokmpsZTKDg-FB9yD5wZEkgGYp5508XPWbthAlovu9k-8fvHH0XEbfHPMSAtLH1D4RrBFS3s6JMDn_zOXQuyveVDnrxv190gxwj7-aQfRp8ch1YspvhxODqvANkBdIVDFu5mE27zdgwoxgm1CL2hX0jsT_88V2B5kEkv4jcmsvmpKrXpqen_-/w279-h400/Purgatory_cover_Strange%20Attractor%20Press.jpg" width="279" /></a></div><br /><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">On the evening of Wednesday April 5 at the fabulous Iklectik Lab I will be presenting an extended reading from my latest book </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Purgatory – The Trash Project Volume II. </i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">In the past I have always given short readings based on extracts from my work, but increasingly I have had members of the audience coming up to me afterwards saying that they would have liked to hear a little more. So, I thought I would give them </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">a lot</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> more. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">You can find more details and book tickers by clicking <span style="color: #dca10d; text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://iklectikartlab.com/strange-attractor-presents-at-the-gates-of-purgatory/">here</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>At The Gates of Purgatory</i> is a special ‘live audiobook’ adaptation featuring support from Lori E Allen, Martin McCarrick, Mark Pilkington and Howlround, incorporating voice, cello, electronics and tape loops. I have worked with each of these wonderful performers individually in the past; but this is the first time I’ve collaborated with all four of them at the same time. Expect a long deep dive into digitally looped cello, shimmering electronics and raw analogue tape effects. This is going to be a unique spoken-word experience.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>The Trash Project</i> is a three-part work modelled upon Dante’s <i>Divine Comedy</i>. <i>Inferno</i>, the first volume, deals with US underground and exploitation movies made during the 1960s, while <i>Purgatory</i> examines how nineteenth-century European attitudes towards Beauty and Sin, Art and Morality continue to influence the way we think about Trash today. The first nine essays of <i>Purgatory</i> correspond directly to Dante’s account of the journey made by the dead to reach the gate to Mount Purgatory, where they will eventually atone for their sins. This may be a long reading for me, but it’s going to get very weird very quickly.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">In the second part of his <i>Divine Comedy</i>, Dante describes the souls of the dead arriving on the shore of Purgatory, a mountainous island in the middle of an empty sea. The dead must then journey upwards on a steady incline past many perils until they reach a gate set in a wall. Once beyond this gate they begin the long and painful climb up the terraces of Mount Purgatory, shedding their sins as they go, until they reach the Earthly Paradise at the summit.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Over the course of <i>At the Gates of Purgatory,</i> horror and violence, corruption and desire become inextricably entwined as we travel from the pleasures of the Palace of Art during the day to the terrors of the Wax Museum at night. Along the way we meet Anthony Hancock and Dorian Gray, Lola Montez and King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Daphne and Apollo, Aphrodite and Medusa. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">NOTE: <i>At the Gates of Purgatory</i> is a continuous performance without any breaks or intermissions. You are welcome to come and go as the mood takes you, listen to as much or as little as you wish, but please be mindful of the other audience members when entering or exiting the hall. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">My sincere thanks are due to Lori E Allen, Martin McCarrick, Mark Pilkington, Howlround, Lucie Štěpánková and Isa Ferri for their unstinting support of this project.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Strange Attractor Presents <i>At the Gates of Purgatory</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">At <a href="https://iklectikartlab.com/strange-attractor-presents-at-the-gates-of-purgatory/"><span style="color: #dca10d; text-decoration: none;">Iklectik</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Wednesday 5 April 2023<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Doors: 7.30pm <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Start 8.00pm<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p>Pictured above</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">KH (photo by Rachel Hollings)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Lori E Allen </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Martin McCarrick (photo by Nelle Strange)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Mark Pilkington (photo by Rachel Hollings)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Howlround </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Purgatory (cover by Tihana Sare)</p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-37359657772215484272023-02-04T16:38:00.008+00:002023-02-04T16:40:10.872+00:00The Howling in ‘The Clown House’ @ the Horse Hospital<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdX6KcBnho0JK3-NtTZ-T6VkPk9pjnyj3WwbJh0qf1e8X0xbQklONH9EdCUban2u3Guz5-xBTbzm9IAutnSVIHFAHsBulKnIlFiY5pt8Eg81nn1Q_G2QRZ1naIBt8r1qzzYEhpAKRXRiTYixpis1BoBWiTgW7kAFEK2IGBwoU1xlRhOkuK7Azajoh8/s5184/IMG_1208.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5184" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdX6KcBnho0JK3-NtTZ-T6VkPk9pjnyj3WwbJh0qf1e8X0xbQklONH9EdCUban2u3Guz5-xBTbzm9IAutnSVIHFAHsBulKnIlFiY5pt8Eg81nn1Q_G2QRZ1naIBt8r1qzzYEhpAKRXRiTYixpis1BoBWiTgW7kAFEK2IGBwoU1xlRhOkuK7Azajoh8/w400-h266/IMG_1208.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtNeyNyESJ7NN7xPnChTl3DFxhe2D4JcAT4mJKytFsK-jrGs4JFMN1Dh1RxdXkQI5Zlkt06q95_1r6Q0lzIsvRSYNHUBs02IuaBThdgPE9y9qPDH0BAgkpm51io7fuaZyOaJUJhzA7SbTU5BSdAMbS3Y03UvxMezavs66upnovoAdXR_ZMIO5nrPen/s1000/FoEGd-JXgAETgyw.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtNeyNyESJ7NN7xPnChTl3DFxhe2D4JcAT4mJKytFsK-jrGs4JFMN1Dh1RxdXkQI5Zlkt06q95_1r6Q0lzIsvRSYNHUBs02IuaBThdgPE9y9qPDH0BAgkpm51io7fuaZyOaJUJhzA7SbTU5BSdAMbS3Y03UvxMezavs66upnovoAdXR_ZMIO5nrPen/w400-h400/FoEGd-JXgAETgyw.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">On Thursday 9 February at London’s most prestigious arts venue, The Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury, The Howling are pleased to present their first new work of 2023.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Clown House</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> is our latest performance for spoken word and reel-to-reel tape – and Howlround and I are delighted to be sharing the evening with the fabulous Tears | O V. Together we are presenting a bill of clown-based horror and absurdity to celebrate the Horse Hospital’s latest exhibition ‘Drole’, a selection of mind-blowing archive material and curios torn from the history of clowning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">I have always, like any sane person, looked upon clowns with a mixture of fear and loathing. They always think they’re so goddamn <i>funny</i>, for a start. However, working with material or themes with which you have no natural connection can often be extremely productive. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Hence, <i>The Clown House,</i> our latest performance, which reveals all you need to know about The Clown Inside – a neurodivergent condition with which I have been feeling a growing sympathy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Clown Inside is always crying. The Clown Inside isn’t there for your amusement. The Clown Inside keeps you in your place. The Clown inside wants to be your friend.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Clown inside is always angry. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Clown Inside knows how to bear a grudge. The Clown Inside knows what you did. The Clown Inside remembers everything.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Combining media samples, field recordings, spoken word and analogue tape effects, Howlround and I take you inside the Clown House, letting you to hear everything that’s going on in there – everything the Clown Inside hears and sees.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Howling is a collaborative project started I started with sound artist Howlround devoted exclusively to our shared love of text, audiotape and trash aesthetics. Our debut album <i>All Hail Mega Force</i>, released by Tapeworm in the summer of 2022, was described by <i>The Wire</i> as a ‘mesmeric disorientation.’ And who are we to argue?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Howling + <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Tears | O V<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Thursday 9 February<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">7.00 pm to 11.00pm<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Horse Hospital<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Colonnade<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Bloomsbury<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">London WC1N 1JD<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">For tickets and more details click <span color="windowtext" style="text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/tearsovthehowling">here</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Pictured above<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">KH and Howlround at the BFI, photographed by @lahollings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">HH at the HH<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Grilled Cheese 30 seconds<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">HH at the HH<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Clown Graphics by Tears | O V<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-52102341629315683192023-01-15T16:21:00.006+00:002023-01-16T06:34:41.234+00:00‘As Above, So Below’: Literature, Divination and Lisa Marie Presley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaxR44wzyqzuYLDURvYGNvXaC38ECRsRPpMbYQd-UrSPT0bTtPvA-pDthiWSdJJNemQStFmtTk1P1BlXu4D3ZnAO_HaYOlJQ-3BoQeBivPPh7JLh1CuJKl_KMr6y20jqARjNttXe25AKNJWsNREIVDkYnseTFaCQylZ8bEJdiYao95G4Ko-ZtOufm4/s2154/MAR3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2154" data-original-width="2148" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaxR44wzyqzuYLDURvYGNvXaC38ECRsRPpMbYQd-UrSPT0bTtPvA-pDthiWSdJJNemQStFmtTk1P1BlXu4D3ZnAO_HaYOlJQ-3BoQeBivPPh7JLh1CuJKl_KMr6y20jqARjNttXe25AKNJWsNREIVDkYnseTFaCQylZ8bEJdiYao95G4Ko-ZtOufm4/w399-h400/MAR3.jpg" width="399" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0l0xtUjfoQPowJMO3r6SZmAsjtujL0UR4pQvByTOhvsxOMctikgff0XKxcWsXiG4pPJ1hM_8hRyY0dyClUobtEE5ptzu-fbS2PnpO6nDKfi5e8i0ltz-7Iv_oe3ydMgjZgVJaxsvJsWCNiCh4LuUPoxhNbG1iEV-iDYa66EgDiH4Y7sbP3avgzg3W/s1391/The%20Space%20Oracle.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1391" data-original-width="873" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0l0xtUjfoQPowJMO3r6SZmAsjtujL0UR4pQvByTOhvsxOMctikgff0XKxcWsXiG4pPJ1hM_8hRyY0dyClUobtEE5ptzu-fbS2PnpO6nDKfi5e8i0ltz-7Iv_oe3ydMgjZgVJaxsvJsWCNiCh4LuUPoxhNbG1iEV-iDYa66EgDiH4Y7sbP3avgzg3W/w251-h400/The%20Space%20Oracle.jpeg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxVKM1WGw8PHv3GG7VZim5-lqkqX5UY4dn8NKqtxEsJ49cehS-I8RcGHoAR1OjPglKEjWHWrBeBSA-pkhMztE9bC8UGiRVkQR_Sde4Xf929yOHCx6j2V95CNQ3e8rHREvhbkv-XswVdksQPg22jMoD1ukkDhIgfLgO4AKJGXUIcsyp7LeMOCzvCmhF/s2400/325367833_5881459868604106_222377760466429530_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxVKM1WGw8PHv3GG7VZim5-lqkqX5UY4dn8NKqtxEsJ49cehS-I8RcGHoAR1OjPglKEjWHWrBeBSA-pkhMztE9bC8UGiRVkQR_Sde4Xf929yOHCx6j2V95CNQ3e8rHREvhbkv-XswVdksQPg22jMoD1ukkDhIgfLgO4AKJGXUIcsyp7LeMOCzvCmhF/w180-h400/325367833_5881459868604106_222377760466429530_n.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbRflPqzALttdsdnA_IzFGUloMBnJ7W2tmjTSZD8r1cx5B-bzTo0ouLxs0e0IxBZ8v5lExrwIQb6zPsmRd4ScffRFWQbI9FHBa7r2p_1zfFEFkCjZu1kUwAj3SN60NYoc8xkQlYYwSxt9HtG63BHpg_sqax43EwxCF7lcXYbSyJOD5yzsMRI0lYWc/s1241/Purgatory_cover-21.01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1241" data-original-width="857" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbRflPqzALttdsdnA_IzFGUloMBnJ7W2tmjTSZD8r1cx5B-bzTo0ouLxs0e0IxBZ8v5lExrwIQb6zPsmRd4ScffRFWQbI9FHBa7r2p_1zfFEFkCjZu1kUwAj3SN60NYoc8xkQlYYwSxt9HtG63BHpg_sqax43EwxCF7lcXYbSyJOD5yzsMRI0lYWc/w276-h400/Purgatory_cover-21.01.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><br /><br /><div>I cannot remember the exact sequence of events that led up to it, but I had been invited by Mar A Rodrigues, who runs a podcast series out of Portugal called ‘As Above, So Below’, to be interviewed by her for a new episode. MAR had approached me because she wanted to talk about my book <i>The Space Oracle</i>, which had inspired her to create the podcast series in the first place. We were finally able to meet online and talk on the morning of Wednesday January 11, and it turned out to be an absolute pleasure. Lisa Marie Presley hadn’t been part of the story at that point.<o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">MAR and I discussed literature and the divinatory arts, history and science fiction, plus some of my earliest memories of space, astrology and magic. Other topics covered in no particular order included:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>Destroy All Monsters</i>, the Gulf War and 9/11<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>The Bright Labyrinth</i>, science, magic and eroticism<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Dante, The Divine Comedy and <i>The Trash Project</i> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Purgatory, alchemy and the planets<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Strindberg in Paris, the events of May 68 and Mario Bava’s <i>Danger Diabolik</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Comic books, spiritualism and clairvoyance<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">I enjoyed it all very much – especially when we went on to astrology, a subject about which MAR knew a great deal more than I did. Overall, the conversation lasted about an hour and a half, which has resulted in the first episode of ‘As Above, So Below’ to be broadcast on Spotify in 2023. You can find it by clicking <span face=""Segoe UI", sans-serif" style="color: #954f72; font-size: 10.5pt; text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7p8Ik84f3jcb4csvu48g1x?si=Z-RcuMV5TI-TPzNf7QBW9w" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Or if you prefer, there is also a video version of our conversation on YouTube, which can be found by clicking <span face=""Segoe UI", sans-serif" style="color: #954f72; font-size: 10.5pt; text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://youtu.be/yrjn5Hm3JVg" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">And then there was Lisa Marie. I am currently finishing <i>Paradise</i>: the third and final part of my Trash Project for Strange Attractor Press. I’d reached the point of compiling a Glossary of Names and References, as I have done for the previous two volumes. These compilations of entries cover all of the individuals mentioned in the text. As a large part of this new book is devoted to Elvis Presley, there were a lot of references to both him and his family entered under ‘P’. I took time away from working on this to record the interview with MAR. I did a little more work on it the following day and managed to complete all the Presley references, except for one. I didn’t really know what I wanted to say about Lisa Marie, so I had deliberately left her until the end. I rose very early on the morning of Friday 13 January, around 5.50 am, specifically to complete the glossary entry for her. As I was preparing to start work, I had the phrase ‘with a heavy heart’ running through my head. I switched on the computer, checked the news headlines, and the first thing I saw was a statement from Priscilla Presley that began ‘It is with a heavy heart…’ announcing her daughter’s death. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">To discuss the relationship between writing and divination is interesting enough in the abstract. To go from that to the intuitive foretelling of a death in a couple of days is matter for further conjecture. MAR and I swapped some fascinating messages over the course of the morning, extending the correspondences between writing and divination further still – as if they were ever going to stop. ‘There,’ as Karlheinz Stockhausen once said to me regarding an equally strange connection. ‘I leave that with you.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Pictured above<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">MAR<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>The Space Oracle</i> (2018), <a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/the-space-oracle/" style="color: #954f72;">available from Strange Attractor Press</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">MAR and KH on the mic<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>Purgatory</i> (2022), <a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/purgatory/" style="color: #954f72;">available from Strange Attractor Press</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-17763354342828001122022-11-09T14:46:00.004+00:002022-11-09T14:46:35.413+00:00Purgatory Launch Event at the Horse Hospital November 17<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVo7cO-FHMixHRyZkYFc-TCKaqgeDBp9XyS2PAWMtCNhG12ARC0wRrFLjdgI--55jzxHAHuDeXsW6Hdx1Zfq92stZbb8w21_8jmfNI6OCM7roIPmSje2r0KNR2ansdMcV2wsIdkVEI6X6d08r_eOZ-LjlnQJsp1qe2i5lJUziR2NdQ1j1MjZO7fw1d/s1080/Artboard%201.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVo7cO-FHMixHRyZkYFc-TCKaqgeDBp9XyS2PAWMtCNhG12ARC0wRrFLjdgI--55jzxHAHuDeXsW6Hdx1Zfq92stZbb8w21_8jmfNI6OCM7roIPmSje2r0KNR2ansdMcV2wsIdkVEI6X6d08r_eOZ-LjlnQJsp1qe2i5lJUziR2NdQ1j1MjZO7fw1d/w400-h400/Artboard%201.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6mOijFdsmr6zVsx8ZUS-9oygBwYmI68h93a2YxD4d6FxbAzKYE35NfAvmTspRLng0T2NIS3GLawBBlhfqVVi3teWVlpE4USKPj_OoW5wi0dQVtjmog7Fb8Zzcy0V6dQu6n_4FGNEcc54ORTbwPxxJXQ1ARE-kahui63OLzLNACLTciE5Rn9EiVLAw/s4032/IMG_1492%202.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6mOijFdsmr6zVsx8ZUS-9oygBwYmI68h93a2YxD4d6FxbAzKYE35NfAvmTspRLng0T2NIS3GLawBBlhfqVVi3teWVlpE4USKPj_OoW5wi0dQVtjmog7Fb8Zzcy0V6dQu6n_4FGNEcc54ORTbwPxxJXQ1ARE-kahui63OLzLNACLTciE5Rn9EiVLAw/w300-h400/IMG_1492%202.HEIC" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgleNeX_kMTP8AH95U_4GY6sCKAsNiZNlPUM9XYBN3T9PvAUms3ObRrpYhIhgzmTpl2gkl8RqhgTqafHI_fP2sb5twMJ6lKYvTpW_hfSRfalnmWCcCSOyQWIqK_mKCCOCQQhKAwz6Ke6X3TU3d-whDuhI81JP-bi_QcObUu-OY7cfUTE8s4y2ZkG9cN/s6240/91581057-10BC-4E05-AB91-C33E47A743D8-15286-000004F06FF1D9AF.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6240" data-original-width="4160" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgleNeX_kMTP8AH95U_4GY6sCKAsNiZNlPUM9XYBN3T9PvAUms3ObRrpYhIhgzmTpl2gkl8RqhgTqafHI_fP2sb5twMJ6lKYvTpW_hfSRfalnmWCcCSOyQWIqK_mKCCOCQQhKAwz6Ke6X3TU3d-whDuhI81JP-bi_QcObUu-OY7cfUTE8s4y2ZkG9cN/w266-h400/91581057-10BC-4E05-AB91-C33E47A743D8-15286-000004F06FF1D9AF.JPG" width="266" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>On the evening of 17 November, Strange Attractor Press is holding a launch party for my new book <i>Purgatory </i>at the world famous Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury. This is Volume II of The Trash Project which I began in 2020 with the publication of <i>Inferno</i>. There will be movies and music, and copies of both books will be on sale, along with some choice items from my Strange Attractor back catalogue.</p><p>Following my reading from Purgatory at Iklectik in September and my recent lecture at the BFI, this will be the main event to welcome the second part of The Trash Project into the world. All are welcome, so I hope you will come along and help me celebrate. I will present a reading from <i>Purgatory</i> and signing copies over the course of the evening. Join me and the wonderful people from Strange Attractor Press and The Horse Hospital if you can.</p><p>You can find more details from the Horse Hospital website by clicking <a href="https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/purgatory" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">here</a>. But here's the basic information:</p><p>Where: The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD</p><p>When: from 19.00 until Roger gets tired of the whole thing and kicks us all out</p><p>Pictured above: Strange Attractor invite to the Horse Hospital event (Tihana Sare); copies of <i>Purgatory</i> and <i>Inferno</i> on sale at the BFI bookshop; KH concluding his lecture at the BFI's Reuben Library - Thank You</p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-20812231362619454072022-10-24T11:41:00.008+01:002022-10-24T11:45:23.027+01:00Purgatory, Beauty & Trash at the BFI<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYB86jqjeDps0-q2_A-zFNScJ0MyCQfBaDmoo013EO2pjab2Yvlg7Ib1YPGzYiUHpJ-XhXFJVsGAi84q19PT6DcKQuNrZt1nMDNJA_b6JsPL179-c70v30bCbN9qe-MRpwQ-6KAzrerehhNZ3261EE-P_hwJ8xtwyYFWG96khQVsHJ_-mNgYpXgvRl/s1280/Purgatory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="891" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYB86jqjeDps0-q2_A-zFNScJ0MyCQfBaDmoo013EO2pjab2Yvlg7Ib1YPGzYiUHpJ-XhXFJVsGAi84q19PT6DcKQuNrZt1nMDNJA_b6JsPL179-c70v30bCbN9qe-MRpwQ-6KAzrerehhNZ3261EE-P_hwJ8xtwyYFWG96khQVsHJ_-mNgYpXgvRl/w279-h400/Purgatory.jpg" width="279" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizHfLpdbseREK6ETrXnfwnGZcuvLeFF6Uuq8VAdFHzUJ4LsRrxHSRH1J1fB7PZFnmfL9Oz3ToQay1G14RDYKTxh8ZIvEzjsZ8HM4Oz2-i6hNyrxN1DOH-StTrSCVAie5SdIK3-A_Ov5d4Rs1Zw_DAu9FQNYrh3ta8YL4n5a3ItXQ0lCpLwq3du8O3w/s5120/Screenshot%202022-10-23%20at%2016.25.16.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="5120" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizHfLpdbseREK6ETrXnfwnGZcuvLeFF6Uuq8VAdFHzUJ4LsRrxHSRH1J1fB7PZFnmfL9Oz3ToQay1G14RDYKTxh8ZIvEzjsZ8HM4Oz2-i6hNyrxN1DOH-StTrSCVAie5SdIK3-A_Ov5d4Rs1Zw_DAu9FQNYrh3ta8YL4n5a3ItXQ0lCpLwq3du8O3w/w400-h225/Screenshot%202022-10-23%20at%2016.25.16.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4UnO6Gk6gGjRMBadTZhbs-Fx_3VYGyhmKWs5m8RYN1XauEjdtEr69KUVGUp5jOUDIJvMCBOTBcCalqpIUIerS-HUTx5VHVFWyuZoc_gRnLHZFe6VL-ow1kbRWxj0jjvbqXX62f4yoiB2wzOMuB0hsNspw8ihatfL8RCcvszx8u066asz3aKrEj4qJ/s5120/Screenshot%202022-10-23%20at%2016.25.59.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="5120" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4UnO6Gk6gGjRMBadTZhbs-Fx_3VYGyhmKWs5m8RYN1XauEjdtEr69KUVGUp5jOUDIJvMCBOTBcCalqpIUIerS-HUTx5VHVFWyuZoc_gRnLHZFe6VL-ow1kbRWxj0jjvbqXX62f4yoiB2wzOMuB0hsNspw8ihatfL8RCcvszx8u066asz3aKrEj4qJ/w400-h225/Screenshot%202022-10-23%20at%2016.25.59.png" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">On Monday 31 October I will be giving a lecture in the BFI Reuben Library to introduce my latest book – Purgatory: Towards the Decay of Meaning.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Published by Strange Attractor Press, <i>Purgatory</i> is the latest addition to the three-part Trash Project in which I take a personal look at Trash and Trash Aesthetics. From Oscar Wilde’s <i>The Picture of Dorian Gray</i> to Tony Hancock’s <i>The Rebel</i> and from the decadent artworks of the late nineteenth century to the early years of cinema, this sequel to Inferno examines the complex relationship between ‘beauty’ and ‘trash’. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">I will be looking at how a renewed interest in alchemy and a stern cult of beauty met in Paris in the late nineteenth century and how together they reflected a hierarchy of values that would shape the social unrest of the late 1960s. Consequently, in the wake of May 68, I trace the emergence of a uniquely European form of Trash cinema devoted exclusively to beauty, sex and despair.</p><o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The talk will begin on Monday 31 October at 18.30 and will last around 90 minutes, so you will have plenty of time to go home afterwards, change into your Halloween costume and scare your neighbours. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">The BFI is located on the South Bank within spitting distance of Waterloo Bridge and National Theatre – but I wouldn’t recommend that as means of finding the place. The Reuben Library can be found in the same part of the building as the box office and NFT3.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Tickets for the event are £6.50, and they’re selling fast, so be sure to book in advance.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Details can be found <a href="https://bit.ly/3D3dCTO" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.</p><o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Pictured above: Cover art for Purgatory by Tihana Sare – Tony Hancock Irene Handl and George Sanders register their unalloyed delight at the prospect of being featured in Volume II of The Trash Project</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-49259321765903644372022-09-23T17:40:00.003+01:002022-09-23T17:40:19.381+01:00Paul Verhoeven’s American Futures on BBC Radio 4<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI_87dVZkhaR6rMpvL1B86uu4qY-lYDvFjAluFTjD83e5qAOoDDVgeLN1sJnv_zJ2SLXYypZfMBdfNRV654pwtyGGn8Yu-ATxhWNbN96JLJiZpjNmGXwpUI_HuP3X-RDV5DAgcrjppYEtoIrGfh_f1n-l_mHr2lB2fmf3OCh1xhAtYNLJ3YtMNSecm/s4032/IMG_1366.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI_87dVZkhaR6rMpvL1B86uu4qY-lYDvFjAluFTjD83e5qAOoDDVgeLN1sJnv_zJ2SLXYypZfMBdfNRV654pwtyGGn8Yu-ATxhWNbN96JLJiZpjNmGXwpUI_HuP3X-RDV5DAgcrjppYEtoIrGfh_f1n-l_mHr2lB2fmf3OCh1xhAtYNLJ3YtMNSecm/w400-h300/IMG_1366.HEIC" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeTvF2f80pPpneNe_xuemKhhubg2rqXTjSZqrPbN1VhZuR4cya989XvNy4ZenDEllVcbHZlUVvQI_CCnDGCM5V91f0HMM4TCsm8jhF6HRn5Nfxsb4Wo1wvyAKHUfbFzH3-lAkt55Is_BCWZ3N_vh7WiXcRNHzqnvwLpPIVm6eIjcQfg3pK6uYb8crb/s4032/IMG_1360.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeTvF2f80pPpneNe_xuemKhhubg2rqXTjSZqrPbN1VhZuR4cya989XvNy4ZenDEllVcbHZlUVvQI_CCnDGCM5V91f0HMM4TCsm8jhF6HRn5Nfxsb4Wo1wvyAKHUfbFzH3-lAkt55Is_BCWZ3N_vh7WiXcRNHzqnvwLpPIVm6eIjcQfg3pK6uYb8crb/w300-h400/IMG_1360.HEIC" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFaReHr5m6w5LAt6gFJlB5ix5yOSoq3qJPvAkSlLTv9PstdB8ZlcmN-gYGvVnxHGu-P7K4dCWfaqSneklzHpcR4MAOyQV9UVLuJSF90xsv7ZVa7gxYA6uLcUWCsXSZR4I67HC0Sh8jPuK3LVQEmsOtlMncB0rE4g1xkhDK3ttIjWVUxzqFnpw-sco/s4032/IMG_1362.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFaReHr5m6w5LAt6gFJlB5ix5yOSoq3qJPvAkSlLTv9PstdB8ZlcmN-gYGvVnxHGu-P7K4dCWfaqSneklzHpcR4MAOyQV9UVLuJSF90xsv7ZVa7gxYA6uLcUWCsXSZR4I67HC0Sh8jPuK3LVQEmsOtlMncB0rE4g1xkhDK3ttIjWVUxzqFnpw-sco/w300-h400/IMG_1362.HEIC" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I’ve spent a lot of the past few months working on an hour-long programme for BBC Radio Four’s Archive on 4 slot on the subject of Paul Verhoeven and the three science-fiction movies he made in America at the end of the twentieth century: Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers. Taken together, this loose triptych of grim fantasies lays out a disturbing archaeology of the future. Seen from the perspective of today, these movies offer startling insights into the hyperreality of the world we now encounter on a daily basis.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">My producer and I were fortunate enough to interview some of the writers that worked with Verhoeven on these movies, notably Ed Neumeier, Michael Miner, Gary Goldman and Ron Shusset. We also managed to have a word with producer Jon Davidson and actor Kurtwood Smith, who brought a certain gleeful nastiness to his depiction of Clarence Boddicker in <i>Robocop</i> – I will never forget him delivering during the course of our interview such classic lines as ‘Can you fly, Bobby?’ and ‘Just give me my fucking phone call’. It really gave me the chills.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Over the summer we also had the opportunity to visit Paul Verhoeven and his wife Martine at their home in Holland. They were very gracious and hospitable; and we spent a wonderful afternoon with them, chatting about movies and comic books. I also recorded about two and half hours of an interview with Paul, extracts from which are featured in the show for Archive on 4. There were some amazing moments, especially when he spoke about his experiences as a child during WWII, his early movie experiences and his obsession with the life and death of Jesus. I’d been preparing a long time for this interview, pulling together details and references from Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers. At the end of the afternoon, Martine, who’d known Paul since they first met in high school at the age of 17, said that I had been quoting Verhoeven ‘the way Paulus quotes Jesus.’ So Martine definitely had the last word on that.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">For those of you unfamiliar with Verhoeven’s work, here are some details on the films featured in my programme.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Released in 1987, Paul Verhoeven’s <i>Robocop</i> brings an outsider’s eye to post-industrial, premillennial America. It’s no accident that the film is set in Detroit, once of the beating heart of the US automobile industry, but a city already dying on its feet as the factories shut down and their workforce migrated to the suburbs. The central character may be a cyborg cop, brutally gunned down by a street gang and then reassembled using advanced technology, but the film’s real focus is the shift in economics during the late 1980s away from manufacturing and towards purely monetarist strategies. The company responsible for this, ‘Omni Products Corporation’, represents the rise of outsourcing and the privatising of public concerns (healthcare army, urban development space exploration…). ‘Good business is where you find it,’ corporate predator Dick Jones boasts. ‘Hell, we practically <i>are</i> the military.’ The fact that it takes a creature that is half-human and half-machine to police it all is a message that was not lost on the people of Detroit, who have been agitated to have a statue of Robocop raised in their city for over a decade now.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Based on a short story by science-fiction legend Philip K Dick, ‘We Can Remember It for You Wholesale’, Verhoeven’s <i>Total Recall</i> (1990) goes deep into corporate control of perceived ‘reality’, anticipating the ‘post-truth’ gaslighting of the Trump era and the rise of media controlled ‘smart cities’. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>Starship Troopers</i> (1997) is also based on the work of a major West Coast science-fiction writer, Robert Heinlein. Its bugs-versus-teen-soap-stars narrative is the opportunity for a biting, deadpan satire on authoritarianism and its impact upon individual lives – a perspective that seems all the more relevant in the current political climate. Behind its depictions of media propaganda and military discipline is a movie that Daniel Ellsberg considered one of the most politically interesting films of the 1990s<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">There is also a wider narrative linking all three of these movies, and this is specific to the decades in which they were made. Each, in their own way, registers the first tremors of premillennial anxiety concerning the future, as ‘postmodern’ society prepared to leave one century and enter another. Using a palette that embraced comic-book violence, noir plotting, bloody violence and science-fiction imagery, Verhoeven and his scriptwriters managed to paint a shocking but thought-provoking picture of what was to come in the twenty-first century. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Paul Verhoeven’s American Futures</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> goes out on Saturday September 24 at 20.00 BST and is repeated in a slightly shorter version at noon on Friday September 30. It can also be accessed via BBC Sounds – for more information click </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001byg0" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>You have twenty seconds to comply…</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Pictured above: Paul Verhoeven and KH gaze into each other’s eyes as if they are in love; Paul and Martine Verhoeven at home; Paul Verhoeven making love to the camera</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker says you can keep the gum <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-58390572357217361342022-07-15T12:48:00.007+01:002022-07-15T12:48:43.757+01:00Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTNGYmjz6xGTjIdTntY_zKMJkxqtuBb2xJQVIuN4-aKRjiBmwmIYqYIIkeUahoDLTUqDadI_viTn6slvqAvOlcrqRWDfzRu131IJXzi_HWN9RocJtfsrve1lswuE8InxZQLkesuqQAlCKIAiqoU5uoFu3pfidG-7d6i6089OEl61AIe9M5TjO1zJ0/s5120/Screenshot%202022-06-23%20at%2012.52.57.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="5120" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTNGYmjz6xGTjIdTntY_zKMJkxqtuBb2xJQVIuN4-aKRjiBmwmIYqYIIkeUahoDLTUqDadI_viTn6slvqAvOlcrqRWDfzRu131IJXzi_HWN9RocJtfsrve1lswuE8InxZQLkesuqQAlCKIAiqoU5uoFu3pfidG-7d6i6089OEl61AIe9M5TjO1zJ0/w400-h225/Screenshot%202022-06-23%20at%2012.52.57.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIUtmi1H72RoWcCfcVQ7-FkkhflSY4xMzA6_JLb80vFEOXVc-Lc_qijlzOGCXoz1QXY4r23Yjkpaq6XwwX45o3TdDs-mEpnnBoCDdKa9Rt3ZlZjCJ0TP1qxOQ5FU0mk_yH9i1vjlSkLdJt3typC9PYkDMt6-hwL4BOlcfu05OLNQDlNxsqtsZxXQL/s720/incredibly_strange_creatures_poster_011.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="720" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIUtmi1H72RoWcCfcVQ7-FkkhflSY4xMzA6_JLb80vFEOXVc-Lc_qijlzOGCXoz1QXY4r23Yjkpaq6XwwX45o3TdDs-mEpnnBoCDdKa9Rt3ZlZjCJ0TP1qxOQ5FU0mk_yH9i1vjlSkLdJt3typC9PYkDMt6-hwL4BOlcfu05OLNQDlNxsqtsZxXQL/w400-h266/incredibly_strange_creatures_poster_011.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5q9iEwYXc4Yl7hPJ89xzG6G6zQhDPGSLPUP_DGlV2nN7u73Rz3zE09S3HOPAZSBlz5AKKNJkOcFy0tlDP1VvdKB4297zIaIm8yljBeIT1fm0g5dR-BNWw3RQojXsmBZHSsh8_Yuo3PoY5JJ5znGItmDCa_lEruWcDKlcsHHEdFN1QUMQn8eWJuch/s5184/IMG_1158.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5184" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5q9iEwYXc4Yl7hPJ89xzG6G6zQhDPGSLPUP_DGlV2nN7u73Rz3zE09S3HOPAZSBlz5AKKNJkOcFy0tlDP1VvdKB4297zIaIm8yljBeIT1fm0g5dR-BNWw3RQojXsmBZHSsh8_Yuo3PoY5JJ5znGItmDCa_lEruWcDKlcsHHEdFN1QUMQn8eWJuch/w400-h266/IMG_1158.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZuBavrc4VFIVedzy7Vq1JTWbcnUakzYw0WKB2QEvZNY_TsmXdVpJQpdO7fM_enS6veJ3kthEH0gywXwBbvHzXymZ1pPWTs1IppmOjXjZXfRUs5cpwDGqsYguhYJYZ_mxLL1o0crui-iRaaOi8NAHm1INgseRP7o_FEXdAA_5UA_UddSfkSWv-moCx/s5184/IMG_1172.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3456" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZuBavrc4VFIVedzy7Vq1JTWbcnUakzYw0WKB2QEvZNY_TsmXdVpJQpdO7fM_enS6veJ3kthEH0gywXwBbvHzXymZ1pPWTs1IppmOjXjZXfRUs5cpwDGqsYguhYJYZ_mxLL1o0crui-iRaaOi8NAHm1INgseRP7o_FEXdAA_5UA_UddSfkSWv-moCx/w266-h400/IMG_1172.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Y3wGnzlWK2qgq4Wn7h9JEPqJ37DfQQXwpqKKEk0VPA1kRX0GUHhRSp_kfLK1Dhe_LrzoaS-M8Wny0okM__fz9Ivd4zM3tZmJxygmD_bHB_1pP1fZTVnbdUlXqGhce_pB0QBPkj4WPVQEKGEftQnDYcQxwEA6Kua6j7FLe0oAI4tJyhRM70sf3L9p/s4712/IMG_1204.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4712" data-original-width="3220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Y3wGnzlWK2qgq4Wn7h9JEPqJ37DfQQXwpqKKEk0VPA1kRX0GUHhRSp_kfLK1Dhe_LrzoaS-M8Wny0okM__fz9Ivd4zM3tZmJxygmD_bHB_1pP1fZTVnbdUlXqGhce_pB0QBPkj4WPVQEKGEftQnDYcQxwEA6Kua6j7FLe0oAI4tJyhRM70sf3L9p/w274-h400/IMG_1204.jpeg" width="274" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There’s no calm or easy way to say this: on Wednesday July 20 The Howling will be performing at the BFI, presenting a special set to introduce a 4K restoration of Ray Dennis Steckler’s 1963 trash classic <i>The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-up Zombies?! </i>Get your tickets now! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Howlround and I are back again, working with spoken word and analogue tape technology to pay tribute to a film that has had a deep influence on our embracing of Trash and Trash Aesthetics. Steckler was a key character in <i>Inferno</i>, the first volume in my three-part Trash Project, and is also listed among the damned and the fabulous in The Howling’s ‘David Gest, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’, a piece we like to revisit and reinvent in our sets. Get your tickets now!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The performance and screening will take place in NFT3 at the BFI on Wednesday July 20. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The the whole thing starts at 18.15. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You can find out more and book a seat by clicking <span><a href="https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=93677F69-F95F-42FD-A376-9F2A3514BAC5&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=D0083536-4896-424F-910F-3B76D0E9B590"><span style="color: #dca10d; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: none;">here</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Get your tickets now!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pictured above: Ray Dennis Steckler (AKA Cash Flagg) in a scene from <i>The Incredibly Strange Creatures</i>; a detail from the movie’s original poster art; Howlround and KH rehearsing in NFT3, photographed by roving shutterbug @lahollings <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-80209512401524597192022-05-26T18:14:00.006+01:002022-07-15T12:36:28.898+01:00Debut Release from The Howling - 'All Hail Mega Force' <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3BRUVprjymHEsdhjp_YZcgiM1dFWrS8wrkIFvti584ElktSDT019_Y1_ZmRySIRcXG6R-dDC1APhJmjrtQTBDlPbKupelzKPhyqx145KQxLDRjkG44ayWDrRSdoXhBhAG4pVJW7zETKrtQZX_AnxGEeHSlVtAno9eOXm3F8-hvJvrtLoCn8VaAzF/s1080/The%20Howling_All%20Hail%20Mega%20Force.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3BRUVprjymHEsdhjp_YZcgiM1dFWrS8wrkIFvti584ElktSDT019_Y1_ZmRySIRcXG6R-dDC1APhJmjrtQTBDlPbKupelzKPhyqx145KQxLDRjkG44ayWDrRSdoXhBhAG4pVJW7zETKrtQZX_AnxGEeHSlVtAno9eOXm3F8-hvJvrtLoCn8VaAzF/w400-h400/The%20Howling_All%20Hail%20Mega%20Force.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9X0uhbArIAaDJ5ypqCxkzpkam-511nGpweHDlVe-A8vT4iMmfqaZKyYvU7WLDQopi9z5gqNJn2unplvgi9-KbrC-l_pyP4uZOgc3ywAsTgHUZ4EVZyHFosup9g4Oqk1PthHfGxAVViHAG7UYEK86BQ11J-CGzG-f0593HGZ04GUXRSxFZP0R6bkh3/s2048/2fdf2393-e670-4581-a04a-c5b5d35d8e3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1364" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9X0uhbArIAaDJ5ypqCxkzpkam-511nGpweHDlVe-A8vT4iMmfqaZKyYvU7WLDQopi9z5gqNJn2unplvgi9-KbrC-l_pyP4uZOgc3ywAsTgHUZ4EVZyHFosup9g4Oqk1PthHfGxAVViHAG7UYEK86BQ11J-CGzG-f0593HGZ04GUXRSxFZP0R6bkh3/w400-h266/2fdf2393-e670-4581-a04a-c5b5d35d8e3a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1BD0AM0wNN7t_3yOZQba6m9DOzMsECWzyDqYpTgfNcGTSenahBfLfeMqD8_DEPkVJycyWyUqrZFT4kUTUS3KjpBblKrRlhWOxdA67nQIW4oDIlweAL7Kvz3N_p6cgQRaDUyxp-iJWddr06Z6Y8l2RyWrSzHOCEEIZprqkO7lVpOIa1FLqkb9BZf2X/s2048/8a0af890-8fc6-4bfa-83d3-66e3a165207d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1364" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1BD0AM0wNN7t_3yOZQba6m9DOzMsECWzyDqYpTgfNcGTSenahBfLfeMqD8_DEPkVJycyWyUqrZFT4kUTUS3KjpBblKrRlhWOxdA67nQIW4oDIlweAL7Kvz3N_p6cgQRaDUyxp-iJWddr06Z6Y8l2RyWrSzHOCEEIZprqkO7lVpOIa1FLqkb9BZf2X/w400-h266/8a0af890-8fc6-4bfa-83d3-66e3a165207d.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XcRQ7UxaWd_HW5Y3JdsFpZrGObLfmn4iKxkr0dhlTGp8LsBcPboW2a6BBbGXxZ5BcPJ-hou9_1mODD34gQjfAN5hZLo04F8L7bAhr6e4hSRfeCMHNQTRTjxnt5a-_2ux9KcSUBkGsiYssHC1p1YzFPJjFmjLfhdarexTxlZ3xz5QaYK_-VWOrPhM/s2048/Howling%20Wimpy%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XcRQ7UxaWd_HW5Y3JdsFpZrGObLfmn4iKxkr0dhlTGp8LsBcPboW2a6BBbGXxZ5BcPJ-hou9_1mODD34gQjfAN5hZLo04F8L7bAhr6e4hSRfeCMHNQTRTjxnt5a-_2ux9KcSUBkGsiYssHC1p1YzFPJjFmjLfhdarexTxlZ3xz5QaYK_-VWOrPhM/w400-h300/Howling%20Wimpy%201.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggjJcMUQowSUzDLULv8rOUnAIYn3KndSQfpqesdqAD3YOYl91EgFd_6Jg69FPpsdupI1Zdwpxvd87Hmkzy5Kl7_une_0-Efu79vSZZ_RLbl_t-ecl9LzdMa4zeNcV1GiQYb5gHfdEpFLHwr87Lx3I2ozkyjx0oBDuuStg0-N8l6kRWVsDPVhqaD5_O/s2048/Howling%20Wimpy%202.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggjJcMUQowSUzDLULv8rOUnAIYn3KndSQfpqesdqAD3YOYl91EgFd_6Jg69FPpsdupI1Zdwpxvd87Hmkzy5Kl7_une_0-Efu79vSZZ_RLbl_t-ecl9LzdMa4zeNcV1GiQYb5gHfdEpFLHwr87Lx3I2ozkyjx0oBDuuStg0-N8l6kRWVsDPVhqaD5_O/w400-h300/Howling%20Wimpy%202.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Imagine your worst fear a reality. <i>All Hail Mega Force</i> is the first full-length release from The Howling: </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">a collaborative project I started with sound artist Robin the Fog, aka <a href="http://howlround.co.uk/" style="color: #954f72;">Howlround</a>. Our work is inspired exclusively by our shared love of text, audiotape and trash aesthetics. <i>Ken Hollings + Howlround = The Howling. </i>Our first performance took place at the Iklectik in September 2019 as part of a special programme to celebrate Tapeworm’s 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">During the pandemic we managed to continue working and conferring since then, sharing sound files, texts and mixes online, and one of the main results has been this release for Tapeworm. The two extended tracks contained on this audiocassette reflect our shared interest in </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Fluxus and how informal rules and permutations can be set up to work themselves out through loops and repetitions. The idea of instant, disposable one-off creations appealed to us a lot at the time, particularly as both pieces were conceived and developed during different phases of Covid lockdown in the UK.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">A straight line connects Terry Riley’s tape experiments in Paris from the early 60s with our experimental recordings in the Wimpy Bar on Streatham High Road, one of our favourite meeting places. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">The title and source material for these two pieces are derived from the 1980s kid’s adventure movie <i>MegaForce</i>, starring Barry Bostwik and Michael Beck. Designed to sell a range of Mattel hi-tech action toys, MegaForce tanked at the box office but lives on in the collective consciousness of those who share with The Howling a special love for Trash and Trash Aesthetics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">‘All Hail Mega Force’ was </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">created by reading combinations of the words 'All Hail Mega Force' into a voice memo recorder, transferring it to tape, cutting the whole thing as a single long loop and then stretching it across three reel-to-reel machines simultaneously, using two pencils and a pint glass full of loose change to try and maintain sufficient playback tension. Over time the loop started to degrade, which accounts for the increasingly slurry and unpredictable playback, plus frequent ruptures caused by the tape becoming jammed and having to be tugged through the machine workings by hand. Twenty-four minutes later and the result was a completed new work and a slight backache.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The text for ‘Are You Man Enough For Mega Force?’ </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">was recorded live in the Wimpy Bar on Streatham High Road, 28 November 2021. It was cut to tape and looped on 3 December 2021 at Warrior Studios, Loughborough Junction. Dragged by motor and then by hand across two tape machines with copious amounts of closed input feedback provided by a third rushing in to fill the gaps. One take with no effects or overdubs, but one tiny edit in the middle when something fell over. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">Cover art is by the fabulous Deborah Wale of Tears/Ov, design and layout is by the amazing Philip Marshall, who was also responsible for The Howling’s Burger Bun Logo. Mega Mastering was by Steven McInerney. We are indebted to all three of them. Further details on this fine Tapeworm release can be found <a href="https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/all-hail-mega-force" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;">‘The result,’ according to the music blog <a href="about://"><span style="color: #954f72;">Further</span></a>, ‘is like an updated take on Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting In A Room”, except that Hollings wasn’t at home but at the Wimpy Bar on Streatham High Street. After listening to approximately 360 brilliantly evolving iterations of the b-side’s single enquiry – “Are you man enough for Mega Force?” – pushed through Howlround’s macho manipulations, I can confirm, regrettably, that I’m probably not.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">Robin and I have continued working together since the completion of All Hail mega Force. There is a new album of text/tape/trash compositions, plus a couple of very exciting performances coming up later in the year, including any absolute barnburner at the BFI over the summer. With The Howling, you can be sure that your worst fear is a reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">Pictured above:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">All Hail Mega Force cover by Deborah Wale and Philip Marhshall<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">Pack Shots by @lahollings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Howling recording in Streatham High Road Wimpy Bar by Beth Arzy</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-53066545172326480902022-01-28T10:49:00.003+00:002022-07-15T12:36:48.834+01:00The Howling play Iklectik Studios February 5 2022 - Be There<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjO44qS6RPr-wRItPw_81ceADW4C9RZ0hSLZJf0RvgRa6mBSyfQwt2mU9OlMynwYNKfWKjNsSLuShI6IT4mj0nPOxWq4-RQc2BrYB9-D4rtPzX1unnIVNmPTLgIbAptRG7oINkYCYa7zN9K_BzCbV1gWjNvZi67Wi3aVdRqYdqEqGNK30n1FnMNiS9R=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjO44qS6RPr-wRItPw_81ceADW4C9RZ0hSLZJf0RvgRa6mBSyfQwt2mU9OlMynwYNKfWKjNsSLuShI6IT4mj0nPOxWq4-RQc2BrYB9-D4rtPzX1unnIVNmPTLgIbAptRG7oINkYCYa7zN9K_BzCbV1gWjNvZi67Wi3aVdRqYdqEqGNK30n1FnMNiS9R=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjDt8s0z7xtP2qKphvFmqvo68RSMf0h3t6eKFqwAXxmMnkXOmoR4S2Xg1EiiT58jg3_Sz82ta3un8e9vVt72kcfMX7BLXP4-bcUGpy3Z0Y23GbmNX7L1mePdkOMjIkhaZZNxTA0oc0E6ElBALvKuKRmJ7X9hJSZLUD-7no24ckRg_qhBkgmhyeoZCo=s640" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="640" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjDt8s0z7xtP2qKphvFmqvo68RSMf0h3t6eKFqwAXxmMnkXOmoR4S2Xg1EiiT58jg3_Sz82ta3un8e9vVt72kcfMX7BLXP4-bcUGpy3Z0Y23GbmNX7L1mePdkOMjIkhaZZNxTA0oc0E6ElBALvKuKRmJ7X9hJSZLUD-7no24ckRg_qhBkgmhyeoZCo=w400-h371" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDqp4QXkssz6nTw8I3iYoCnelpghwDGn07HZKXOGHILT9xq1Kg2DCg7pRBHi7Nut-W-OiGT88ng4DJySU8r2wU8lTyriL-xvRcqOZ6AjBCLDbq7egnd65fNo4TisyU1Mqg1v93JrpY8Q3ptVBcSu30AKMeLWbgbQpZfrWjhJAmhM6EWHrhd29G1_e9=s5120" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="5120" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDqp4QXkssz6nTw8I3iYoCnelpghwDGn07HZKXOGHILT9xq1Kg2DCg7pRBHi7Nut-W-OiGT88ng4DJySU8r2wU8lTyriL-xvRcqOZ6AjBCLDbq7egnd65fNo4TisyU1Mqg1v93JrpY8Q3ptVBcSu30AKMeLWbgbQpZfrWjhJAmhM6EWHrhd29G1_e9=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I am very pleased to announce that I will be joining the amazing Robin the Fog, AKA Howlround as part of ‘A Picture of the Picture of Dorian Gray’: an evening of events at Iklectik Studios taking place on Saturday February 5. Also on the bill are Tears Ov, Laura Angusdei and Alpha Duffau, so the whole thing will certainly be well worth your attention and support. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is only the second time that Howlround and I have appeared together as the Howling. I’m going to let the press release take over at this point:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Howling is a collaborative project started by writer Ken Hollings and sound artist Howlround devoted exclusively to their shared love of text, audiotape and trash aesthetics. An intense collision of spoken word and tape effects, the Howling’s first performance took place at the Iklectik in September 2019. Since then, the duo has been working together online developing new material and techniques. This is only their second performance, so don’t expect too much from them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ken Hollings is a writer and broadcaster. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has written and presented critically acclaimed features for BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and Resonance 104.4 FM. His books include <i>Welcome to Mars</i>, <i>The Bright Labyrinth</i>, <i>The Space Oracle</i> and <i>Inferno</i> all available from Strange Attractor/MIT Press. His latest book, <i>Purgatory</i>, is due from them in Spring 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p a="" aka="" and="" archivist="" as="" attempting="" audio="" broad="" class="MsoNormal" closed-input="" composition="" create="" current="" described="" designer="" dj.="" documentary.="" educator="" falls="" feedback="" field="" fog="" from="" hauntologist="" he="" his="" howlround="" includes="" installation="" is="" long="" loops="" obsession="" occasional="" originally="" primitive="" producer="" quite="" radio="" radiophonics="" recording="" robin="" second="" sound="" span="" started.="" style="margin: 0cm;" techno="" term="" the="" to="" under="" use="" wave="" way="" where="" which="" work=""><span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;">Howlround, AKA, Robin the Fog, is a sound designer, radio producer, audio archivist, educator and occasional DJ. His work falls under the broad term of 'radiophonic' and includes composition, sound installation, field recording and documentary. original described as a 'second wave hauntologist', his current obsession is attempting to use closed-input feedback loops to create primitive techno, which is quite a long way from where he started. </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Tickets for the event are £10.00 in advance or £12.00 on the door. You can find all of the details <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://iklectikartlab.com/a-picture-of-the-picture-of-dorian-gray/" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pictured above: Howlround in the studio, The Howling live at the Iklectik, September 2019, Howling logo by Philip Marshall </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-21725714917831998632021-12-05T11:59:00.000+00:002021-12-05T11:59:13.585+00:00Adaptations of Destroy All Monsters available on audiocassette from Tapeworm<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHh8HAEgsaK5G7qWBOc_zue1kwxvc_F-NvodEFy0QLtWwKI92XdxIqdMIQDI-Z1CJJEzXdJW40GyCmh4gCRYzIUjuRuLBRfspg9bb1B5BMt-1CJrpE-xOqfqVxRuEFAakRJXWbaHcWDLc/s1207/Scan+13.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1207" data-original-width="760" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHh8HAEgsaK5G7qWBOc_zue1kwxvc_F-NvodEFy0QLtWwKI92XdxIqdMIQDI-Z1CJJEzXdJW40GyCmh4gCRYzIUjuRuLBRfspg9bb1B5BMt-1CJrpE-xOqfqVxRuEFAakRJXWbaHcWDLc/w251-h400/Scan+13.jpeg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSNOeDLtuI6kUF4_LL1DMcPy3DX76enGPSbRHITY_a7rZcxy7xT2CJEmiT8xC4hyphenhyphenxFJQNbEhlW162VZUy9qz7XtjgDZ9bTyZYtAScXFDIqrRxrJHqk7NsvUPzv0YFbAAETIwtxP7PSNhk/s2048/Scan+12.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1264" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSNOeDLtuI6kUF4_LL1DMcPy3DX76enGPSbRHITY_a7rZcxy7xT2CJEmiT8xC4hyphenhyphenxFJQNbEhlW162VZUy9qz7XtjgDZ9bTyZYtAScXFDIqrRxrJHqk7NsvUPzv0YFbAAETIwtxP7PSNhk/w248-h400/Scan+12.jpeg" width="248" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_hdm1xhMni0SlCfMsaPkTKcbqWXjpJuGAkL58K0aOeHDhyphenhyphenapvoR9cuOk5W5tZ1dT45YXMaZ75TJkoXxOzzmtUZltxaQWe8qVq57HDjVwJ8Ze8r-9mCSM745K_B3QD6F9aigBDHn2-XE/s2048/WTC+2001.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1335" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_hdm1xhMni0SlCfMsaPkTKcbqWXjpJuGAkL58K0aOeHDhyphenhyphenapvoR9cuOk5W5tZ1dT45YXMaZ75TJkoXxOzzmtUZltxaQWe8qVq57HDjVwJ8Ze8r-9mCSM745K_B3QD6F9aigBDHn2-XE/w261-h400/WTC+2001.jpeg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGCKoPw4m3BrJAP7Yje06_TimPbC1Omcwl9y7jv0R6ZDGm_5ocHmVzBCYqL2M4YGFiVmgKkKt4XCR0a8lZzbimzm-VdNS9niAYE6GMmi8r0H-lk8h3-bKZPE6liQ1Xn1EWZNkSUcTlv1g/s2048/IMG_2043+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGCKoPw4m3BrJAP7Yje06_TimPbC1Omcwl9y7jv0R6ZDGm_5ocHmVzBCYqL2M4YGFiVmgKkKt4XCR0a8lZzbimzm-VdNS9niAYE6GMmi8r0H-lk8h3-bKZPE6liQ1Xn1EWZNkSUcTlv1g/w400-h300/IMG_2043+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">I am very pleased to announce that Tapeworm have just released on audiocassette some audio adaptations of scenes taken from derived from my first book <i>Destroy All Monsters</i>. These recordings, made in 2001 in the weeks </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">before September 11, constitute a unique historical document. The order information for this Tapeworm release can be found </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/destroy-all-monsters" style="color: #954f72;">here</a></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">A multistranded postmodern epic, <i>Destroy All Monsters</i> offers a radical retelling of Desert Storm, America’s military operation targeting Iraq, using imagery derived from MTV videos, CNN news reports, Japanese kaiju movies and anime, Hong Kong action flicks and tales of alien abduction. The book’s entire narrative nervously unfolds in an unstable of world of terror monsters, wrecked cities and dangerously tall buildings: where an event like 9/11 is inevitable. The book was officially launched by Marion Boyars Publishers on September 13, but distribution in the United States was delayed when ports on the Eastern Seaboard were closed to shipping post 9/11, leaving copies of the book stranded in the Atlantic. ‘Published the very week of the “attacks on America”,’ Toby Litt wrote at the time, ‘</span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Destroy All Monsters</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> is genuinely, spookily prescient…as a progress report on Planet Earth, it seems to have timeslipped onto the front pages.’ Lydia Lunch praised it as ‘a hallucinogenic spiral into future nightmare’, while <i>The Scotsman</i> called it ‘mind bending reading.’</span><span style="font-family: AppleSystemUIFont; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 34.66666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In the summer of 2001, I was approached by sound designer and electronic music composer <a href="http://www.simonsound.co.uk/" style="color: #954f72;">Simon James</a>, who wanted to create an audio adaptation of scenes from the novel to share with subscribers to a spoken word channel launched by totallyradio. The idea was to record me reading my own words and then embed them in a soundscape that evoked the fragmented complexity of the original text. I concentrated on a small handful of threads from the overall narrative, while Simon directed and engineered the final recording. This resulted in the two sequences of words, sounds and electronic tonalities contained on this audiocassette: an unsettling portrait of people about to be overtaken by events.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In October 2001, having just got married in London, Rachel and I went to New York for our honeymoon, just as we had originally planned. We spent an unforgettable week in a city struggling to recover from the seismic changes that had just taken place while a sudden wave of anthrax attacks on government and media offices filled the news cycles. Rachel took a photograph of me at Ground Zero, where crowds of onlookers continued to gather, and the air still smelled of burning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Simon James and I remained friends over the years, working together whenever we can. Simon is an outstanding producer, musician and sound designer, whose work combines electronic sources with field recording techniques and sound treatments, using sound to transport the listener to fantastical audio worlds. His latest release, <i>Electro Smog</i>, collects electromagnetic field recordings from Shenzhen's electronic markets, recorded while he was in China at the invitation of Musicity and the British Council.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">These <i>Destroy All Monsters</i> audio adaptations marked the first occasion Simon and I worked together – subsequently we collaborated on the 12-part series <i>Welcome to Mars</i> for Resonance 104.4 FM and <i>Connecting,</i> an audio portrait of the original ‘phone phreaks’, for BBC Radio 3. We teamed up again earlier this year to make <i>Fast Forward</i>, an award-winning six-part documentary series for Kasperksy Lab. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">My thanks as always to Savage Pencil for doing the cover art for both the book and audiocassette incarnations of Destroy All Monsters as shown above, to Philip Marshall at Tapeworm, Simon James at the controls and, of course to Rachel for taking pictures three and four.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-58558458125158826982021-08-05T12:17:00.003+01:002021-08-05T12:18:43.125+01:00BBC Radio 3 Presents The Summer Sounds of Ken Hollings<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpWgCieLyMOs1UiQ-FCXrAOGxJqifY8NOE-m7S7LytrBMvuLcxHTKvr9pe9bUETYjaZblf9ZiIi6QNk02n4xtHcNRnCy_BtR8FuILE31Pu7V3nQyFwHmgqq06idAg2XkAnfz3ewmGilGw/s880/Raymond+Scott.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="880" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpWgCieLyMOs1UiQ-FCXrAOGxJqifY8NOE-m7S7LytrBMvuLcxHTKvr9pe9bUETYjaZblf9ZiIi6QNk02n4xtHcNRnCy_BtR8FuILE31Pu7V3nQyFwHmgqq06idAg2XkAnfz3ewmGilGw/w400-h246/Raymond+Scott.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAUf0zDLR_xSZ9hVKHdx-b_eptZqXYMOCUaHvPzNYW0jhgVbGAPPFlJkdVYlitpsj2-dxTwCP2mU2ZYLDu0N1QZvI1a_3DvLwdnpMpm6htEX3dG-PuuOYEjmCxHIhvUImfkP11MjD2Ik/s1700/Nietzsche.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1700" data-original-width="1274" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAUf0zDLR_xSZ9hVKHdx-b_eptZqXYMOCUaHvPzNYW0jhgVbGAPPFlJkdVYlitpsj2-dxTwCP2mU2ZYLDu0N1QZvI1a_3DvLwdnpMpm6htEX3dG-PuuOYEjmCxHIhvUImfkP11MjD2Ik/w300-h400/Nietzsche.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK3VDCWnFsiJ4Se6DFVS0uFGLZkwFLW4XO-xJiS5m0j036j6U50qc4xY1sZaidoPdGtNoZ0yKZQWSR6w-Rq7H7trD8YqtbSvt9GokOfDjVxNIUxUmY9J4xDG0XvYPmg6-EUjpktlfBG5I/s1100/Skull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1100" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK3VDCWnFsiJ4Se6DFVS0uFGLZkwFLW4XO-xJiS5m0j036j6U50qc4xY1sZaidoPdGtNoZ0yKZQWSR6w-Rq7H7trD8YqtbSvt9GokOfDjVxNIUxUmY9J4xDG0XvYPmg6-EUjpktlfBG5I/w400-h248/Skull.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">More by chance than design, the programmers at BBC Radio have organized a Ken Hollings mini festival over the middle two weeks of August. Forget the Proms. Forget whatever might be happening in Edinburgh. BBC Radio 3 loves me, and I love BBC Radio 3. The programmes are all repeats, and each of them has been available online since they were originally broadcast; but there is still something special about having a scheduled appointment to hear something over the radio.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The details are as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">On <i>Sunday August 8</i> at <i>18.45</i>, there is another chance to hear <i>Rewiring Raymond Scott</i>, my take on the life and career of this amazing early force in electronic music. For ‘Fast Forward’, the recent audio doc series that Simon James created for Kasperky Labs, Scott was the biggest influence on approach to sound design and presentation. You can find a link to the show <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cm56" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Then on <i>Monday August 9 </i>at <i>22.45</i>, they are beginning a repeat of my five-part Essay series <i>On Holiday with Nietzsche</i>. You can find out the details behind this series by clicking <a href="http://kenhollings.blogspot.com/2019/05/on-holiday-with-nietzsche.html" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The link to the first episode, ‘Becoming What You Are’ can be found </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s7q" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;">here</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">On <i>Tuesday August 10</i> at <i>22.45</i>, you can hear </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Under the Mountain</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">– the details are </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s58" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">On <i>Wednesday</i> <i>August 11 </i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">at </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">22.45</i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">, you can hear ‘For Everyone and No One’ – the details are </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s6y" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">On <i>Thursday August 12</i> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">at </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">22.45</i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">, you can hear ‘A Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">–</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">the details are </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s8f" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;">here</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">And on<i> Friday August 13 </i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">at </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">22.45</i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">, you can hear the fifth and final part, ‘The Art of Ending’ – the details are </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s8f" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">And finally on <i>Wednesday August 18</i> at <i>22.00</i>, BBC Radio 3 are repeating <i>Right Between the Ears</i>, a work for text and sound design created in binaural sound that explores my own personal experience of the human skull as a resonating chamber. For more details on the original concept, please click <a href="http://kenhollings.blogspot.com/2018/06/right-between-ears-radio-3-june-2.html" style="color: #954f72;">here</a>. This one is definitely worth listening over headphones. The Radio 3 website details can be found </span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b51ypf" style="color: #954f72;">here</a></span></u><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Radio is still a medium I love working with very much – it dates back to the time when I first started listening to talks and readings on Radio 3 as a teenager, discovering whole new worlds of sounds, experiences and ideas. I think the mind breathes deeper and better over the airwaves – even digital ones.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-76578464503972103232021-02-22T12:58:00.004+00:002021-02-22T13:00:11.357+00:00‘The Golden Disc’ and The Concept of Exceptional Success <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIzbSzjz6U3R0TOKJqx2bedznhvgW-lUF0yWAXXNgx8L1umryVJL0-BdMHP1AnRdpPOIaGvSaB0PDQiQ6O9tZn3La3laltBov7oNuT7JGhtRhqsSJbGb0EftbydABUWJuQwri1cgoBmZA/s1920/7+Joan+and+Engineer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIzbSzjz6U3R0TOKJqx2bedznhvgW-lUF0yWAXXNgx8L1umryVJL0-BdMHP1AnRdpPOIaGvSaB0PDQiQ6O9tZn3La3laltBov7oNuT7JGhtRhqsSJbGb0EftbydABUWJuQwri1cgoBmZA/w400-h225/7+Joan+and+Engineer.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQR5HDC2AD7bSvAqw0yVFFrIf7iBXgc5tUpb6_Gg28wdZC9g9FGutTP5RKwPzh_4wYOYEsPGknqDid0VGZiN0rPI56Vm7reMATHZl1cPI3mTWpnbND1lYrMMbc1Ksc1XgDen3OIbgzZVM/s1920/8+Terry+on+TV.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQR5HDC2AD7bSvAqw0yVFFrIf7iBXgc5tUpb6_Gg28wdZC9g9FGutTP5RKwPzh_4wYOYEsPGknqDid0VGZiN0rPI56Vm7reMATHZl1cPI3mTWpnbND1lYrMMbc1Ksc1XgDen3OIbgzZVM/w400-h225/8+Terry+on+TV.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkqgjUYcPIiQ_r39uee8nYaq2SBh_OmeThetJ6i8AWpNkZhabFFJKqYem_nql_DCz7pPyAaxN2iyU-5DmHCKViFakJZP4HxnfZFOROafg402ikl68_VEdOVwB6EGIXhXQ2AuJBpMdRbXo/s1920/5+Tape+Recorder+Boy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkqgjUYcPIiQ_r39uee8nYaq2SBh_OmeThetJ6i8AWpNkZhabFFJKqYem_nql_DCz7pPyAaxN2iyU-5DmHCKViFakJZP4HxnfZFOROafg402ikl68_VEdOVwB6EGIXhXQ2AuJBpMdRbXo/w400-h225/5+Tape+Recorder+Boy.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCshtRA1XgADNJPVmndLZ6S49rQieFwN7z4jJAT0CJuNcuZgHkf3vkDDMVDsiTBReRfq-UhCdtieQmGM3kzF0yAff086yaGqHh4L11VUcCXNyhKrua1kCEGAwocwxqFf-8iulMbpjUrU/s1920/10+The+Kids+at+the+Lucky+Charm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCshtRA1XgADNJPVmndLZ6S49rQieFwN7z4jJAT0CJuNcuZgHkf3vkDDMVDsiTBReRfq-UhCdtieQmGM3kzF0yAff086yaGqHh4L11VUcCXNyhKrua1kCEGAwocwxqFf-8iulMbpjUrU/w400-h225/10+The+Kids+at+the+Lucky+Charm.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>The German artist and author Olaf Arndt of the group BBM recently initiated an online revival of the radical German artzine <i>Die Aktion</i>. Originally founded in 1911, <i>Die Aktion</i> published writing by Heinrich Mann, Andre Gide Erwin Piscator and Hugo Ball among others before succumbing to hyperinflation and expiring in the early 1930s . The intentions behind this new online edition of <i>Die Aktion</i> are laid out in its <a href="https://olaf.bbm.de/die-aktion">editorial</a>. <div><br /></div><div>I was very happy to be invited to contribute a new and exclusive piece of writing to <i>Die Aktion 4.0</i>. Olaf asked for something on Brexit and Covid-19 and I said: ‘Of course. Can I write about The Golden Disc?’ Olaf replied: ‘Of course. What is it?’ I explained that it was a 1958 teensploitation film set on the London coffee-bar scene and starring Terry Dene, the UK’s answer to Elvis Presley. I added that a close examination of the film’s complex pathology would give a clear analysis of where I think we are at the moment. Olaf said that sounded fine, and to please go ahead. </div><div><br /></div><div>The form, structure arrangement of the finished piece has been drawn directly from Walter Benjamin’s last essay, ‘On The Concept of History’, which you can find <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/books/Concept_History_Benjamin.pdf">here</a>. It also owes a great deal to Deleuze and Guattari’s <i>The Anti-Oedipus</i>, the art of Richard Lindner and the rise in the local rose-ringed parakeet population of South West London. </div><div><br /></div><div>But mostly it is about <i>The Golden Disc</i>, which remains, for me at least, a shamefully overlooked B-movie masterpiece. </div><div><br /></div><div>My essay is called ‘On The Concept of Brexit, Covid and Exceptional Success: A Fable in Eighteen Parts with Two Addenda and Seven Supporting Quotations’. </div><div><br /></div><div>You can find it <a href="https://olaf.bbm.de/nummer-19-ken-hollings-on-the-concept-of-brexit-covid-exceptional-success">here</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you.</div>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-80192666848299592692021-01-09T12:07:00.001+00:002021-01-09T12:10:19.628+00:00Flesh and Metal: Carel Capek's RUR turns 100<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Pv5m53tOVfObI9ui7kfRar-AzhkdUdpZGReJezXwT94Odq9kHZ4xyaP4ZemVU9_47_mk5beu6k53In0Popj61L1JZUyoqYARsvQy0x3KHmRxwWMhiggKJzId7fszHc3tpQm8w55lKXM/s960/11a3b3cf0ce577268d92bb10c3fdb9a0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Pv5m53tOVfObI9ui7kfRar-AzhkdUdpZGReJezXwT94Odq9kHZ4xyaP4ZemVU9_47_mk5beu6k53In0Popj61L1JZUyoqYARsvQy0x3KHmRxwWMhiggKJzId7fszHc3tpQm8w55lKXM/w400-h225/11a3b3cf0ce577268d92bb10c3fdb9a0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgayCqcpbG5S7pp8yTRfAWUwMfw74NEtNHsXhCTJXZrHDSjgzkDRxVaMc0fQFxnO-CXB48aE2aBg3hCXZRb7WZEhFRPGjTMUN875HXuiriemNQ92y06XQLBMkS6AOWA4Uhv-B7qN80Z39c/s2048/RUR+Eric.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgayCqcpbG5S7pp8yTRfAWUwMfw74NEtNHsXhCTJXZrHDSjgzkDRxVaMc0fQFxnO-CXB48aE2aBg3hCXZRb7WZEhFRPGjTMUN875HXuiriemNQ92y06XQLBMkS6AOWA4Uhv-B7qN80Z39c/w266-h400/RUR+Eric.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: left;"> </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;">On 25 January 1921, at the National Theatre in Prague, the first performance of Rossum’s Universal Robots, or RUR, by the Bohemian playwright Carel Capek took place. In terms of pure theatre, his ‘comedy of science’, as he liked to call it, is fairly unremarkable – it had none of Meyerhold’s biomechanics, the abstract dynamism of Futurist sintesi or the geometric reduction of human form or motion found in Bauhaus theatre and theatre. But it did give the world a new word: ‘robot’.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;">Ever since I first wrote about RUR in my essay ‘Robot Power, Robot Pride’ for <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/strange-attractor-journal-two" style="color: purple;"><i>Strange Attractor Journal Two</i></a> and in my book <a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/the-bright-labyrinth/" style="color: purple;"><i>The Bright Labyrinth</i></a>, I have wanted to do something more detailed on Capek’s play. The Samuel French edition of RUR published in 1923 described RUR as a ‘fantastic melodrama’ but it would be a struggle to call it science fiction. Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers are still a long way in the future. However, its impact upon the cultural imagination of the time was so deep that the word ‘robot’ continues to have a deep resonance today. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>The Robots Are Us</i> is my attempt to explore why a word that barely existed in Czech at the time when Capek wrote RUR managed to capture the fears and desires of its times the way it did. Capek’s robots were made of flesh and blood in giant factories – robots today are mostly silicone, plastic and metal alloys – some only exist as strings of code. Our collective anxieties over a possible robot rebellion remain, however. I was lucky to have people like Caroline Edwards, Roger Luckhurst, Danielle Picard and Dustin Abnet to discuss the play with me. I was even more fortunate to have Mark Burman as my producer. He and I have worked together many times before, most notably on last year’s essay series celebrating 2019 as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0mz" style="color: purple;">The Year of Blade Runner</a> . <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;">The programme goes out on Sunday at 18.45 GMT on BBC Radio 3 but will remain online afterwards. You can find the details and a link <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r39c" style="color: purple;">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>‘Looks like metal…feels like flesh… Looks like flesh…feels like metal.’</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;">Pictured above: an early Czech production of RUR and Eric, Britain’s homemade answer to RUR as reconstructed for the Science Museum’s Robots show in 2017<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-67421347373048558692020-07-10T15:49:00.002+01:002020-07-10T16:38:20.632+01:00New Biting Tongues Album: 'Clear Your Screens' From Your Friendly Tapeworm <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>No one heard us coming – no one saw us leave. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I’m pleased to announce that Tapeworm are releasing a new Biting Tongues album on limited edition CD or digital download. <i>Clear Your Screens</i> is a ‘series of battle re-enactments from Manchester’s least celebrated post-punk groups’ according to Tapeworm’s <a href="https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/clear-your-screens" style="color: purple;">Bandcamp page</a>. More precisely, it is a collection of live moments, selected by me, recorded between 2003 and 2009 in performances that brought the original Biting Tongues line-up together for the first time in about twenty years. Graham Massey took the multichannel recordings and did an amazing job mixing and producing all of the selected material. He and I spent months swapping notes and ideas with each other, especially when it came to the sequencing of the random tapes we would traditionally have running in the background throughout each performance. We’d never know what was coming or when, so it was always a surprise when playing the rough mixes back afterwards. Graham has a fantastic ear – ‘we have to find where the track <i>lives</i>,’ he once advised me in an email. I’m not sure I completely understood what Graham meant to begin with and I’m not even sure I can explain it to you now either, but I think I get it now. Personally I think this is the best album this version of Biting Tongues has ever released. It’s essentially the same group that recorded Live It, the album that was reissued on vinyl by Finders Keepers at the end of last year. You can find out more about it<a href="http://kenhollings.blogspot.com/2020/02/live-it-by-biting-tongues-some-notes.html" style="color: purple;"> here </a>. They even have a few tracks in common, most notably ‘Evening State’, ‘The Reflector’ and ‘Unhook That Boy’.<br />
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I wrote some sleeve notes for <i>Clear Your Screens</i> that were an attempt to explore the differences and continuities between then and now – what has changed and what remains the same. Listening to <i>Clear Your Screens</i> today it feels like we were writing material and creating ideas for our future selves – an active form of communication across time. Quite what our former selves would make of our more recent efforts, I will leave to them to express – if they ever get around to it.</div>
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You rarely get the chance to haunt yourself – to discover that you are slowly becoming a ghost from your own past. In 2003 the original Biting Tongues line-up came together for a one-off performance at the ICA in London – it was the first time we had played together in almost twenty years. Further opportunities presented themselves in the years that followed. More out of curiosity than anything else, we stuck with past material: tracks written and performed all those years ago. I welcomed the chance to return to it after so much time, experience and hindsight. The playing felt more assured than before – almost as if our performances had grown into each of these pieces, making them what they were meant to be. The live stage had always been our true recording studio, so far as I’m concerned – it was the laboratory where the best experiments happened. We left a lot of space for chance and the unexpected to move in and take over. At every performance there would be tapes running unattended in the background: interjecting voices from late-night TV and radio, scraps of news items and cheap sci-fi movies, field recordings, overheard conversations and shortwave signals. We just kept on playing.‘They may sound like an unorganized racket to some people,’ Graham Massey once remarked about these performances, ‘but they are very formal pieces.
This formality provided a framework for all the random inputs in our work to take effect, making a drama out of the unintended. It was simply a matter of accepting the results. I’m glad they have been so carefully preserved. The live recordings we made between 2003 and 2009 are a reminder that the date and venue might vary but the stage remains the same. It’s a constant presence scattered across time and location, influencing the way you think and feel.The barbed tangles of sounds, the clusters of voices and rhythms – each of them establishes a connection with the past. Graham’s outstanding technical skills as producer may have brought them firmly into the present, but their origins will always lie elsewhere – most of the tapes heard running through these performances are digital copies of fragile 1980s originals. As for the person who initially composed the cut-up and heavily processed texts I found myself channeling onstage in the early years of twenty-first century: I’m not entirely sure where and when that individual slipped away. I had simply become an older mouthpiece for a much younger version of myself: just another ghost haunting my own body.</i></blockquote>
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Biting Tongues<br />
CD<br />
Digital Album<br />
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering<br />
Buy it <a href="https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/clear-your-screens" style="color: purple;">here</a>.
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Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-14196322800613786902020-02-17T12:06:00.000+00:002020-02-17T12:41:49.299+00:00Inferno, the First Volume in My Three-Part ‘Trash Project’ Launches February 18<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<i>‘Trash has always served me well—over the years it has become the outer form and material expression of my dreams: of tomorrow, of life in space, of the blissful alienation from this world that I have always craved…’</i></blockquote>
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My latest book <i>Inferno</i>: a Genealogy of 1960s Trash is being launched at the Horse Hospital on Tuesday February 18. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Horse Hospital is bravely fighting back against threats of closure once again – and once again they have managed to hang onto their amazing space off Russell Square until the end of March. I doubt whether Inferno would have been the same book, or would even have existed at all, if it hadn’t been for the Horse Hospital. The Trash Project has been a long time in the planning. Over twenty years of screenings, exhibitions, discussions and debates at the Horse Hospital have had an undeniable impact on writing and thinking about Trash and Trash Aesthetics. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There has been no other place like it. The launch of my first book, <i>Destroy All Monsters</i>, took place at the Horse Hospital. Strange Attractor Press also enjoys strong connections with the Horse Hospital – some of its earliest events were held there. To celebrate the launch of Inferno at the Horse Hospital has tremendous significance both for me and for my publishers. I hope you can join us. There will be movies, a reading from Inferno, plus a book signing and special guest star DJs. You can find more details of what should be a highly memorable evening by clicking <a href="https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/inferno" style="color: purple;">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Inferno is the first volume in a three-part work on the subject of Trash and Trash Aesthetics. It has been very closely modelled upon the structure of Dante’s <i>Divine Comedy</i>. The architecture of Hell as laid out in Dante’s epic poem perfectly suits the main subject of my own <i>Inferno</i>, which deals predominantly with exploitation and underground films in 1960s America. You can find more details about the book, including the complete blurb, by clicking <a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/inferno/" style="color: purple;">here</a>. </div>
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Strange Attractor have included in their press kit for Inferno a short Q&A that I was asked to respond to earlier this month. I am reproducing the resultant exchange herewith, with thanks to Esmeralda Vogele Downing for asking such great questions. I think it tells you quite a lot about the new project. <o:p></o:p></div>
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How can one best recognise trash?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Well, that presupposes that we already have a workable definition of Trash and its appeal. Trash maintains a highly elusive presence precisely because it escapes recognition. We might claim to ‘know it when we see it’ – but how far has this assumption ever got us? Apply the same pronouncement to ‘art’ or ‘beauty’, and you’ll see what I mean. One of the reasons why I started <i>The Trash Project</i>in the first place was to explore how Trash is set up within a culture and why it is so necessary to the life of that culture. We tend, for the most part, to recognise Trash ‘when we see it’ only so that we can immediately dismiss it. This is essentially what’s happening when we claim that something is ‘so bad it’s good’. I understand what is being claimed by this statement as it is commonly used but not the mechanisms or attitudes that have produced it. These need to be exposed and examined much more closely. Or to put it another way: when everything tells you that you <i>ought </i>to look away but you keep on watching anyway – that’s the quintessential Trash experience to me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What in <i>Inferno</i> is likely to surprise first-time explorers of trash?</blockquote>
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That Trash even exists at all, to be honest. The sixties are habitually characterised as the decade when the western world went ‘pop’ for the first time. TV shows and comic strips, product design and advertising, AM-friendly radio tunes, dance music and romances were suddenly celebrated as examples of what was already being classified by the late 1950s as ‘popular culture’. But that celebration is itself highly selective: Disney’s OK but <i>Speed Racer </i>isn’t. Mickey Mouse is fine but Rat Fink isn’t. Advertising spreads in glossy magazines are acceptable, but ads for X-Ray Spex and plastic model kits in comic books aren’t. <i>Playboy </i>and movie star magazines are fine – but men’s adventure magazines and nudie cuties aren’t. In other words, critical accounts of what constitutes popular culture during this period tend to suppress or ignore Trash or, at the very least, garble the essential details of its existence. Concepts like ‘Camp’ and the ‘New Sentimentality’ gave a certain permission to celebrate some forms of Trash – but the cops and censors, the school board and the ‘moral consensus’ were always close at hand to keep an eye on things and make sure they didn’t go too far. On the other hand, it’s also likely that readers of <i>Inferno </i>will be surprised that some of the films, records or books featured should be considered Trash at all. That’s fine by me. <i>The Trash Project </i>is intended as an exploration, after all – not a definitive statement. However, I would be curious to know when, and under what circumstances, they first encountered these disputed examples of Trash. The passage of time has a pleasing way of sanding off the rough edges. I’m trying to look more closely at what made them rough in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rat Fink or Mickey Mouse; who’d win in a fight, and why?</blockquote>
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If it’s in an alleyway, on the drag strip or round the back of the school cafeteria, then Rat Fink would win every time. But if it’s in the boardroom or the courtroom, then my money’s on the mouse. Ed Roth’s creation may be an awkward and scabrous misfit, but he’s got heart; you just know he’ll fight dirty if he has to. Mickey Mouse is a suburban dad by comparison, and has a suburban dad’s values, which means he’d also have the best legal representation – and that’s where I’m going to leave it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Which three items of literature, music or film would you recommend to accompany <i>Inferno</i>?</blockquote>
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Just three? OK, I’ll offer one example in each of the suggested categories. While writing <i>Inferno</i>I went back again and again to Mary Douglas’s classic work of cultural anthropology, <i>Purity and Danger</i>: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. It’s so beautifully and clearly written, and first published in 1966, so it fits exactly into the period I am describing in the book. I also listened to a lot of surf instrumentals and songs about cars from the period when working on the book – everything from ‘Surfin’ Bird’ and ‘’Wipe Out’ to ‘Little Street Machine’ and ‘Dracula’s Deuce’. Couldn’t get enough. Finally, and after much thought, the film I would suggest to accompany <i>Inferno </i>would have to be Herk Harvey’s <i>Carnival of Souls. </i>It<i></i>suits the mood and terrain of <i>Inferno </i>right down to its frozen heart – plus it’s a beautiful example of the strange poetry that you might find showing at your local drive-in during the early 1960s. <o:p></o:p></div>
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How does the book tie into or evolve from your other works of critical theory?</blockquote>
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That’s a hard question for me to answer because I tend to see each of my books as existing in its own separate world: written at a specific time in a specific way in response to a specific concern. I’m also not sure that they can really be categorized as works of critical theory in the conventional sense of the word. I think of my books as tools or devices that enable the reader to explore a relatively unexamined idea or condition. To this end they often use multiple voices, perspectives and disciplines. The lines between critical and creative writing in my work are intentionally blurred. This has remained a constant throughout my books and essays. Similarly, much of my writing has a strong structural component. The form and the strict ordering of material within my books has always been a recurring concern of mine – from the 200 numbered files of <i>Destroy All Monsters </i>and the chronological sequencing of <i>Welcome to Mars</i>to the labyrinthine doubling back of themes in <i>The Bright Labyrinth</i>and the astrological ordering of sequences in <i>The Space Oracle</i>. In that respect, <i>Inferno </i>definitely follows the same line of development –being the first in a larger three-part <i>Trash Project, </i>whose structure is directly derived from Dante’s <i>Divine Comedy. </i>I am currently about halfway through composing <i>Purgatory </i>at the moment, and <i>Paradise </i>is already being mapped out. I’ve never done a three-part work before, so that is also a new departure for me. Structure alone can say so much.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/inferno/" style="color: purple;"><i>Inferno</i></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The Trash Project: Volume One<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ken Hollings<o:p></o:p></div>
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400 pp<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paperback<o:p></o:p></div>
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34 b/w images (approx.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN 9781907222795<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/inferno" style="color: purple;"><i>Inferno</i> Launch Event</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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February 18, 7.00 – 9.00 pm<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Horse Hospital<o:p></o:p></div>
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Colonnade <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bloomsbury<o:p></o:p></div>
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London WC1N 1JD<o:p></o:p></div>
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Cover design by Tihana Šare </div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">Third and Fourth <i>Inferno</i> images by @lahollings </span><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></div>
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Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-55387827317114984412020-02-03T17:49:00.001+00:002023-10-27T08:50:43.608+01:00‘Live It’ by Biting Tongues – Some Notes and Afterthoughts<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNC0i0cNInDpfWEd7Sp95tjk7XRNPDjS9XA6QS0uS0YsPARJq407O_VQ5kT8bO60EHvYB2b21uDd25dELW8zdiDGTQRalrJnBdmKF659WRJ2RCJYd8jpTznEaOsNJWA6h26SjHQCpVGQ/s1600/Biting+Tongues+Live+It+Inserts.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNC0i0cNInDpfWEd7Sp95tjk7XRNPDjS9XA6QS0uS0YsPARJq407O_VQ5kT8bO60EHvYB2b21uDd25dELW8zdiDGTQRalrJnBdmKF659WRJ2RCJYd8jpTznEaOsNJWA6h26SjHQCpVGQ/s400/Biting+Tongues+Live+It+Inserts.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Finally received my author’s copies of <i>Live It</i> in the morning mail. This is a collection of early Biting Tongues recordings released on vinyl for the first time by <a href="https://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/shop/live-it-biting-tongues/" style="color: purple;">Finders Keepers</a>. The core material for this album was drawn from a cassette-only release put out in the early 1980s by Manchester punk label New Hormones, also under the title <i>Live It</i> – six of the ten tracks in fact. The others are outtakes from the various Live It sessions, which actually sound so interesting that I wonder why they weren’t included in the original release.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first thing that struck me about the vinyl version of <i>Live It</i> was the insight displayed in the new cover design – it pointed me towards something I had not really noticed before. On the front of the regular edition you can see one of those standard band photos everybody does from time to time for promotional purposes. Biting Tongues never seemed to do that many photo sessions as a group in the early 1980s so there probably isn’t that much material to choose from – at least not from the time when these recordings were made. We were being photographed in the stairwell of some mall or arcade. I really don’t remember where it was – I was not living in Manchester at the time, although the rest of the band were. I used to commute between my home in London and theirs every other week or so for rehearsals, recording sessions, performances etc. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As I said, I don’t recall the location of the tall high windows featured in the front-cover photograph – but what did strike me about them is how they neatly separated me from the other members of Biting Tongues, as if I had been set aside in a box on my own. I am similarly divided from the band on the back cover as well. Graham, Colin, Howard and Eddie had been photographed standing together in some murky alleyway – the print is high contrast and very post-punk. I appear alone in a photo insert sitting at a typewriter and a microphone, illuminated by a desk light. This time I do remember when and where this photograph was taken – it was during a performance Biting Tongues gave at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on the Mall in London. It was our first ever London gig. We would include all kinds of one-off performance elements in these early shows; and on this occasion it had been arranged that I would actually type up new portions of my text live onstage. Then I would deliver them from the desk while the rest of the band went on playing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Somehow the cover design for this release perfectly encapsulates my relationship with Biting Tongues during the time when I was a member. It comments on the different and separate processes at work within the band both within the studio and outside it. The rest of the band worked really hard on the music we recorded and performed. They worked collectively – on a regular basis. They also worked intuitively around very precise formal agreements. Meanwhile back in London, I worked on the texts alone and in isolation – I’d receive rehearsal tapes from the band in the post and use them to frame and shape what I was writing. I was more interested in textual collage, cut-ups, words coming from unknown or unforeseen sources – words overheard from a world you only ever glimpse from the corner of your eye. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I would use all kinds of techniques at the time: take, for example, the texts for ‘42’ and ‘43’, which you will find on side one of <i>Live It</i> and which are also from the original audiocassette release. These were actually derived from one long mosaic-like text made up from laying random horizontal grids over the pages of existing books and noting down what the grids would either underline or strike through. I can’t remember all of the source material now, but listening to the full text on ‘43’ I know some of the fragments and phrases are from works by Antonin Artaud and Georges Bataille. Yeah – I know. Pretentious. The NME told me as much at the time, and so did just about everyone else. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On side two, the track that interests me the most is ‘Read This’, the text for which was derived from a chain letter sent to me by someone who claimed that the government was trying to control their mind using microwaves. Their words were cut together with some short texts produced by my tuning through an FM radio dial late at night and transcribing the results. On the first two tracks on side two you can also hear me cutting into the words themselves, to produce abstract sounds. These proved too difficult to learn for live performances – your mind has nothing to grip on to. Instead I used to do readings from them at Richard Strange’s early Cabaret Futura nights rather than including them in any Biting Tongues performances. John Peel’s producer John Walters, recorded one of my Cabaret Futura readings and played some of it on his Radio 1 show, declaring that I was probably ‘the death of rock and roll’. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If he was right, I don’t think I did a very good job of it. Looking back, I can see that I was always a writer working with a group of musicians – certainly not a singer or performer in any conventional sense of the word. One day I will write more about the few short years I was with Biting Tongues. It was a great time to be working with music, both live and in the studio – everything was up for grabs back then; and there was a real appetite for experimentation, however rough and raw the outcome might be. I think Graham Massey’s selection and editing of the tracks on <i>Live It</i> conveys all of this extremely well. It took over three decades to understand the full implications of all that, but it was worth the wait for these recordings to be available at long last in a vinyl edition. Today, looking back on them and having no choice in the matter, I now think of the texts and my delivery of them on this album as being my first published work. Sometimes the past has a way of telling you what you should already have known.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pictured above: Biting Tongues: <i>Live It</i> – standard edition; Biting Tongues: <i>Live It</i> – limited deluxe edition; sleeve note insert from the standard edition and one of the facsimile club flyers from the deluxe edition. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Photographed by @lahollings<o:p></o:p></div>
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Order details for <i>Live It</i> from Finders Keepers can be found <a href="https://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/shop/live-it-biting-tongues/" style="color: purple;">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now buy it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-67954755653789738572019-05-05T17:06:00.000+01:002019-05-05T17:06:05.443+01:00On Holiday With Nietzsche<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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My five-part series of essays on Friedrich Nietzsche starts this Monday night on BBC Radio 3 at 22.45. It’s a mix of travel writing and personal reflection that takes you from Turin to the Austrian Alps and the Norwegian fjords to the Italian Lakes. Nietzsche was a restless traveller throughout his life, never staying long in any one place, so his writings have always seemed like perfect holiday reading to me. Each of my essays sets a different book in a specific landscape, exploring the sights and sounds of that idle time in summer when you have the time to read and travel and explore.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The series will run across the entire week from May 6 to May 10 with a new reading every night, with each essay starting at 22.45. I do hope you will be able to join me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here is the schedule:<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘Becoming What You Are’: Monday May 6<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘Under the Mountain’: Tuesday May 7<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘For Everyone and No One’: Wednesday May 8<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘A Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’: Thursday May 9<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘The Art of Ending’: Friday May 10<o:p></o:p></div>
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For more details please click <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s7q" style="color: purple;">here</a>. You can also follow ‘On Holiday With Nietzsche’ on the Radio 3 website following the initial transmission of each essay, and a podcast version will also be available from the same site.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pictured above: Stalking Nietzsche with a Notebook and Pen – KH captured in various locations by @lahollings<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-84939993273701768702018-12-11T07:22:00.001+00:002018-12-11T10:05:35.692+00:00My New Book! 'The Space Oracle'<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<i>Astronomy is another form of cinema. Time is fragmented and extended. Matter becomes light in motion. The camera remains fixed, looking outwards into the darkness, while the earth moves beneath our feet.’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I am pleased to announce that I have a new book out, published by Strange Attractor Press, and it is officially launched today. There will be an event at the Royal College of Art this evening. You can RSVP by clicking on <span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-space-oracle-tickets-53182846325" style="color: purple;">this link</a> </span>- the password is SPACEORACLE@RCA. </div>
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I will be posting further background information and illustrations from the book on this blog in the coming weeks, but in the meantime here is an overview, plus some comments on the book from higher sources.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>The Space Oracle </i>reinvents the history of astronomy as a new kind of astrological calendar. This radical retelling of our relationship with the cosmos reaches back to places and times when astronomers were treated as artists or priests, to when popes took part in astral rites and the common people feared eclipses and comets as portents of disaster. Panoramic and encyclopaedic in its scope, the book brings astronauts and spies, engineers and soldiers, goddesses and satellites into alignment with speculative insights and everyday observations. The universe, Hollings argues, is a work in progress – enjoy it.</blockquote>
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<o:p> </o:p>As astronomers have peered ever further out into the cosmos their discoveries have always refused to remain confined within observatory walls. <i>The Space Oracle</i>shows what happens when astronomy escapes into the wider human world, and finds purposes beyond the scientific. As Ken Hollings points out, ‘the further into space we go, the more we learn about ourselves’ – Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer, Royal Observatory Greenwich</blockquote>
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<o:p> </o:p>‘Continuing the trajectory set in <i>Welcome To Mars</i> and <i>Bright Labyrinth</i>, <i>A Space Oracle</i> revolts magnificently against the fault-lines of contemporary learning. Within the courtly form of a Renaissance almanac, and in a voice that echoes the recursive wanderings of a comet, Hollings gives us a vision of humanity endlessly <i>making</i> sense of the heavens. As he goes he shows us how the stars appear from Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg and Wernher von Braun’s Peenemünde, from the branches of Yggdrasil and the helter-skelter at Luna Park. I loved it, but then I would say that; I’m a Plutonian’ – Richard Barnett, author of <i>The Sick Rose</i><o:p> </o:p></blockquote>
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‘Reading Ken Hollings is the intellectual equivalent of being fired from the space-module for a non-stop EVA’ – Tom McCarthy, author of<i>Men in Space</i>and <i>Satin Island</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria";">Publication Details:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria";"><i>The Space Oracle</i></span><br />
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A Guide to Your Stars<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ken Hollings<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Paperback<br />116mm x 186mm<br />176pp, 12 b/w Illos<br />£13.99<br />ISBN: 9781907222535</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Available from <a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/the-space-oracle/" style="color: purple;">Strange Attractor Press</a></div>
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Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-71899071861808606732018-10-14T16:46:00.002+01:002018-10-14T16:56:22.017+01:00'Ekphrasis' on Touch Radio<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At the start of 2018 the artist Richard Bevan asked me to participate in an exhibition of maquette at <a href="https://www.theblock.art/" style="color: purple; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">The Block</a> in New Cross, South East London. I old him I would take the request seriously. 'Don't overthink it,' Richard replied. 'Maquettes', he went on, should be taken as a broad term for something that exists between a thought and a thing. I had noticed an accidental arrangement of objects on a shelf in my studio and decided to submit these in response to Richard's invitation. Around the same time the editors of <a href="http://www.findsatori.com/portfolio/explore-issue-03/" style="color: purple; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Satori</a> magazine approached me to write something for a forthcoming issue on the subject of aesthetics.The result was 'Ekphrasis', a text that describes in detail the arrangement of objects on my studio shelf - I wrote it while preparing for the 'Maquettes' show to open at The Block. The show as very lovely, and I was very happy to have been included in it. I was also very happy with the way the 'Ekphrasis' text came out, so when Block invited me to give a reading there to mark the close of the exhibition, I agreed immediately. Richard Bevan recorded the reading, and Rachel Hollings - known as @lahollings to her many Instagram followers - photographed the event.<br />
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I am indebted to Rachel and Richard for their documentation of my reading.<br />
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Later in the year Mike Harding of Touch Radio expressed an interest in featuring the recording of 'Ekphrasis' as one of their fabulous transmissions. You can access it directly from them by clicking <a href="https://touchradio.org.uk/touch-radio-143-ken-hollings.html" style="color: purple; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">here</a><span style="font-family: "cambria";">.</span><br />
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This is the first piece of mine in a long time to exist as a show a published text, a live performance and a sound piece. Single process: multiple outcomes. I wish I could do this more often, Enjoy.<br />
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Pictured above from top to bottom: KH's arrangement of objects at the Maquettes show, photographed by Richard Bevan; Satori 03, cover by Sam Copeland; KH reading, photographed by Rachel Hollings; KH and Richard Bevan at The Block, photographed by Rachel Hollings.Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-50604348058218272592018-06-01T17:08:00.000+01:002018-06-01T17:08:04.213+01:00Right Between the Ears: Radio 3, June 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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My latest programme for BBC Radio 3, ‘Right Between the Ears’ is going out this Saturday evening (June 2) at 9.30 pm. If you already have other arrangements, you will still be able to stream the programme after the broadcast by clicking <u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b51ypf" style="color: purple;">here</a></span></u>.<br />
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This link also gives you additional information about the programme. A podcast version will also be available.</div>
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A few years ago, readers of this blog may recall, I underwent a routine eye operation while under the influence of a local anaesthetic, which numbed all sensation in my head. I now recall that operation only as an uninterrupted succession of sounds - heavy buzzes, high-pitched crackles, sizzles and trickles resonated inside his skull. It created a series of rippling acoustic spaces around me. The most amazing music I have ever heard was playing amid the flickering lights and snatches of gentle conversation in the theatre. What is more I could no longer tell with my deadened senses, what sounds were coming from within me and which from without. I seemed to be experiencing a much deeper, more physiological state of hearing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In an attempt to recreate this 'amazing music', 'Right Between the Ears' takes the listener deep into the acoustic territory of the skull from the eyes to the ears and then the recesses of the skull itself. This experience, this haunting auditory space, has a long history: the Quetzalcoatl Indians of Central America rubbed a notched bone against a skull during their funeral rites. The poet Rilke once wondered what kind of ‘primal sound’ would emerge if you ran a phonograph needle across the sutures of the human skull: would a new incoherent voice resonate from within it? With the aid of sound artist Aura Satz, we performed Rilke’s experiment with an actual human skull in a daylight séance conducted around a West London kitchen table. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are some remarkable reconstructions of auditory experiences caused by the physiology of the ear and eye and the cavities of the human head. I even lay in the dark on the springy floor of the anechoic chamber at Salford University to hear the high-pitched keening of my nerves and the low murmuring croon of my blood circulating in search of my own primal sound. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am profoundly grateful to all of the contributors to this programme, which sounds amazing: the binaural mix making for a mesmerising listening experience. Do try it with headphones if you get the chance. Despite the subject matter, the actual programme has a relatively low ‘ik’ factor - but then my generation was the first to become desensitised towards violence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Guest voices include musician and composer Martin McCarrick, sound artist Aura Satz, Trevor Cox of Salford University, Sophie Scott of UCL and Louisa Wykham of Moorfields Eye Hospital. The man with the artificial head was Studio Manager Donald McDonald and the producer was Mark Burman. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pictured above: our kitchen table séance, outside the amazing Maida Vale studios, cables at old BH <o:p></o:p></div>
Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1505542062482877704.post-66508330876391262402018-02-12T12:07:00.000+00:002018-02-12T12:07:37.979+00:00The Voices Are Back – Some Reflections on ‘Speak Spirit Speak’<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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For a limited period only, ‘Speak, Spirit, Speak’, my radio doc on EVP, ghost voices and ghost technologies, is back on the BBC <span class="SpellE">i</span>-Player. You can find it <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xmv2b" style="color: purple;">here</a>.</div>
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The show seems to have become a regular fixture on Radio 4 Extra – I usually know when it has been on because I receive an email from some listener taking issue, not so much with the programme’s arguments, but with some specific example or other. Usually it is ‘We can see Edith by radio,’ cited by Edith Cass, the widow of EVP researcher Raymond Cass, that causes the objections. I had the pleasure of interviewing Edith in the backroom of the hearing aid repair workshop they once ran in Hull. At a small altar heaped with artificial flowers and framed photographs stood the Juliette radio Raymond used to listen to the voices of the <span class="SpellE">aether</span>. Edith had no doubt about what the spirits meant by their message and was still moved to tears by memories of her time spent with Raymond and the radio. Other strong memories from the weeks spent working on this programme for Radio 4 included an afternoon at the British Library sifting through the archives of Konstantin <span class="SpellE">Raudive</span> – little more than a cardboard box loaded with spools of reel-to-reel tape and exercise books crammed with handwritten texts – and the long and fascinating conversation I recorded with Erik Davis in one of the old fifth floor studios at Broadcasting House. </div>
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Those old studios were fabulous: all dark wood and green baize-covered tables – the producer sat in a separate room screened from you by a think glass window, and a light went on in the middle of the table when the machines were rolling next door. The room was practically built for séances. BBC Radio was already moving some of its departments up to Salford so many of the offices were empty and deserted – just a few lights on phones or heating units still winking in the darkness. Erik gave a fantastic interview; and although we only used a few clips in the final show, I still have a recording of the full hour we recorded together. Jon <span class="SpellE">Calver</span>, my producer, thought that, with a little cleaning up, it would have made a great programme in itself. One day I’ll retrieve the recording from the archives and figure out what we might do with it.</div>
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So the voices are back, and I’m always happy to hear them. Has my position changed on what they are telling us over the intervening years? Not really. Long conversations with Mike Harding of Touch and sound artists <span class="SpellE">Micheal</span> Esposito and CM von <span class="SpellE">Hauswolff</span> have only increased my enthusiasm. The most recent thing I wrote on the subject was a review last year for <i>The Wire</i> of the LP ‘Medium: Paranormal Field Recordings and Compositions 1901 - 2017-09-20’, put out by Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw State University. I am quoting the review here in full for your interest:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There have been so many installations, performances and record releases involving Electronic Voice Phenomena, an elusive form of spirit communication using a wide range of media from early phonographs and tape recorders to computers and MP3 players, that ‘EVP’ can now be regarded as a legitimate musical genre in its own right. Ghost voices have existed ever since recorded sound was first captured on a mechanical device – every playback becomes an exercise in mortality and absence, particularly when a recording outlives the individual who made it. Not surprising therefore to discover such a diverse range of material caught in the grooves of this vinyl release intended as the sonic counterpart to a group exhibition of work by artists exploring the paranormal as their primary subject matter. The disc’s compilers have gone to great lengths to offer a comprehensive overview of the complex and shifting terrain covered by EVP. This includes musical compositions written and performed by those with direct links to the ‘spirit plane’ such as the sonorous <span class="SpellE">‘Re</span>-Incorporation’ by percussionist Frank Perry and the sublime ‘Message from the Mystery’ by British clairaudient Jeannie Evans. Juxtaposed with them are pieces by experimental composers and performers exploring evanescence and disappearance as expressions of cultural colonialism, such as Guillermo Galindo’s turbulent ‘<span class="SpellE">Limpia</span>’, equating national borders with the shamanic crossing of thresholds, and Sally Ann McIntyre’s mournful attempt to invoke the lost song of the <span class="SpellE"><i>huia</i></span>, a bird native to New Zealand that has been extinct since 1907. The record is resonant with references to early EVP pioneers such as Friedrich <span class="SpellE">Jürgenson</span>, Konstantin <span class="SpellE">Raudive</span> and Raymond Cass; and there are some suitably grainy field recordings made by psychic researchers teasing out accounts of hauntings, ghost voices and astral projections. And this still leaves room for some of the more established experimenters in the genre to slip through the cracks and fill them in afterwards. Leif <span class="SpellE">Elggren</span>, CM von <span class="SpellE">Hauswolff</span> and Michael Esposito have each been associated with Touch Music’s continued commitment to EVP since the release of their <i>Ghost Orchid</i> collection back in 1999. <span class="SpellE">Elggren</span> places before us a radio without an antennae struggling to pick up <i>anything</i> through the white noise and bock; <span class="SpellE">Hauswolff</span> has his various machines speaking in slow heavy tongues, while Esposito tracks spirits across a nineteenth-century battlefield on ‘The Yellow Jackets Last of 1811’ and remixes a recording from 1901 of spirit voices projected by a shaman into the horn of an early phonograph – their hearty but incomprehensible chortling will surely haunt the dreams of anyone who listens too closely.</blockquote>
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‘Speak Spirit Speak’ is available on the BBC Radio <span class="SpellE">i</span>-Player for another 24 days.</div>
Ken Hollingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05309869306921263376noreply@blogger.com3