FoolishPeople

From the Ministry #6

NO to novelty, YES to our future. #ministryofinformation

 

 

Liebestod (or What Exactly Are We Holding Out For?)

This article forms part of the series Rapture & Decay: The New Eschatological Cinema:

Introduction

Part I

Part II

"Try as they may to savour the taste of eternity, their thoughts still twist and turn upon the ebb and flow of things in past and future time. But if only their minds could be seized and held steady, they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would glimpse the splendour of eternity, which is forever still". - Augustine of Hippo, c. 400 AD.　

It is no secret that the initial idea for Melancholia came to Lars von Trier whilst the filmmaker was being treated for severe depression. More specifically, von Trier was inspired by a theory gleaned from one of his therapists at the time- that depressives and melancholics are more likely to act calmly in violent situations than "happy" people, who have a tendency towards panic. As the Danish film critic Per Juun Carlsen writes in a 2011 interview with von Trier, "Melancholics are ready for it. They know everything is going to hell". Carlsen also observes that von Trier "does not consider Melancholia to be about the end of the world and the human race but about humans acting and reacting under pressure".

Indeed Von Trier openly rejects the way in which Melancholia has been marketed by Hollywood, right down to his own PR department's tagline - "a beautiful film about the end of the world". Instead he makes clear that the film's entire plotline - of a distant planet colliding with Earth and bringing about the end of human life - serves as metaphor for depression and the melancholic state. This is evident particularly with regards to the relationships between characters, the ways in which they interact with one another and the very different ways in which they attempt to cope with the coming apocalypse.

I have already described in a previous article the way in which there is a rising sense, within cultural theory and the cinema of the past few decades, of being on the brink of what some have termed "inertial destiny". This sense is particularly prevalent if you are of what we shall call a "melancholic" disposition (and judging by the statistics we're all depressed nowadays so that probably includes you), if you're a left-wing activist or ponderer, or if you have a stockpile of tinned baked beans in the basement for when 2012 hits hard. But what exactly is it that we are holding out for? Nuclear holocaust? Mass flooding? A supervolcano? An alien invasion? Or, perhaps, planetary collision...? Contemporary financial crisis porn might drive us wild with its motifs of chaos on the streets and daily despatches from the most recent pockets of doom but as far as wiping us from the face of the planet goes, as yet, it's not much of a contender. Oh yes, we're going to need something much bigger than the end of capital to satisfy our eschatological yearnings...

What melancholics really crave is a permanent release from the perpetual state of depression, boredom and lack of meaning in which they are trapped. That is, to say, a reprive from feeling obliged to put on a brave face, pretending that everything is ok, that you're happy, you're participating, you're "normal" and you most definitely, definitely, do not want to go back to bed and sleep for a year or worse, die.

 

In short, the best thing that could possibly happen would be for the world to end and for everyone you know and love, nay, everyone in the whole entire living world, to be wiped out. That way (a) you don't miss out on anything because all of the vital actors and reactors within your life are dead too; and (b) it's not your fault.

For the melancholic the worst thing that can possibly happen is for the clock to just keep ticking with no skips, delays or major cataclysms. As David Ewing Duncan so eloquently describes,

"This is our blessing and our curse: to count the days and weeks and years, to calculate the movements of the sun, moon and stars, and to capture them all in a grid of small squares that spread out like a net cast over time: thousands of little squares for each lifetime".

It is no coincidence that a painful life mapped out in small squares can be a life of extreme creative action. Von Trier stands out as one of thousands of examples of artists whose depressive inclinations have inspired artistic greatness. This I shall take as given. What I'm more interested in is the possibility which this creative sensibility gives rise to - that melancholics do not long for nothingness in their cravings for Thanatos, their taste for oblivion. Instead I posit that they long for something much more ambitious - immortality.

In an interview from 2004, Zizek claims that "[Freud's concept of the] death drive has nothing to do, as Lacan points out, convincingly, with this so-called Nirvana principle where everything wants to disappear, and so on. If anything (and because of this I like to read Richard Wagner's operas where you have this), death drive is that which prevents you from dying. Death drive is that which persists beyond life and death".

Viewed as a drive towards immortality rather than inertia, the death drive (Thanatos) becomes a macro version of the will to survive, create and procreate (Eros) which can only ever exist on a mortal, finite scale. It is well documented that in completing his work on the drives, Freud was very much aware of the parallels between his investigations and those of the philosopher Schopenhauer. For Schopenhauer the misery inherent in the world stems from the gap between the world as we see it (Phenomenon) and the reality of the world (Noumenon) which is, rather irritatingly, unknowable to us. Desires (unfulfilled) and our Will (thwarted) form the greatest sources of suffering and so it follows that the only way in which one can attain peace is to forego all desire, to negate the Will. Such negation of the Will, of Eros, is necessarily this longing for death, expressed most satisfactorily by the savvy melancholic's desire for the end of the world.

It is no coincidence that the composer Wagner, whose Prelude from Tristan und Isolde is used to overbearing effect in Melancholia, was greatly influenced by the work of Schopenhauer. It also no coincidence that like von Trier and Freud, Wagner was chiefly interested in expressing ideas about sex and death. Whilst Isolde's Aria in Act III is often referred to as Liebestod, Wagner himself used this term (meaning love-death) to refer to the Prelude. His ecstatic visions of suffering, longing for what one cannot have, the juxtaposition of creation and termination, of sex and death; the beauty inherent in suffering; such visions looms heavily in von Trier's work. In many ways it is possible to view Melancholia and the earlier Antichrist as parts of the same whole - the Thanatos to the latter's Eros. Tod und Leben.

The rapture and melodrama inherent in the works of Wagner and von Trier stands in stark contrast to the shades of grey in which the melancholic sees existence. Both von Trier's Melancholia and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde painfully build towards their ecstatic crescendos - the narrative points of no return which the depressive mind so desperately longs for. But real life is not like the movies; there's that gap which Schopenhauer was so devastatingly fond of. Love is never sweet enough, pain is never agonising enough and the Prelude never does strike up in the background of those cathartic moments.

Yvette Biro writes of the way in which cinema "redeems" physical reality by charging the everyday with the emotional content of ceremonies. So surely it is worth stopping to question why it is that we seek out these extremities of emotion and why it is that human beings have, throughout history and the world over, grappled with and been drawn to eschatologies as ideals.

In the next article in this series I shall outline the history of such thinking, tracing its roots back to the time of Zoroaster, in an attempt to determine where this taste for the apocalypse, this fascination with the End Times, came from. I shall examine the possibility that such eschatological hopes and suspicions are in fact variants of a vast socially constructed myth; the fallout from thousands of minor political, religious and military decisions, taken hundreds of years ago in a land very far away from here...

 

Jan Svankmajer's 'Punch & Judy' (1966)

 

 

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.

Punch's Home Truths

 
"The other day I heard Punch asking Judy what she thought of his cathartic manifestation. She told him not to be disgusting and hit him with a frying pan".

- Punch's Home Truths, Professor Dan Bishop

An Assortment of Secrets

"No one can be the person they were born to be if you cut out the most wonderful sections of the narrative"

 
Under the glare of last weekend's Full Moon the Core Creative Team behind Strange Factories once again embarked on a 48hour Tweetathon in the run up to the final week of our IndieGoGo fundraising campaign.

We heard stories both profound and provocative, secrets at once dark and delightful, dreams with the potential to rouse nightmares in our readers.

Thankyou to everybody who participated by sending in their fragments. At the final moment we announced the lucky winner of the Strange Factories Secrets, Dreams and Storytelling Competition. Huge congratulations to Adrian Giddings, who will now be joining us at Stronheim's Mansion in the beautiful Czech countryside!

So here are some highlights from the finale of our epic Tweetathon. As our funding campaign draws to a close we heard some amusing tales of the effects of sleep deprivation and workaholism on FP's Core Team, as well as some of the bizarre events that have occured in the pre-production phase of Strange Factories:

In a crazed moment of exhaustion, I lost all perception of common sense and stuck my hand in a live socket!

We intuitively feel and know in our bones when sacrifices have been made for a story to be built and told...

The burglar had dragged my violin case out of a cupboard and left it open on the floor, the instrument untouched and perfectly in tune..

We also heard many beguiling truths and fictions of magick and mystery:

Her hinged jaw opened impossibly wide, and her misshapen mouth somehow managed to form the words again: "Am I beautiful?"

The yanari were illustrated as tiny daemons…They looked like distorted humans with wide demented grins on toothy mouths.

I know woman who was turned in to a white rabbit.

A woman drugged her husband, tied him to a bed, cut off his penis, threw it in the waste disposal unit and switched it on, police say

And we pulled a few skeletons out of the FP closet too:

As with all magickal rites, sometimes the thing you don't want to happen is the thing that needs to happen. You have no control over it...

I think even Carrie was a little worried that we had all carried on with our manifestations when we thought she was dead!

FoolishPeople are akin to those Pioneer Village actors, and would be horrified to see the audience catch a glimpse 'behind the curtains'...Where dedicated actors never break their character, even when faced with a horrific hostage-situation!

This is one of many reasons why we will survive the zombie apocalypse and become a touring troupe of zombie fighting minstrels.

I had the pleasure of dunking her in the river, cleansing her 'soul' and then taking her home for a bath......

Desecration dealt with human demons. How they're created & constructed from the bleakest and saddest stories of our lives.

I miss Deluge still!

Finally, it was noted that:

Having strangers pledge and support Strange Factories who have never seen our work has been the highlight for me, personally.

I think this is a thought that all of the FoolishPeople team hold in our minds. We are so grateful to everyone who has contributed to our campaign so far. There are only a few days to go, so please, if you can, do not hesitate to join us on this wonderous journey:

Go to IndieGoGo

 

FP production photos by Cecile Melie and Yiannis Katsaris

 

KHAOS KLOWN- Workshop by Nathaniel J. Harris

This workshop initiates participants into the world of the clown via games and exercises that exploit breaks, cracks, and slippages in our sense of normality, rationality, and reality. In learning to accept, embrace and even delight in these “mistakes”, in that which makes us ridiculous, we discover for ourselves the clown’s transformative potential.

When we think of clowns we often think of the buffoon, the lowest member of society, someone who we take pleasure in looking down on. Yet we know instinctively that there is some hidden power residing with the clown figure, whether that shows up in us as love, empathy, laughter, sorrow, awe, fear, discomfort, or contempt. Clowns are radical because they do the things we dare not, stepping beyond the boundaries of normal behaviour, and exposing all the human flaws we spend so much effort concealing. We are all experts in playing roles and presenting masks that work to maintain the illusion of a stable and continuous identity. Clowns disrupt that continuity and let us glimpse the writhing chaos that hides beneath. In the circus, however, and even in ritual clowning, the glimpse is often brief, salutary and preventative. It reminds us of what would happen if we ever let go of our role-playing. 

Traditionally, clowns have based routines around gags, choreographed slips, pratfalls, comical mistakes and misunderstandings, with the primary aim of getting laughs. Their positioning in the pauses between the high drama and virtuosic skills of conventional acts such as tight-rope walking, flying trapeze, juggling, and lion taming, reveals how they have often provided the structural “in-between” moments, a break in the drama, a breath, a release of tension that has built up. They provide the balance, contrast, relief and perspective, necessary for good entertainment. Without the foolish clowns getting it wrong, we would not appreciate the difficulty and danger of the “serious” acts. This function shares a structural resemblance with the way that ritual clowning has been theorized by anthropologists. Offering moments of temporary liminal escapism, clowning permits a radical self-reflexivity, but contained within safe ritual contexts. 

This workshop starts from the perspective that clowning involves facing all directions of ourselves at the same time and laughing at the beauty of our own ridiculousness. Here, our flaws and our mistakes are our most valuable resources. And a “mistake” does not just mean a pratfall, but refers to a broader notion of inappropriateness, excess, tactlessness, self-exposure, serial non-conformism, played out in the dialogical, liminal, “betwixt and between” space between performer and audience. The dysfunctionality and failure of clowns is radical, not in the pratfalls (these are merely metaphorical) but in the act of seeing and being seen, of letting go of control of what will happen next, of re-inventing identity on the hop, of refusing to conform to convention. By witnessing this, as audience, we may be transported temporarily into a world of slippage and misfiring. By doing it, as performer, we must embrace a different modus operandi, one that presupposes nothing and which shuns finality. It is in the “authentic” discovery of our unique and universal failure that the transformative gesture of the clown is first apprehended. This requires a sense of abandonment, willingness to stand in one’s own “shit” and to engage in truly dialogical relationship with the audience.

The suggestion is that clown training can be personally and politically transformative for anybody willing to step into the chaos. Through phenomenological and experiential insight, fresh understandings of clowning as a dialogical and transformative process can be acquired. 

**********************************************************************

Nathaniel J. Harris has many years experience as a performing clown, making his first serious stage debut as one half of the extremely adult Zos & Kia- Khaos Klowns in 1994 at 10 Days That Shook the World- Anarchist Festival, to a full house at The Hackney Empire, London, where he was pleased to be sharing a dressing room with Steve Ignorant and Penny Rimbaud of C.R.A.S.S. Zos & Kia went on to perform stages in Paris and Munich. Nathaniel also received encouragement at this time from Tony Allen, a performer often attributed to having invented ‘alternative comedy’ alongside the slightly less uncompromising Alexi Sale.

His oppositional creation ‘Nathan Satan’ appeared many times in London during the later 90s, including being the only unscripted performer in the earliest productions of John Constable’s The Goose is Loose, a Mystery play commissioned by Southwark Cathedral. There were a few occasional appearances at underground events between 2000-2010. Examples from the vocal aspect of these performances were included on a recording made available in America from Original New Falcon, which has been selling consistently for over five years.

Nathaniel has also appeared as a guest performer with The Foolish People, a highly innovative and influential immersive theatre company based in London. There are plans for future collaborations later in 2011.

More recently Nathaniel’s creation Grobbly Gribbly, his first ‘child friendly’ clown, debuted at St. Paul’s Carnival, appeared as walkabout at CarniVille’s ‘The Last Resort’, at Hackney Wicked Festival, and at Shamballah, and various (often spontanious) appearances around London and Bristol. His viral internet videos have attracted the attention of Blight Productions of New York, with whom he is currently conspiring on the Viral Sockpuppetsproject. Actively involved in protest, Grobbly was recently promoted to the office of General Ridiculousness in the contemporary Clown Army.

Nathaniel has also fulfilled highly disciplined ‘spiritual clowning’ roles for many years- in the world’s largest order of Chaos Magicians (to whom laughter is ‘sacred’), and also fulfilling the office of ‘Fool’ (called also ‘Lord of Misrule’) in a hereditary witchcraft coven. As such he also has much direct experience with ‘shamanic’ techniques of consciousness shifting, including the possession performance-rituals of Voudon, as well as various techniques of quiescent meditation. He is a published author, with many years experience as an esoteric teacher, ritual leader, and public speaker. He has advised researchers on various occasions, as well as appearing in a short documentary commissioned by National Geographic.

Introductory workshop March 5th @ The College, Bristol

The Providence Experiments

STILL STRUGGLING TO “MAKE IT” AS AN ACTOR, ARTIST, ASTRONAUT, WRITER OR EL PRESIDENTE?
FEELING BLOCKED?
DISILLUSIONED?
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
THE PROVIDENCE EXPERIMENTS HAVE ARRIVED.

“Providence is always on the side of the last reserve” Napoleon Bonaparte

WHAT ARE THE PROVIDENCE EXPERIMENTS?

The Providence Experiments are a unique series of workshops and events that fuse experimentation, visualisation, ritual, psychological intervention and immersive game. Test subjects will be thrust into bizarre events that offer the willing participant the opportunity to undergo a challenging yet positive artistic transformation.

Over one lunar calendar month, you will receive spontaneous transmissions, puzzles, choices and oddities that may pervade any and every part of your life. Prepare your mind for anything.

This experience will be designed specifically for YOU. Perception of self and reality will constantly be challenged. We will initiate you into in a unique journey where you are the hero or villain in your own story.

The aim of the Providence Experiments is to unleash your subconscious creative potential while offering an amazing, unprecedented experience unlike anything you’ve likely participated in before.

The Providence Experiments will consist of one set session per week in Central London over five weeks, starting Friday 5th November. Specialised directions to each venue will be transmitted 5 days before each session.

Warning: The Providence Experiments will not be confined to the five stated sessions. Active engagement and full participation is vital and absolutely necessary.

WHO CREATES THE PROVIDENCE EXPERIMENTS?

YOU and your subconscious will be the true playing ground for the game. However, this experience will be facilitated by FoolishPeople, a group that create immersive occult events using their developed practice Theatre of Manifestation. They will be aided with media and profiling consultation provided by Mythos Media, a team assembled to create modern myths.

HOW DO I SIGN UP?

Prospective applicants must e-mail providence(at)weaponized.net immediately. Do it now: the number of places are extremely limited. If you receive an application form, you are lucky enough to have passed Phase I and are on your way to taking your place within Test Bed One.

DATES

Friday November 5th
Sunday November 14th
Sunday November 21st
Friday November 26th
Sunday December 5th

BOOKING PRICE:

Early booking discount: £150 (£30 per week) Available until 17th October Standard booking: £200 (£40 per week) Available from 18th October

foolishpeople.org
weaponized.net
modernmythology.net

Necrofuturist Episode X – March of the Six Legged Terrans

Tonight at 8pm GMT on Radio Nightbreed on Praysilence.org.

Necrofuturist Transmission, P. Emerson Williams show on Radio Nightbreed debuts on Sirius/XM radio this week! The station will continue to stream free from Pray Silence/The Church of Nightbreed and iTunes, even as you have the added convenience of Sirius radio which you can take with you evrywhere you go.

In this edition I bring you: 

William S. Burroughs – "Dinosaurs" 

siiiii – Castrato (Live) 

Dreamtime – Black Fire 

Scott Walker – Tilt 

Ankst – Pearls Before Swine (Reverb Nation fan exclusive) 

Cockatoo – Stupid Poppy 

SLEEPCHAMBER – Dreamspell 

Lydia Lunch - "What it is" 

Judgehydrogen – Silent Crypt 

KASMs – Mackerel Sky 

S.C.U.M – Second Sea 

Niceville – Christ in a Vessel

Necrofuturist Archives are on Alterati.com

P. Emerson Williams is a Great Prince of Hell, commands twenty-six legions of demons (twenty-five according to other authors), and teaches astronomy and the knowledge of poisonous plants, herbs and precious stones. He is also known as Fluffy and Mimzy. He is depicted as either being a crowned owl with long legs, a raven, or a man. Or a scary monster. Expose yourself to the Necrofuturist Transmission at your own risk, for the legions of Fluffy Necrofuturists will burrow in the minds of those of weak moral fibre and infect their souls with that infernal (yet informal) darkness.

In his last years, Williams dwelt in Damask silk, where the Gothronomicon (O Az-If) was written. In art, in the Dictionnaire Infernal, P. Emerson Williams is depicted as a nude man with dragon-like wings, hands and feet, a second pair of feathered wings after the main, wearing a crown, holding a serpent in one hand, and riding a wolf or dog.

In this show:

Willow Wisp – The Oldest Joke in the Book
Experiment Haywire – Occult Casualty (Ball Mix)
SLEEPCHAMBER – Ultraviolence
Nightporter – The Monster
Bob Avakian – Ex Corpus
Weep – Shut Up and Drive
Requiem In White – Acanthus
Experiment Haywire – Dark Discordia
Lady Parasyte – Playing Parasite
Sleep Chamber – Unreleased track from the forthcoming expanded rerelease of Satanic Sanction

Listen to or download show @alterati.com

FoolishPeople WeaponizedCast - Episode One: Love

Update:

WeaponizedCast is now a new Alterati podcast series. 

FoolishPeople are proud to call Alterati.com home for this new series. new episodes shall appear monthly.

WeaponizedCast is brought to you by FoolishPeople. John Harrigan is writer, dramatic catalyst and performer alongside Lucy Allin and the rest of the FoolishPeople cast. Atmosphere, electronic voice phenomena and the occasional character sketch are provided by P. Emerson Williams. The scope of the WeaponizedCast ranges from darkly humorous vignettes to claustrophobic occult horror. From monologues to full on audio theatre.

FoolishPeople.Weaponized.Cast001

Dedicated to the ability and courage to live completely open, our most sensitive parts exposed. Confessions told in the midst of a crowd, desire writ large, and even regret is savoured as the flavour of life itself. FoolishPeople bring you our inaugural podcast episode. We stand uncovered in sound and art, beginning with the theme central to all human potentiality: Love.

FoolishPeople present 'A Red Threatening Sky' 

11th – 20th February 2010 7:30pm, 8.30pm & 9.30pm 

Tickets: ClubAethereus.com 07597576075 

The Old Abattoir, 187-211 St. John’s St, Clerkenwell, London. EC1V 4LS

The Crying Human Christmas Tree

In an extraordinary art performance, taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, artist Mark McGowan is to stand dressed as a christmas tree for an amazing 72 hours, he will also be attempting to cry continuously. Tears and sobbing will be seen and heard from the incredible human Christmas tree on the Rua Do Poco Dos Negros, starting at 10am on Friday 19th December 2008 and continuing through out the last weekend before Christmas. 

The performance is an attempt to highlight lonliness at Christmas, when lots of people instead of being happy are sad, due to circumstances. 

McGowan says, 

"Hopefully this art performance or sculpture will carry a message to the people of Lisbon and Portugal who are lucky enough to have their families and friends around them at Christmas, that there are some people who are less fortunate and maybe we could extend our goodwill to them as they find the holiday season quite painful and sad. It is particularly moving that this event should take place in Rua do Poço dos Negros, surely a horrible area to be in during the 15th century, when King D. Manuel I decided to built a well where dead black slaves were to be buried in piles. Its going to be very very difficult to keep crying continuously for 72 hours dressed as a Christmas tree."

(How about the radical idea of spending those 72 hours doing something that actually benefits someone, like helping out at a homeless shelter or donating the money spent on this project to a homeless charity. How can anyone take a sobbing christmas tree as anything other than a fucking joke, that in no way represents the suffering of Christmas - JH)