“Why do movies have to be ‘canned’? Everything is canned" - Francis Ford Coppola
It seems that FoolishPeople are not alone in our quest for a new form of cinematic experience. Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt shall debut this September at the Toronto International Film Festival. Twixt shall herald a new, non-linear film making experience which incorporates live music and narration, as well as 2D and 3D sequences. Using shuffling software, the film's scenes can be completely randomised with performance artist and electronic musician Dan Deacon altering the film's live aspect to suit. In a sense, this "remixing" technique will mean that every audience sees a different edit and therefore a unique version of the film. Coppola plans to begin his 30 city tour of the film later this year. Discussing his cinematic experiment he claims:
"Cinema is so young! How dare anyone think all it has got up its sleeve is more 3D where the ticket prices go up? Cinema is a baby. Of course we’re going to see wonderful innovations come; there will be many".
With less than 2 weeks before FP begin filming our own Film FantastiqueStrange Factories in Prague, we could not agree more. Cinema is little more than a hundred years old. So much has been achieved in terms of artistic and technological innovation within that time but also so little. Filmmakers must continue to push the boundaries of their art in all directions, breaking staid notions of what cinema is. We must ask instead, what can cinema be? In the case of Strange Factories we shall be offering a living feature film in every sense of the word. Our audiences shall be able to move freely within the phantasmagoric world of the fictions they have created. This is the future of cinema.
Ahead of upping sticks to our haunted location in the heart of the Czech countryside, self-proclaimed "bizango dominatrix" Xanadu Xero will be joining us here in London this week, raising the increasingly intense manifestations we are all experiencing to a a whole new level of lucidity. Radiogram IV is also currently manifesting. To make sure that you receive your passcode subscribe here.
"...the Fool goes his way regardless of all earthly objects around him; he has flung to the winds all caution, the worldly prudence of the Hermit, he is blind to everything but the City Beautiful of his ideal quest. In the highest sense he is the mystic, the dreamer, the beholder of visions. What matters the dog at his heels, he cannot stay to turn back in his march forward to his distant goal; he must not be retarded by any trivial passing events, all his thoughts are concentrated upon his high aim. The small things of this earth are of no account to him for whom the Kingdom of Heaven is already at hand. He has come to realise that all of this changing world is Maya, that man, however wise he may be judged to be by an earthly standard, is in reality a Fool. He who thinks he walks with wisdom, truly has folly for a companion."
- Frank Lind, 1969.
FoolishPeople have now entered into the penultimate week of rehearsals for Strange Factories. The manifestations grow more intense every day; the HUM crescendos as the story feeds and reguritates us, born anew into the narrative each night we await Stronheim. Can you hear that sound...?
FoolishPeople highly recommend a very special screening of Buster Keaton's classic silent film The General, with a live piano soundtrack provided by the wonderful Costas Fotopoulos, taking place at the Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square, this Thursday.
Synopsis: Johnnie loves his train ("The General") and Annabelle Lee. When the Civil War begins he is turned down for service because he's more valuable as an engineer. Annabelle thinks it's because he's a coward. Union spies capture The General with Annabelle on board. Johnny must rescue both his loves...
The Prince Charles Cinema has existed in its current incarnation since 1991 (in previous lives it was a West End Theatre and a film-house of ill repute).
The only non subsidised repertory cinema in the UK, it does not receive funding from the Arts Council, the Lottery or any other body. The PCC acts independently in its dealings with all film distribution companies. They have a glorious policy of low ticket prices and I highly recommend signing up for a membership card (£10 for a year) as it allows you to see cult classics and new releases from as little as £1! One of the true landmarks of London's West End, please support this venue so that its very important work may long continue.
In Inside the Temple of Cinema, I discussed Walter Benjamin’s response to the effect of reproductive technology upon art with reference to his views on cinema. I noted how, for Benjamin, the introduction of film marked the termination of uniqueness and authenticity. Whilst I continue to argue the case for cinema as ritual, Benjamin maintains that cinema is the first form of art purely devoid of any cultic value gleaned from what he terms the “fabric of tradition“. Nevertheless, the ideas at the core of Benjamin’s arguments can help us to understand and explain what is important about making a film like Strange Factories today.
The Priests of Art Unveiled
Writing in the 1930s, Benjamin hailed cinema as the technological innovation which would destroy the quasi-religious reverence with which people expect, or are expected to, view works of art. He argues that cinema is unique in the way in which it can come true on the otherwise wishful thinking of avant garde elites. Within cinema lies the possibility of discarding with the priests of art, those apparently “enlightened” mediators who falsely position themselves between object and audience. Look around you. Yes, there they are.
It is apparent that in the Western World we have grown accustomed to looking at works of art - especially classical works of art - as if they possess some deep, ancient, spiritual meaning which eludes us “plebians“. We are expected in this way to perceive all art as if it were sacred to us personally, as individuals; a view which can surely be condoned as little short of absolute nonsense. In Ways of Seeing, Berger describes the popularity of a Leonardo Da Vinci in the National Gallery, virtually unknown before an American offered £2.5 million dollars for it:
Now it hangs in a room by itself. The room is like a chapel. The drawing is behind bullet-proof perspex. It has acquired a new kind of impressiveness. Not because of what it shows - not because of the meaning of the image. It has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value. The bogus religiosity which now surrounds original works of art, and which is ultimately dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute for what the paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible.
We look at paintings in museums and - embarrassed admitting to ourselves that we don't know what the fuss is all about and squinting in the hope of catching a shaft of holy light - we think "But there are people who know why these things are important..." Some of us issue a degree of reverence for these elusive cultural experts, for most of us its more akin to contempt. Either way, we cannot deny that the "Art World" is housed in churches and watched over by priests. Berger offers statistical evidence to back up his claims:
Benjamin's hope for the cinema is based on the fact that we cannot revere the unique "aura" of a film shown simultaneously and repeatedly all over the world. As mentioned previously, film is a reproduction of a reproduction. Cinema inherently lacks the cult mystique of "art", claims Benjamin. Therefore, he reasons, the best movies were able to preserve the radical educational programme of the modernist experiments then taking place in traditional media - as theorised, in the case of the theatre, by his friend Bertolt Brecht - whilst exposing experimental attitudes to the masses in an unmediated fashion. At the cinema, we might be good students, but not out of any fearful respect for our teachers. Like 17th C. radical protestant sects, we would listen together for the word of god, our attention drawn to the truth without the need for a priest to interpret.
For Benjamin, motion pictures share with progressive or radical art the potential to offer viewers new critical ways of seeing the world. Only at the movies is this critical perspective intrinsically delivered to a mass audience. And only at the movies, according to Benjamin, do the masses take radical images in their stride, seizing upon them, analysing them, putting them to use in their daily struggles against the factory and the police and (in Benjamin's Europe) the imminent threat of fascism:
Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art. The reactionary attitude toward a Picasso painting turns into the progressive reaction toward a Chaplin movie [...] With regards to the screen, the critical and the receptive attitudes of the public coincide.
Cultural Consumption And Mass Appeal
Benjamin and Berger's view of the art world still rings true today. One forever hears artists wishing they could break out of the "art ghetto", a perverse ghetto where the monetary values circulated are astronomical. Benjamin's ideas about film, on the other hand, seem a little naive.
Only a few weeks ago, Slavoj Zizek used his audience with Julian Assange to once again point out the ideological effects of mainstream films, even in the Natalie Portman ballet vehicle Black Swan, directed by one of America's supposedly "indie" voices. And the extent of product placement in most films makes Hollywood resemble Madison Avenue more than any "artistic" venture.
But Benjamin is notably sceptical of those amongst his contemporaries who simply turn their nose up at "plebian" cultural consumption. The lighthearted rowdiness of Friday night picture house attendees is of course distasteful to those who wish to learn noble (classical) truths. But Benjamin wonders whether the contemplation cherished by the high priests of culture is not really more akin to avoiding looking in a world that moves so fast. Is a state of distraction perhaps better attuned to properly experiencing the shocks of modern living? Should we allow ourselves to absorb the work of art ('Art on the Inside...'), rather than to let the artwork itself absorb us (what is art without our blood)?:
A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into the work of art the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art.
Indeed, Foolish People's working practice, Theatre of Manifestation, is a direct inheritor to a tendency (Dadaism, Surrealism, Artaud, "happenings") in modernist art that treats "reception in a state of distraction" as both "symptomatic" of, and appropriate to, reassessing "profound changes in apperception". The numinous experiences invoked during FP events transport the audience to a plane from where they are able to view this world of horrors anew. The numinous state does not, however, resemble anything we might call contemplation. The shocking nature of FP's work is not thus for its own sake, but rather because absorbing shock is the best way to get a handle on our late capitalist lives.
In Benjamin's defence, we can look to our own time and find examples that have emerged from the boardrooms of a cynical culture industry and yet managed to attune our vision to the hidden workings of the world far more successfully than so many avant garde works. How many boxset marathons in front of the television ("idiot box") watching SyFY's Battlestar Galactica, AMC's Breaking Bad or HBO's The Wire? Insomniac, procrastinating or winding down from work as viewers of these shows may be, nevertheless war, injustice, class and and politics are quite seriously illuminated by the time the television is reluctantly turned off. From Vibrant Cults to Orthodox Churches
Surprisingly, Benjamin's claims for radical potential within popular forms withstands scrutiny perhaps more firmly than his faith in the intrisically egalitarian nature of film. Benjamin's vision of a cinema without priests expresses his belief that technological innovation had finally done away with the ritual or cult origins of art. This hardly matches up to the world we live in. Cinema clearly has had both a powerful cult value imposed upon it and the corresponding string of sects and bishops to police that. Susan Sontag, whose work I have also referred to previously, criticises Benjamin for his mistaken belief that cinema attendance had no ritual element. She describes the cult of cinephiles that emerged since at least the 1960s:
For cinephiles, the movie encapsulated everything. Cinema was both the book of art and the book of life..."One can't live without Rosellini" declares a character in Bertolucci's 'Before the Revolution' (1964) and means it.
We are no longer in this cinephiliac (or cinematic) heydey, however. The avid moviegoers of the 60s have seen to it that cinema take its place among the lofty 'arts'. The quasi-religious undertones have been eschewed in favour of the unabashed self-assurance found in the commercial art world. Vibrant cults have given way to orthodox churches. Notions like "arthouse" and "world" cinema are the collerary of "literary fiction" in publishing. Sunday supplement reviewers, Picturehouse programmers, the BFI, all unintentionally ensure that the radical perspective that film promises are filtered through the reassurance of class difference. Most of all what we are expected to learn from a "difficult" film today is our place in the world, our belonging to the elect, our sinning nature (all those films you know you ought to have seen). In short, our need for a priest.
In this context, reapproriating the religious appreciation of film can be a challenging communal gesture. We must once more go to the cinema with that radical protestant lack of deference, find our own connection to the sacred. Blakean moviegoers! We demand that our cinema be magical, evangelical, and above all, anti-clerical!
IndieGoGo & The Internet Age
Contemporary developments on the internet bear some resemblance to the context in which Benjamin discusses cinema. Online media, like photography and film in earlier times, offers the possibility of equality of opportunity in terms of making things happen without corporate, market based mediators. Unfortunately, this does not always ring entirely true, as is evident in the case of ceertain social media which are fast becoming tools of power and mass manipulation (Facebook, I am pointing at you).The development of crowdfunding and sourcing, however, at present does deliver on its promises of democracy. FoolishPeople are proud to have become a crowdfunding success story, raising over $12000 via IndieGoGo by allowing others to decide whether or not they believe in our idea, whether or not it has mass appeal despite it‘s rather terrifying label as “art“. There are no priests in this Church. In fact there isn't even a Church, rather just an online platform where everyone is welcome, everyone encouraged to ’like’ or ’unlike’ what we do. Every person has a place in this narrative.
But that is not to say that we do not want our audience to be a very special one. Yet our definition of 'the elite audience’ is perhaps much more in line with that espoused by Grotowski:
We are concerned with the spectator who has genuine spiritual needs and who really wishes, through confrontation with the performance, to analyse himself…an elite which is not determined by the social background or financial situation of the spectator, nor even education. The worker who has never had any secondary education can undergo this creative process of self-search, whereas the university professor may be dead, permanently formed, moulded into the terrible rigidity of a corpse…We are not concerned with just any audience, but a special one.
And so I ask you, tongue perhaps a little in cheek, are you one of The Elect?
Thank you to Sam Clodd for his assistance in writing this article.
(Images: Fritz Lang's Metropolis; Hettie by Yiannis Katsaris (from Strange Factories); Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal)
"In an infinite fractal of rotation, how do you define the center? Every point is the center. You are the center of the universe observing the universe from your very own center. Wherever you pick a point of observation in the fractal, that point becomes the center from which you're observing the universe. That point becomes stillness. Why stillness? Because in that point now, all the spins of the universe cancel out.… You need stillness to have a frame of reference for rotation… And that's how singularity occurs. Singularity is the point at the center of your experience of the universe, that is the point of stillness from which you're observing the universe."
"Stronheim flicked the switch. The factory has been put into production".
"I don't know how I can get this over to people, but this is not in my head. It's just as though there's something in your house and you want to switch if off and you can't. It's there all the time" - Katie Jacques to BBC News
"Scientists investigating a strange humming sound in the New Zealand city of Auckland believe they have pinpointed the frequency. The source of the noise, however, remains a mystery" - Sydney Morning Herald
"The HUM shifts, moving away into the distance..."
As cast and crew immerse themselves in the glorious task of manifesting the world of Strange Factories, FoolishPeople are proud to announce the stage two launch of our website: www.strangefactories.com.
We were so overwhelmed by your support during our recent IndieGoGo campaign and we do hope you will enjoy delving even deeper into the Strange Factories experience via pictures, words and of course our very special Radiograms, released every Full Moon and containing secrets, extra content and hidden narrative from the world of Strange Factories.
Tonight's Full Moon marks the release of Radiogram III, the latest covert transmission from Stronheim. Fancy a glimpse behind the curtain? Be sure to receive your access code. Here's how:
The Waystations
As part of the phantasmagoria of Strange Factories we are offering our audience an exclusive subscription of experiences as Waystations, including a collector's edition DVD of the film and tickets to the live event screening. Through our Radiogram releases, which you will receive every Full Moon, you might even discover how you are already part of this story.
Waystation I - £10
The codex of the idea, the very heart of our story must remain pristine. The dream must be free to haunt the world. You will receive all future Radiograms. You arrive in the Grove and watch the sunrise over Fool's Forest.
Waystation II - £20
You make connection with Stronheim's settlement, you will receive all future Radiograms and a collector's edition DVD on release.
Waystation III - £50
Map to the Geisterwege. Clowns know of the Geisterwege. Ghosts whisper in their ears of the spirit tracks, they share the maps to forgotten pathways and hidden roads. You will receive a signed copy of the collector's edition DVD and tickets to the Strange Factories tour.
To set off on the path to your selected Waystation please click here.
To receive regular updates on Strange Factories please click here.
Wishing you a wonderful Saturn's Day under the brilliance of the Full Moon.
Jan Svankmajer (b. 1934) is an influential surrealist filmmaker and artist from the Czech Republic. Visit http://www.jansvankmajer to find out more about his fantastical career and work, particularly in the field of stop-motion animation. Svankmajer still lives and works in Prague, the city where he was born.
"All great art is by its very essence in conflict with the society with which it exists. It expresses the truth about existence regardless of whether this truth serves or hinders the survival purpose of a given society. All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society".
-Erich Fromm
After spending last night rehearsing a riot scene in the midst of the London riots (a rather odd experience in itself), FoolishPeople members were relieved to make it home safely. We would like to extend our best wishes and sympathies to all of those who were badly affected by the riots across the country, losing their homes and businesses. Please continue to be vigilant for your safety should this chaos continue. Particularly remember the older members of your community and don't forget the animals either.
A writer, possessed by a terrifying fiction hunts for the heart of his story in a pagan landscape, haunted by the infamous hum emitted by a Strange Factory.
Strange Factories is the first feature film produced by FoolishPeople.
1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus; an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station.
Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season. Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows to the other side of time.
Cirxus defies genre and form and offers a literary experience like no other. A combination of hallucinogenic novel and blueprint to a physical experience.
A rowdy gang of Tracey Emins wrestle half a dozen dazed Andy Warhols to the ground. IT IS THE FUTURE AND ALL FORMS OF ART ARE FREE. Perfect replicas exist of every masterpiece ever created, artworks and ideas are stolen from the mind before they’re even created.
Copyright or ownership is meaningless. FLESH-WORTH is all that matters. Arm yourself with weaponised art and explore the notions of open-source myth. What are intellectual rights worth in a decomposing culture?
Featuring full archival material from FoolishPeople’s performance run of Dead Language at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
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