FoolishPeople

From The Ministry #11

Listless, bored and unnaccountably discomfited? You could be suffering from Novelty Comedown. Check with your physician immediately! #ministryofinformation

 

From the Ministry #10

Do you know where YOUR children are tonight? #ministryofinformation

 

The Virulence of Plastic

De Fren investigated technosexual culture armed with a curiosity so strong it overpowered any urge to hold her subjects accountable for the strong undercurrent of misogyny running through their desire to make love to an inanimate object, an unreal, stylized woman doll that behaves according to the whim of its owner. She explains that, although she had a "Spock-like curiosity" to learn about her subjects, that isn't to say that "there weren't some people I interviewed who put me off, but I am one of those people who likes to shine lights into dark corners and see what's squirming around."

 

 ...using gloriously bizarre Sims animation, the many supposed surgeries that 21-year-old Ukrainian model, musician, and astroplanner Valeria Lukyanova has undergone to turn herself into a living, breathing Barbie. Lukyanova has described herself as "the most famous Russian woman on the Russian-speaking internet," and though some have pointed out the possibility that Lukyanova's self-portraits might be heavily photoshopped, this much is certain: Sims avatars are the stuff of nightmares.

 

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

 

Weaponized Episode 11 – The Sparky Show

METAPHYSICS AND MECHANICS IN THE NUDE, WITH SEX AND DRUGS!

 

The Sparky Show read by author Xanadu Xero in an exploding dossier of words and photography of a doomed and perfect relationship, retrofitted with psilocybin. A report from the trenches of love post culture, mid-life, reminiscent in its gonzo style and ‘take no prisoners’ attitude to Hunter S. Thompson. Not your average empty-nest Beverly Hills Mom.

Published By WEAPONIZED

Soundtrack by Choronzon

Weaponized 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 Weaponized ranges from darkly humorous vignettes to claustrophobic occult horror. From monologues to full on audio theatre.

FoolishPeople have produced work in prestigious cultural venues such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Arcola Theatre and the Horse Hospital, historical buildings like the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, internationally to America and Amsterdam and worked for clients such as the BBC. The FoolishPeople core collective features artists from England, Czech Republic, Sweden & America, and they also collaborate with many artists worldwide who specialise in a broad range of media.

Listen to or download show @alterati.com

Fragments Of The Erotomachia

In the beginning all memories are given to us. For example, the scalpel cutting through fat and muscle to breech the chalice whereupon practiced hands would rend me from it lifting my pink squealing body into freedom. Lifeblood against white sheets a perfect metaphor for the great blizzard of seventy-eight reigning over the frozen world held within its white silence; affecting a world at end. Such was the omen of my birth.

Shortly afterward I am told of a scene inside a department store. A celebrity of witchcraft hailing from the Salem area tells my mother I'm absolutely beautiful and asks if she may hold me. While in her arms she blesses me, assuring my mother I am a special child. All accounts do indeed find me a perfect child; helpful, curious, smiling, well mannered, and thus continues my mother's narrative until round about my eleventh or twelfth year when she discovers I have been chasing after an authentic witchcraft.

By now you should know, as I learned, that the legends you've heard of an old time white witchcraft religion in Europe are false. Most of those calling themselves witches today, who, wishing to tie themselves to an ancient tradition of witchcraft won't ever admit it, but the only tradition there to draw on is the Devil's work.  Each in their own way pays a price for their refusal to give the Devil his due. Anyone who has spent time among the anemic traditions of neo-paganism knows this is true, and will nod inwardly even as their trained tongues perform a litany of baseless protestations.

I bring this up because whoever's name she may have evoked in her blessing or even if it was a clichéd "bright blessings", I know full well whose bright light she blessed with. No matter what name she called on, or what she imagined she was doing, it was Old Scratch. This in itself may be something of a misnomer, perhaps purely the result of an Irish Catholic upbringing. Still it is undeniable that for some time the dominant mask worn by and at the heart of magic's great mystery has been that of the devil. How else do you explain a bit character becoming an equal to god? Become a symbol both tormenter and sympathetic cosmic rebel; a muse to great minds and artists. All this, though mostly digression, is a necessary aside to paint the atmosphere presiding over that moment where my narrative diverges from my mother's and whereupon memories become something seized and shaped rather than something given in full and fixed forms.

The Devil visited me late one night some years after the witch blessed me, careful not to wake this sleeping babe, he left by my side an illustrated children's bible. The bible was by most accounts normal, saving two details. The first was the tale of Job. Here the tale was altered slightly so that the primary message is of a Satan revealing to creation the monstrous nature of a God who is only too willing to crush utterly one of his most faithful believers and all to win an argument on which there was nothing at stake. The second was a chapter which can be found in neither biblical canon nor published apocrypha. Almost all the contents of this chapter are lost to my mind now but what I do recall is one of the accompanying illustrations: Lucifer and a host of Angels riding as a band of brothers on the backs of fiery steeds over the clouds and through the gates of paradise. Whether they were entering or leaving or whether there was ultimately a difference for that band was unclear, but it was glorious.

This chapter in particular caused a bit of a stir at the Catholic School I attended. We had religious instruction every day of course, but once a week it was under the tutelage of a parish priest. Shortly before my devil's annotated bible had shown up a priest new to the diocese took over our weekly instruction. Shortly after, he asked a question, or perhaps made a fishing sort of comment that prompted me to speak with an assumed authority born from the certainty that a priest would be familiar with every passage extant in my bible. One would think my line of questioning would set off alarms, and surely it seemed to vex the good Sister, but the young priest only ever encouraged my words and eventually entreated me to bring him my bible that he might see the illustration of which I so often spoke. Perhaps unsurprisingly when I went to fetch it that night the book had vanished. This however only seemed to excite the priest, who called my mother to suggest that I may be called to the vocation of the priesthood.

The good father departed shortly thereafter. On the day he was to leave he came by the classroom to give me a key to a small abandoned chapel in a quiet corner of the school. Excusing myself to go to the bathroom the next afternoon I found my way there. Behind the locked wooden door was a large stone chair. To a child as young as I was it was practically a love seat. Along its walls were damaged and shrouded statues carved in a cool grey stone depicting saints I had never before seen and whose names I am oath bound not to repeat. But who I swore that oath to, that is the real crux of this tale!

For this history the natural chronological progression coincides with the entrance of women who served as divine anima, heralding a stage in my development as both young man and black magician. This first flicker of consciousness then was the Goddess called Meredith.  The day I first saw her is in many ways the most vivid of the days marked in my memory as belonging to her. In truth I must have seen her before that day as she had been a classmate the year before as well.  But that morning beneath the cold crisscrossed shadows of the church and school building she seemed something new.  Lined up by the Sisters into rows for attendance she looked back over her shoulder in such a way that even though I knew she was not really looking at me I felt trapped in her gaze. She was so alive in that instant that the sun, obscured by human edifice and thick rolling clouds, found a way to dance in her eyes. She seemed the only warm thing in the world, a last flame to keep the soul safe from frostbite.

The next several weeks saw me consumed by her topography. Her habits, mannerisms, friends, and yes even the contours of her hidden flesh were my fascination. Reasonably I was too young for such things, or just, the reasons have always been lost, but how I longed to adore her with seeking hands and questing lips.  It was an education in persistence and a challenge with which to pass the drudgery of days; a month full of unreturned smiles, and of finding reasons to stand close to her.  By the close of that month the classroom was all a flutter with gossip of my increasing brashness.  The good Sister looked on nervously at the way my gaze lingered longer than it had a right to, but my baby fat not yet gone provided my intent a cherubic mask with which to disguise itself, and so I skated a thin line.  Meredith spurned me at every turn. She would not even lower herself to give words to her repudiations; all she had to say was said with disapproving green eyes. Or at least this was the case when other eyes were upon us.  There were times where she would smile in secret to me, and so I came to understand she enjoyed my chase even if it was just a game to her.

That game stopped midway through the first week of the next month.  What I had learned in the previous month was to be grateful for her silence. Her tongue was sharp and she had a love of carving with it. One day one of our classmates said something to her, a petty barb in an inconsequential and ultimately forgettable squabble.  My own tongue, a hungry predator sensing its quarry by instinct, proved quicker than Meredith’s.  She laughed at my jab, salting their wound with her approval.  From that day forward she invited me and my friends to take lunch with her and hers.  She never ate anything aside from blood oranges, plain yogurt, and whole milk.  On days I made the table roar at dispersions cast against the nuns she would feed me a bite of sweet juicy pulp dipped in the tart yogurt.  Such a day was the one on which the teacher sent us to the front office on an errand where in the quiet of deserted halls I confided in her and produced from my pocket the priest’s black iron key.  She of course demanded I show her the chapel at once.

We made every excuse to sneak away to that hidden place. Though to be honest it was not as if excuses were hard to come by. The chapel seemed to want us there and arranged it to be so. All these years later I would still swear that we were able to pass weeks together inside the chapel while only minutes passed in that other church.  Outside the chapel we were a terror taking delight in harsh games we invented. Hidden away in the chapel, however,  is where I came to know Meredith best. The recollection of her on the chapel throne is where my mind’s eye sees her loveliness most clearly: raven hair, olive skin, and catholic school dress. For me she is French, the language more than culture or country, and this is why, when I speak of it, it is always La Loge Noir, never The Black Lodge. She was arrogance, full lips dressing a scornful gaze. The way she moved betrayed no weakness. She loved to torment. We shared each other as a secret. How great a joy is a cruel woman who wishes only to be kind to you!

On the day I swore my oath to her she asked me what I thought about when I looked at her.  With fumbling and imperfect words I spoke of curiosity and thirst.  She took my hand in hers and sat me beside her on the throne. She told me I was different from the other boys. She told me she would never forsake me, and always call me friend in front of others, but also why what would come next must remain secret. I didn’t care.  I had no need for the world to know, to pass the time with her was all I cared for. The rest of the world could burn. Still holding my hand she called me her boyfriend, whispering the word against my flushed cheek. It was then that we heard the stone saints for the first time. Marble lips whispering through aeons of a hunger.  These Saints of the Pit encouraged us, told us where to look and what to touch. We were imperfect students, balking at much of what was said.

We did not kiss. Indeed our lips never met, though curious mouths did taste.  Mostly necks, shoulders and collar bone.  Much more like eating than kissing; small teeth tugging, tongues pressed flat against exposed and salted skin.  Her hand stopped mine when it rose halfway up her thigh taking most of her pleated skirt with it. Where she stopped it she also urged me to squeeze the finely formed muscle of her leg and to feel the friction of our skin. It was the first time I ever felt strong.  Ultimately it was simply the stuff of curious children awakening to the fullness of experience and desire. Nothing more debauched than the games of house and doctor played the world over. But buried beneath it was the stirring of two devils recognizing each other, trying to forget their timidity, if only for a moment’s indiscretion.  Like the day when during a film, under cover of a darkened classroom, and beneath the trapezoidal desk she took my hand and placed it on her bare knee; the good Sister just a few feet from us.  How easy it is to imagine those things I dreamt of doing to her and half whispered hints of what she might do to me would have shamed the devil. For what we did share, in occult places, in stolen moments, and sometimes beneath the nun-teacher's noses The Devil blessed and favored us; such was our wickedness.  

 

 

 

 

The Little Black Gallery

The Little Black Gallery is a photography gallery that was set up by Tamara Beckwith, Lindsey Carlos Clarke and Ghislain Pascal in November 2008.

From the 14th April until the 5th of June this year their Bob Carlos Clarke retrospective, Full Throttle, caused controversy amongst The Little Black Gallery's neighbours with the display of pieces such as Tite Street (below).

1990 (c) The Estate of Bob Carlos Clarke

This exhibition of one of my favourite photographers may be over, but the gallery is also home to the Bob Carlos Clarke Foundation and has a permanent room of work by the legendary photographer - so make sure you visit, or at the very least, keep track of upcoming shows here.

For Immediate Release: FoolishPeople announce Weaponized Imprint

 

For Immediate Release: London, May 26th 2010 

Today, FoolishPeople announced the creation of Weaponized, an imprint that extends the immersive art of FoolishPeople into the realm of publishing. 

“FoolishPeople have a long and strong history in collaborative ventures using open source practices, we plan on using all of our unique skills in the creation of a publishing venture like no other,” said John Harrigan, FoolishPeople's artistic director. “Our mission beyond our own creations and collaborations is to seek out and disseminate experimental forms of fiction, prose and art that offer new ways to experience stories and myths. We’re passionately committed to finding unique narrative hybrids that engage, inform, challenge and inspire our readers.”

Books released under the Weaponized imprint will be supported through additional content and media produced by FoolishPeople in the form of musical releases, podcasts, films, and live events that expand the stories that our authors create.

Weaponized launches in the UK and US in July 2010.

LAUNCH TITLES:

Cirxus by John Harrigan

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. Step into the world of Cirxus, explore its sideshows and meet extraordinary characters from the past and future.

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.

Immerse yourself in the world of Cirxus, where theatric arcana and atomic fallout irradiate the sawdust arenas of our inner worlds.

Cirxus is the first work to be published from FoolishPeople's back catalogue and is the first script of an immersive theatrical event to be published in the world. Cirxus defies genre and form and offers a literary experience like no other. A combination of hallucinogenic novel and blueprint to a physical experience. Each copy includes concept art and an original score composed and performed by P. Emerson Williams, alongside additional content from the first run of Cirxus at the Arcola theatre in 2009. 

The Sparky Show by Xanadu Xero

Meta-physics and mechanics in the nude, with sex and drugs. An exploding dossier of words and photography of a doomed and perfect relationship, retrofitted with psilocybin. Love is a gun. Shove it up the crack of the Multiverse, demand what you want.

Xandu Xero is unable to understand the desire of the female species for romance over sensation.

A report from the trenches of love post culture, mid-life. Not your average empty-nest Mom.

There is no moving on. 

Forum by Richard Webb 

Richard Webb presents a spectral image of our culture and collective psyche via the reflective portal of an internet football forum. Documenting the exchanges between visitors of the site in 2001, this chronological record of a publicly anonymous debate on a sports website explores ideas of moral panic, vigilantism, moral projection and vendetta.

Webb's objective role in simply compiling and re-presenting the correspondence instigates debate on the value and status of ideas one may not agree with, whilst serving to mirror cultural discourse surrounding emotive subjects. 

Dead Language by John Harrigan

Platoons of the latest replicas of Banksy roam the landscape, led by General Clone Banksy, a talentless nobody who once found a sample of Banksy DNA on an empty spray can. 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. Artists have realised that their own identity is the only thing they can own or control to spread their infamy, they recruit fans to become copies of themselves: FLESH-WORTH is all that matters.

One final piece of uncorrupted art remains, yet to be copied: a living story told by Neonate Muses and exploited by Mr Shine, the bastard child of the apocalypse.

Read Dead Language and watch the world die or don't and help it do so, CULTURE CORPSE walking. Arm yourselves with weaponised art to explore the notions of open-source myth. What are intellectual rights in a decomposing culture?
 
Featuring full archival material from FoolishPeople's performance run of Dead Language at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2007. 

The Book of Hate by John Harrigan and P. Emerson Williams

The code to a soul. Cracked and deciphered. A combination of Harrigan’s highly experimental, stream of consciousness prose and P. Emerson Williams hallucinatory art. Explorers at the outer edges of art. Together, their expedition reaches new vistas of strange, as they voyage together through transcendental neurosis, over a surface of nightmare imaginings. Beyond the internal, beyond the dream, beyond heaven and hell to the other side of human.

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

ABOUT FOOLISHPEOPLE
FoolishPeople's working practice, Theatre of Manifestation combines mythology, shamanism, drama therapy and open source collaboration to create immersive experiences that have the power to raise a numinous experience within the audience. It dismantles the notion of the spectator being a passive recipient of a theatrical experience; active engagement and participation is vital and absolutely necessary.

FoolishPeople have produced original work in London, USA, Amsterdam and Prague at venues including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Arcola Theatre and the Horse Hospital. Our core collective features five artists from England, America and the Czech Republic, which grows when we undertake new collaborations with worldwide artists in the development of our open source projects. 

WEAPONIZED
The Weaponized management team consists of P. Emerson Williams, Lucy Harrigan and John Harrigan.

For further information please visit www.foolishpeople.org or email [email protected]

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Terra Incognita - Tickets now available..

1.   An unknown land; an unexplored region: A vast and final Terra Incognita left to Intraterrestrial explorers.

2.   A new or unexplored field of knowledge. ‘Terra Incognita’ a colossal Meta-Event whose landscape is inhabited by every unimaginable creature of art, beauty and horror.

DJ’s, Art Space, Films, Live Bands, Weaponised Theatre, Butoh, Belly and Burlesque Dance. The Holy Body Mod chamber.

Hosted by FoolishPeople at the 491 Gallery, 24th of March 2007 8pm to 7am.

Tickets available ONLINE NOW! Buy Here.

The end of time.
The death of culture.

FoolishPeople’s open source myth ‘Terra Incognita’ celebrates 2012 and the end of the Mayan Calender early, by holding a mirror to our anti-future, so we can party like it’s the end of our world and the begining of something much better...