Deadwax Inscriptions by Merl Fluin
Released by Head Louse Press
Limited edition of 100 numbered paper copies in hand-decorated sleeves, privately circulated
Friday, December 27, 2013
Thursday, December 05, 2013
Friday, November 08, 2013
A Game of Definitions
POLITICS
the sound made by a melting plastic bag as it hits cold water
CALUMNY
a sound heard in an unlit stairwell
DOORWAY
a place where criminals are hanged at a crossroads
BLUNDER
a series of poles
GARDEN SHED
the place where cats live
TEST MATCH
a type of cuisine using coconut milk & dog hair
SPACE STATION
a sort of mountain peak
FOXES
the explosive meeting of two hands and a tiny metal casket
PHENOMENON
opening up a vessel to allow sounds to vibrate
PEANUT
a 3-legged stool for milking sheep
SPARKLING
a Swiss finishing school for young ladies
ZITHER
someone who lies to fool a group of people
TEA CUP
invisible objects
ANTI-MATTER
a small silver eyeball (as if for a cat)
the sound made by a melting plastic bag as it hits cold water
CALUMNY
a sound heard in an unlit stairwell
DOORWAY
a place where criminals are hanged at a crossroads
BLUNDER
a series of poles
GARDEN SHED
the place where cats live
TEST MATCH
a type of cuisine using coconut milk & dog hair
SPACE STATION
a sort of mountain peak
FOXES
the explosive meeting of two hands and a tiny metal casket
PHENOMENON
opening up a vessel to allow sounds to vibrate
PEANUT
a 3-legged stool for milking sheep
SPARKLING
a Swiss finishing school for young ladies
ZITHER
someone who lies to fool a group of people
TEA CUP
invisible objects
ANTI-MATTER
a small silver eyeball (as if for a cat)
SLAG/Recordists mishmashmosh-up:
Josie, Merl, Patrick, Paul C, Paul D, Sherri, William
London, 7 November 2013
Thursday, November 07, 2013
13 FLOWERS: an exhibition by John Welson
Temple Street
Llandrindod Wells
Powys LD1 5DL
21 November – 14 December
Tuesday – Friday 10am – 4pm
Saturday 10am – 1pm
See also John Welson's website
Friday, October 25, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Return to the Red Planet
From 13-19 July 2013, SLAG hosted an exhibition, Mysteries of the Red Planet, with more than 170 works on display, including many collective pieces by members of SLAG, some individual pieces, and a table in the middle for visitors to make their own contributions to the show. On the Tuesday evening of the exhibition we also hosted a Surrealist games night and performed a poetry reading. The first day of the exhibition was slow off the ground: heat and transport failures across London made it impossible to get to (or at least something of a pilgrimage); general exhaustion on the part of the contributors; misgivings about the Surrealist games night and poetry reading that was to take place; social anxiety for at least a few members; the distance many had to travel due to the remote location.
But as the show went on the obstructions diminished: the trains worked again; the stone building gave us respite from the heat; our energies returned; and while the distance did not lessen, if the location had been more central, we would never have been able to afford it, and there would have been no exhibition at all (the show, like all our activity, was entirely self-funded and anti-commercial, with no sponsorship and no works for sale). Our exhaustion turned into excitement as people wandered in with questions and contributions, and tongues fell onto the floor. The room, wall-to-wall with collective and individual pieces, including an entire ‘dado rail’ of exquisite corpses, felt overwhelming, and demonstrated the inexhaustible creativity of collective games. We had made a decision to retain individual anonymity, and therefore no names were attached to any of the works; there remains disagreement in the group as to whether this was a successful experiment, or whether the lack of information about the show’s contributors and organisers was frustrating.
The visitors of the show responded in various ways: curiosity, questioning, offerings of their own art, offence (one visitor claimed there were too many vaginas). As well as a lot of jolly conversations and the joy of making collective works with total strangers, there were also some genuinely magical encounters, and new contacts made, alongside interactions of a less jolly kind that were boring or pointless or merely fleeting. The misgiving that the table for visitors to create their own works would be seen as a craft workshop was allayed on several occasions by surprising and stunning contributions, and the interactions between the visitors and members of SLAG. There were visits from our Surrealist friends in Sweden and Canada, who were very positive about the show, and many welcome congratulations were received from our friends elsewhere across the globe.
The games night surprised us all in how well it worked; curiosity, intrigue, participation, laughter; and but for the odd unsurprising expression of artistic aspirations, which were re-contextualised by the involuntary patterns of the games, there were many wonderful creations, some of which were added to the exhibition, if visual, and others to the blog later. The potentially pedestrian, sometimes anxious nature of some of the individual guests’ contributions was transformed by the collective context. Individual responses to found objects, when collated, became something that was more than the sum of its parts (link to Groom). We concerned ourselves afterwards with whether the tension between a desire to scare the visitors in the performance and yet simultaneously encourage their participation had detracted from the success of the evening. We agreed that this evening could have been improved upon by separating out the ‘games night’ and the ‘poetry reading night’ (which was the initial intention, but they were combined owing to the problems on the first day).
Our own experience of the show was of initial exhaustion and some terror, but in the end of intense enjoyment and energisation. The process of sitting down together and choosing which collective works to exhibit had the effect of enabling us to digest our own history, and to consolidate a sense of the group’s trajectory, which was especially important at that moment, when we had recently been joined by several new members. The intensive collective effort as the time to exhibit drew nearer invigorated the group at a collective level.
Exhibition: Pictures from a Jade Palace (and Other Stories) – NEW DATES ANNOUNCED
An exhibition of collages by Wedgwood Steventon
Private view: Friday 25 October, 7 – 10pm
Exhibition until Sunday 3 November
Nile Street Studio
Burslem
Stoke-on-Trent
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Now! Voyager
During a discussion of Voyager's departure from our solar system Paul misread a phrase from a press cutting he had found some days earlier. (The cutting was a 1974 wine review from The Times, with details of a recording of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust on the reverse). The misread phrase seemed directly relevant to the voyage into the beyond so we played the Game of Opposites with it.
Marsala Virgin which is made by the solar system
Scotch whore which is annihilated by the lunar chaos
English saint is resurrected by solar eclipse
Martian sinner was buried by dark enlightenment
Venus piousess will be elevated as sunrise blooms
Adonis desecrator will detumesce in the decaying sunset
Vile torn droppings burn within an atomic bomb
Sweet wholefoods freeze around a macrocosmic implosion
AMER snacks washed away after the ant's sneeze
Douce gorges condensed before the aphid's inhalation
Standing and expanding and will explode with everlasting suffocation.
Marsala Virgin which is made by the solar system
Scotch whore which is annihilated by the lunar chaos
English saint is resurrected by solar eclipse
Martian sinner was buried by dark enlightenment
Venus piousess will be elevated as sunrise blooms
Adonis desecrator will detumesce in the decaying sunset
Vile torn droppings burn within an atomic bomb
Sweet wholefoods freeze around a macrocosmic implosion
AMER snacks washed away after the ant's sneeze
Douce gorges condensed before the aphid's inhalation
Standing and expanding and will explode with everlasting suffocation.
Jonah, Merl, Patrick, Paul, Sandra
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Collective poem
Smiling baboons are greeting each other coldly and politely.
Swiss smart pants are impossible to live with.
My friends, who are all dead, are blazing in the obscurity of strangers.
400 warriors are foraging for lost beetles.
Jars of apricot jam are hanging by their hair from the trees.
A gathering of horses are really quite pretty.
Milky stars are giggling furiously.
A collection of disjointed limbs are my best friends; ok, you too.
The outer edges of the universe are pink and busy shaving.
A holy swirl of jackanapes are of enormous vorage.
Dead or alive, all inhabitants are away on a tantrum.
A pile of fake banknotes are eating my brain.
Sleepy horses are changing the subject, constantly.
Ferocious leaves are in the middle of the swamp.
Entangled limbs are kissing violets in the garden.
Spinning apes are in a hurry for dumplings.
Surrealists are not present; who knows if still alive?
The biting fish are amongst the stones.
Drunk tennis players are squealing like fish.
All the snails on the seashore are hiding on the balcony.
My regiment are asleep on sofas.
A hundred silver fishes are awash.
A secret gathering of roaches are immaculate in their self-presentation.
Discontented spirits are inevitable.
Seventeen angry camels are forgetting how to speak.
Swiss smart pants are impossible to live with.
My friends, who are all dead, are blazing in the obscurity of strangers.
400 warriors are foraging for lost beetles.
Jars of apricot jam are hanging by their hair from the trees.
A gathering of horses are really quite pretty.
Milky stars are giggling furiously.
A collection of disjointed limbs are my best friends; ok, you too.
The outer edges of the universe are pink and busy shaving.
A holy swirl of jackanapes are of enormous vorage.
Dead or alive, all inhabitants are away on a tantrum.
A pile of fake banknotes are eating my brain.
Sleepy horses are changing the subject, constantly.
Ferocious leaves are in the middle of the swamp.
Entangled limbs are kissing violets in the garden.
Spinning apes are in a hurry for dumplings.
Surrealists are not present; who knows if still alive?
The biting fish are amongst the stones.
Drunk tennis players are squealing like fish.
All the snails on the seashore are hiding on the balcony.
My regiment are asleep on sofas.
A hundred silver fishes are awash.
A secret gathering of roaches are immaculate in their self-presentation.
Discontented spirits are inevitable.
Seventeen angry camels are forgetting how to speak.
Josie, Mattias, Merl, Patrick, Paul, Sandra
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Mysteries of the Red Planet: Pareidolia Game
After an afternoon of experiments with milk and food dye during our private view, we were left with a red-stained biscuit tin lid.
We stuck the lid to the gallery wall, and it became the basis of a new game that we played with our visitors throughout the rest of the week.
PAREIDOLIA GAME: WHAT CAN YOU SEE IN THE TIN LID?
Mr Punch giving birth to his own face while eating a strawberry.
A brain.
Skeleton.
What was left behind after lifting up the bag of strawberries.
A silhouette of Darwin with a ram's head coming out of the back of it.
Bubble worm!
Paint.
Intestines.
I'm not sure?
3 children, one with a sausage for a head.
A skull/a castle with a long pink corridor.
Period blood.
Guilty conscience.
Oil on water.
A cat's face with an enormous wig.
Africa.
Those angry Cs of piranha curves, that fit and yet desist, the warring of the same, the wave of bloody mist.
A portrait of Sade:
We stuck the lid to the gallery wall, and it became the basis of a new game that we played with our visitors throughout the rest of the week.
PAREIDOLIA GAME: WHAT CAN YOU SEE IN THE TIN LID?
Mr Punch giving birth to his own face while eating a strawberry.
A brain.
Skeleton.
What was left behind after lifting up the bag of strawberries.
A silhouette of Darwin with a ram's head coming out of the back of it.
Bubble worm!
Paint.
Intestines.
I'm not sure?
3 children, one with a sausage for a head.
A skull/a castle with a long pink corridor.
Period blood.
Guilty conscience.
Oil on water.
A cat's face with an enormous wig.
Africa.
Those angry Cs of piranha curves, that fit and yet desist, the warring of the same, the wave of bloody mist.
A portrait of Sade:
Friday, July 19, 2013
Mysteries of the Red Planet: This is Not for You
The following text is being distributed to visitors to our current exhibition, Mysteries of the Red Planet.
THIS IS NOT AN ART SHOW, AND WE DIDN’T MAKE IT FOR YOU. The images and objects on display are the results of some of our recent experiments in automatism, trance-work and mediumistic communication. Some of them were made with the help of a planchette, a small board mounted on rollers and fitted with a pen or pencil that works on the same principle as a Ouija board. Many others are the results of ‘exquisite corpse’, a Surrealist game in which each player makes part of a drawing, hides it by folding the paper, and then passes it on for the next player to continue the drawing without seeing what’s already on the page. Still others were produced in states of trance, delirium or automatism, either collectively by the whole group, or by individual members working alone. Above all, they are not artworks, and we are not artists. We haven’t put these things into an exhibition for you to contemplate and admire. We’re presenting them here as evidence from our explorations of the unknown – of the other worlds to which Surrealism seeks access.
For some visitors, what they see here might not be what they had expected. The word ‘Surrealism’ often gets hijacked as a kind of brand name for particular styles of art, especially fantasy art. We have no interest in that kind of material. Genuine Surrealism, as it has been practised by the international Surrealist movement from the 1920s to the present day, is not about a particular aesthetic style or content. It’s a desperate, furious attempt to reinvent the whole world simultaneously: both the inner world of the psyche, and the outer world of society and history. In the words of the Second Surrealist Manifesto (1930):
People’s most burning inner desires – for freedom, love, pleasure, life – seem to be forever in conflict with the outer demands of reality – law, work, basic survival. The goal of Surrealism is to overcome that conflict, not by handing victory to one side or the other, but by transforming both. By deliberately bringing the inner and outer worlds into collision, smashing them into each other with great energy at high speed, we aim to bring about a kind of nuclear fusion through which new worlds will be created.
The best and only tool we can use to do this is the imagination, because only our imagination can point us away from the world as it is towards the possibilities for the world as it can be (as it must be, since it’s becoming increasingly obvious that humanity simply can’t go on like this). And since the creation of this new world requires the transformation of the individual psyche as well as of external society, Surrealists place an especially heavy emphasis on the collective imagination as a way of opening up our own minds to other possibilities too. A Surrealist group is a kind of laboratory for experimenting with other realities.
Delirium, trance and automatism are some of the most effective methods we know for unleashing the imagination and smashing the inner and outer worlds together, and they’re especially powerful when they’re practised collectively. Other essential methods involve the exploration of dreams, chance and encounters with magical objects, and as a group we use those too, although we have not emphasised them so strongly here. All of these methods are both easier and harder to use than they sound: they require that mixture of seriousness and frivolity, discipline and abandonment, that is peculiar to play, and that many adults feel inhibited about entering. But in principle they are open to everybody, and during this show we want to put that principle into practice.
That’s why we are inviting you to make your own automatic works (drawing, writing or modelling), using materials we have provided or that you bring with you, and add them to the show. We’re also inviting you to join us to play Surrealist games on Tuesday evening at 7.30pm: games are an especially good way to overcome your inhibitions and get into the automatic ‘headspace’ if you have never practised automatism before, or have only done so alone rather than collectively. Above all we’re inviting you to start inventing new worlds with us. This is not an art show, and it is not for you. It’s by you.
The exhibition closes at 6pm today.
THIS IS NOT AN ART SHOW, AND WE DIDN’T MAKE IT FOR YOU. The images and objects on display are the results of some of our recent experiments in automatism, trance-work and mediumistic communication. Some of them were made with the help of a planchette, a small board mounted on rollers and fitted with a pen or pencil that works on the same principle as a Ouija board. Many others are the results of ‘exquisite corpse’, a Surrealist game in which each player makes part of a drawing, hides it by folding the paper, and then passes it on for the next player to continue the drawing without seeing what’s already on the page. Still others were produced in states of trance, delirium or automatism, either collectively by the whole group, or by individual members working alone. Above all, they are not artworks, and we are not artists. We haven’t put these things into an exhibition for you to contemplate and admire. We’re presenting them here as evidence from our explorations of the unknown – of the other worlds to which Surrealism seeks access.
For some visitors, what they see here might not be what they had expected. The word ‘Surrealism’ often gets hijacked as a kind of brand name for particular styles of art, especially fantasy art. We have no interest in that kind of material. Genuine Surrealism, as it has been practised by the international Surrealist movement from the 1920s to the present day, is not about a particular aesthetic style or content. It’s a desperate, furious attempt to reinvent the whole world simultaneously: both the inner world of the psyche, and the outer world of society and history. In the words of the Second Surrealist Manifesto (1930):
Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions. Now, search as one may one will never find any other motivating force in the activities of the Surrealists than the hope of finding and fixing this point.
People’s most burning inner desires – for freedom, love, pleasure, life – seem to be forever in conflict with the outer demands of reality – law, work, basic survival. The goal of Surrealism is to overcome that conflict, not by handing victory to one side or the other, but by transforming both. By deliberately bringing the inner and outer worlds into collision, smashing them into each other with great energy at high speed, we aim to bring about a kind of nuclear fusion through which new worlds will be created.
The best and only tool we can use to do this is the imagination, because only our imagination can point us away from the world as it is towards the possibilities for the world as it can be (as it must be, since it’s becoming increasingly obvious that humanity simply can’t go on like this). And since the creation of this new world requires the transformation of the individual psyche as well as of external society, Surrealists place an especially heavy emphasis on the collective imagination as a way of opening up our own minds to other possibilities too. A Surrealist group is a kind of laboratory for experimenting with other realities.
Delirium, trance and automatism are some of the most effective methods we know for unleashing the imagination and smashing the inner and outer worlds together, and they’re especially powerful when they’re practised collectively. Other essential methods involve the exploration of dreams, chance and encounters with magical objects, and as a group we use those too, although we have not emphasised them so strongly here. All of these methods are both easier and harder to use than they sound: they require that mixture of seriousness and frivolity, discipline and abandonment, that is peculiar to play, and that many adults feel inhibited about entering. But in principle they are open to everybody, and during this show we want to put that principle into practice.
That’s why we are inviting you to make your own automatic works (drawing, writing or modelling), using materials we have provided or that you bring with you, and add them to the show. We’re also inviting you to join us to play Surrealist games on Tuesday evening at 7.30pm: games are an especially good way to overcome your inhibitions and get into the automatic ‘headspace’ if you have never practised automatism before, or have only done so alone rather than collectively. Above all we’re inviting you to start inventing new worlds with us. This is not an art show, and it is not for you. It’s by you.
The exhibition closes at 6pm today.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Mysteries of the Red Planet: the Objects Speak
One of the games at last night's event for the Mysteries of the Red Planet exhibition resulted in a collective poem, co-written on the spot by all the exhibition visitors and then performed by SLAG as part of a poetry reading at the end of the evening.
Each visitor (and SLAG member) was given an object at the beginning of the evening and told to hold onto it. At the end of the evening, we all then wrote down the message – a sentence or phrase – our object had given us. This was the resulting poem:
This tiny mirror has told me it is a time-travelling object that allows the user to escape to their past lives
The future unknown
I am your familiar and I want to be loved, but I am too hot for comfort
Form arises largely due to the imprecisions of lines
Don’t trust a hairdresser in this margarine bake
A piece of magical hair, once buried at sea and really, really rusted …
General strike now!!
My naked soles of fangs and claws, my contagious footprints, and that’s why they kept me hanging, halfway down the well so heavy and full of sleep
The warrior from the past looks sideways and sees a future moon in the sky
By the water glue was abundant and coloured
My eyes burn like the soles of my feet
Look I’m not pretty, I’m a bit complicated and I never seem glamorous to others who don’t know what I am for. To those who know and understand what I am about – they get it! The others, the ones who don’t know, just can’t figure me out. It would be great if they thought I was at least mysterious – but mostly they just think I am junk
A palming calming hollow bleed will exit the place
This object is the last remaining piece of an ancient beast with magical properties
You are complete, and you always will be. But you are really, really filthy
How the two – tries to bike – with their chased bodywheel
My biomechanical limbs need no sustenance, but they won’t bleed without the servo
I float like a compass in the waters of the skull
A series of elements in extended and continued connection, bent, fraying, clipped and polished. Slightly filthy
As a shell of a person, mystery, friend stayed close
Bones shown on a screen, especially where the ribcage parts look like butterflies or rafters in a cathedral
The exhibition continues until Friday 19 July.
Each visitor (and SLAG member) was given an object at the beginning of the evening and told to hold onto it. At the end of the evening, we all then wrote down the message – a sentence or phrase – our object had given us. This was the resulting poem:
This tiny mirror has told me it is a time-travelling object that allows the user to escape to their past lives
The future unknown
I am your familiar and I want to be loved, but I am too hot for comfort
Form arises largely due to the imprecisions of lines
Don’t trust a hairdresser in this margarine bake
A piece of magical hair, once buried at sea and really, really rusted …
General strike now!!
My naked soles of fangs and claws, my contagious footprints, and that’s why they kept me hanging, halfway down the well so heavy and full of sleep
The warrior from the past looks sideways and sees a future moon in the sky
By the water glue was abundant and coloured
My eyes burn like the soles of my feet
Look I’m not pretty, I’m a bit complicated and I never seem glamorous to others who don’t know what I am for. To those who know and understand what I am about – they get it! The others, the ones who don’t know, just can’t figure me out. It would be great if they thought I was at least mysterious – but mostly they just think I am junk
A palming calming hollow bleed will exit the place
This object is the last remaining piece of an ancient beast with magical properties
You are complete, and you always will be. But you are really, really filthy
How the two – tries to bike – with their chased bodywheel
My biomechanical limbs need no sustenance, but they won’t bleed without the servo
I float like a compass in the waters of the skull
A series of elements in extended and continued connection, bent, fraying, clipped and polished. Slightly filthy
As a shell of a person, mystery, friend stayed close
Bones shown on a screen, especially where the ribcage parts look like butterflies or rafters in a cathedral
The exhibition continues until Friday 19 July.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Exhibition: MYSTERIES OF THE RED PLANET
MYSTERIES OF THE RED PLANET will bring together some of the results of our recent individual and collective experiments in automatism, trance work and mediumistic communication.
The exhibition will include a private view (with poetry reading) on Saturday 13 July, and an evening of Surrealist games on Tuesday 16 July. Entry is free.
Gallery Hours:
Saturday 13 July, 2-8pm
PRIVATE VIEW WITH POETRY READING
Sunday 14 July, 2-6pm
Tuesday 16 July, 4-10pm
SURREALIST GAMES start at 7.30pm
Wednesday 17 July, 4-8pm
Thursday 18 July, 2-6pm
Friday 19 July, 2-6pm
RED DOOR STUDIOS
Masterman Road
Rear of 120 High Street South
East Ham
London E6 3RW
HOW TO GET THERE:
Tube - East Ham (District line) Beckton (DLR)
Bus - 115, 101, 104, 474, 58
Driving - A13 to A117
Cycling – Jubilee Greenway to Capital Ring (Red Door Studios is at the end of the Greenway)
Map, directions, event updates and optional RSVP available on the Facebook event page.
Saturday, May 04, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
13 FLOWERS: an exhibition by John Welson
Llangadog
Dyfed SA19 9BR
Open weekends: 10am – 5pm
1 & 2 June
8 & 9 June
15 & 16 June
See also John Welson's website
Monday, April 22, 2013
Levitandum: Dream Reports
The exhibition Levitandum, by Kathleen Fox and Patrick Hourihan, opened on Saturday 13 April in Stockholm. Several British Surrealists made a trip to Stockholm for the private view and to spend time with our Swedish comrades.
First dream: Mattias, Friday 12 April:
We are sitting in a dark brown Czech restaurant in Stockholm (Krogen Soldaten Svejk on Östgötagatan) talking about internal affairs of the Surrealist group. But a drunkard has joined us, a guest from England, a very enthusiastic "hypnotherapist" with a bright blue shirt and a cowboy hat. His name is Mr Enema. He has a shitload of ideas, and he is a bit of a pain in the ass, but quite harmless. On one occasion I come back from the toilet, and find that the food has arrived. Only the meat loaf I ordered is missing. But I see this Mr Enema happily munching away on a plate of meat loaf. It makes me furious. I pick up the plate and run to the bar, screaming that "I am not particularly sensitive, but this English guy in the blue shirt that keeps harassing us, now he has gone over the limit, he started eating my food, and just because I dislike him so much, I don't want anything to do with this food whatsoever." I am just furious, I haven't thought of what kind of rectification I would demand, I am probably more prone to see the battle as lost and this is one of those days when one has to go hungry... (and I am of course not fond of meat loaf anyway, dull grey homogenised meat, who the hell is?).
Poem: written by Mattias on the morning of Saturday 13 April, on the train on the way to the private view:
As if we would have seen, in the corner of the eye,
this statue-like male body
dressed up in a winged helmet and with snakes coiled around his legs
flinging out large black discs into calm corners of the landscape
wherever foliage is perpendicular to armoury
If such discs land on horizontal surfaces they form pits
seductive doors into the abyss
the brevity of apple sauce
On the one hand, animals forming out of rock faces
On the other hand, unseen objects forming in thin air
without tendrils, right out of the bathtubs
giving rise through capillary action to droplets
sprouting arms and legs and heads
and multiplying and forming long lines
parallel like a railroad track
one strand of earth, one strand of air
a railway into a hole in the pond
an inverted castle and massive mushrooms
Mushrooms so big and so many that we see no more movement
except starting up again, the little rifts and cracks
in this marble surface resembling air,
and the little tentacles and vines slowly growing out of them
in the corner of they eye
or in the little coffin that we brought
or in the ghost-mirror I found on the fleamarket
But this slow juggling will continue regardless of whether we watch or not
very slowly wading through igneous rock
but on top of it all, at the peak of the structural triangle,
or rather at the intersecting triangles forming the waist of this invisible hourglass
apparently just levitating there
on the fossil cracks of incomprehensible movements in the air
commemorating another era's levity ball
still slowly juggling
Second dream: Patrick, night of Wednesday 17 April:
I had a dream last night in which I was trying to converse with a young woman. She was talking to me very urgently and in French. (As I cannot speak French, I would have loved to somehow record my dream version of the language.) She was extremely pretty and spoke very clearly, giving me directions to follow her closely. We walked into what appeared to be a vast library, where she started pulling down huge dusty ancient volumes and thumbing through the pages. They were full of beautifully bizarre engravings and I was horrified when she started to tear them out from the books. We went from one place to another, one moment somewhere in Paris, then in London and some unrecognisable places. I followed her onto a train carriage, where I recognised five of the passengers as dead friends of mine. I desperately wanted to speak to them, but this pretty French adventurer kept pulling me from one place and emotion to another. Suddenly we were running along the Hammersmith Bridge, at which point I suddenly 'let go' and climbed over the edge and dived into the water. I can't quite remember what happened next, but we were both in a sewer tunnel and came to a standstill. The woman faced me and proceeded to pull away her face, which had become a mask, to reveal Erik Bohman! He was falling around laughing, but I started to laugh, because he looked so comical in drag.
Third dream: Mattias, morning of Thursday 18 April:
Tonight is the big night. Members of SLAG have prepared for this for months, if not years. Several have taken up undercover identities and lives in small university towns scattered throughout the American plains, just to stay near and stay alert. And this very evening, the stars were unambiguous (was there a meteor shower?), this is it. Leaving the carefully constructed lives behind never to return, we silently take to the roads. I find a place in a car. The driver is a young woman, very serious, and an utterly poor driver (Josie?). We take the wrong turn a couple of times, but eventually we make it to the rendezvous site, a big parking lot next to a dense thicket which seems to be the beginnings of a vast forest. But we are jumpy as hell and when it seems we have arrived first, we suddenly take off to circle the little town once more, and then, when we return, someone else is there. We step out. There is a typical horror movie atmosphere which easily occurs for real in secluded spots in warmer climates on somewhat chilly nights. There is a fog, and the choir of crickets and cicadas is hesitant.
The person who is there is Michael Richardson, and he seems to be the technical expedition leader. At least he is dressed for it, he is wearing a big thick brown knitted sweater and wellingtons, and carrying a rifle on his back. And he is very well organised too, he even brought a stack of gossip magazines for the younger among us to read so as not to disturb him while he assembles the complicated trap mechanisms. They are indeed complicated designs, some kinds of tent/cage with a chaotic latticework of light metal rods. He says between his teeth: "We're gonna trap the shit out of this place."
Fourth dream: Mattias, morning of Thursday 18 April:
There is a big but solemn party in the apartment in Abrahamsberg which is the "office" of the gallery where Levitandum took place. My (dead) grandmother is standing in one corner with my parents, the rest of us are facing them. This is their big farewell party.
It becomes silent, and my brother pokes me and tells me I have to start the singing. I am confused, I can't think of any traditional farewell song whatsoever. The silence is getting disturbing, my brother starts singing, and he is mumbling so much, and can't hit the right notes, so even though I hear it's a waltz rhythm I still don't get either the lyrics or the melody. A museum guide steps in, singing the melody out loud, with some dramatic intervals to high notes. I say loudly: "Oh, so it's a Viennese waltz, why didn't you say that to start with?" and I take a few demonstrative waltz steps on the floor, but I realise I still don't remember the words. I could go on singing "Farewell, farewell," there are a number of sailor's songs which are like that, aren't there? (But thinking about it afterwards, it seems like the tune was specifically Evert Taube's Swedish "sea eagle waltz".)
A male English surrealist follows me from there (it is partly Wedgwood Steventon, partly Bill Howe), we walk from the Solna Centrum metro station and I am apparently taking him to my parents' old apartment. We are carrying a lot of bags. We are talking about the lyrics of that farewell song, and how many of the items enumerated in it will turn out to be gone now, several decades later. Oh yes, the apartment will be almost empty, a blank slate for him to move into. In fact the song also mentioned the metro, and there is certainly not going to be a metro in the apartment.
The little oak hill between the metro exit and the football stadium is bigger and steeper than it used to be. And it's raining heavily. I warn him that some parts will be very slippery, just through the combination of the incline and the amounts of water moving on the surface. We advance carefully. But along with the water, small children come darting down the slope. I mean kids of 2–3 years of age, well wrapped up in overalls, but it still looks a bit dangerous as they are rushing down at great speed, with a risk of hitting trees and boulders, or perhaps falling off some steep rock side. And it is difficult for us to continue our walk across the slope with this bombardment of children. In fact, I am standing alone and cannot see my friend any more. And when I reach the peak of the hill, I look out over a beautiful forest landscape with dramatic hills, coniferous forest and lakes (it could possibly be northern Sweden but I am guessing more British Columbia); the suburb I was expecting is all gone!
First dream: Mattias, Friday 12 April:
We are sitting in a dark brown Czech restaurant in Stockholm (Krogen Soldaten Svejk on Östgötagatan) talking about internal affairs of the Surrealist group. But a drunkard has joined us, a guest from England, a very enthusiastic "hypnotherapist" with a bright blue shirt and a cowboy hat. His name is Mr Enema. He has a shitload of ideas, and he is a bit of a pain in the ass, but quite harmless. On one occasion I come back from the toilet, and find that the food has arrived. Only the meat loaf I ordered is missing. But I see this Mr Enema happily munching away on a plate of meat loaf. It makes me furious. I pick up the plate and run to the bar, screaming that "I am not particularly sensitive, but this English guy in the blue shirt that keeps harassing us, now he has gone over the limit, he started eating my food, and just because I dislike him so much, I don't want anything to do with this food whatsoever." I am just furious, I haven't thought of what kind of rectification I would demand, I am probably more prone to see the battle as lost and this is one of those days when one has to go hungry... (and I am of course not fond of meat loaf anyway, dull grey homogenised meat, who the hell is?).
Poem: written by Mattias on the morning of Saturday 13 April, on the train on the way to the private view:
As if we would have seen, in the corner of the eye,
this statue-like male body
dressed up in a winged helmet and with snakes coiled around his legs
flinging out large black discs into calm corners of the landscape
wherever foliage is perpendicular to armoury
If such discs land on horizontal surfaces they form pits
seductive doors into the abyss
the brevity of apple sauce
On the one hand, animals forming out of rock faces
On the other hand, unseen objects forming in thin air
without tendrils, right out of the bathtubs
giving rise through capillary action to droplets
sprouting arms and legs and heads
and multiplying and forming long lines
parallel like a railroad track
one strand of earth, one strand of air
a railway into a hole in the pond
an inverted castle and massive mushrooms
Mushrooms so big and so many that we see no more movement
except starting up again, the little rifts and cracks
in this marble surface resembling air,
and the little tentacles and vines slowly growing out of them
in the corner of they eye
or in the little coffin that we brought
or in the ghost-mirror I found on the fleamarket
But this slow juggling will continue regardless of whether we watch or not
very slowly wading through igneous rock
but on top of it all, at the peak of the structural triangle,
or rather at the intersecting triangles forming the waist of this invisible hourglass
apparently just levitating there
on the fossil cracks of incomprehensible movements in the air
commemorating another era's levity ball
still slowly juggling
Second dream: Patrick, night of Wednesday 17 April:
I had a dream last night in which I was trying to converse with a young woman. She was talking to me very urgently and in French. (As I cannot speak French, I would have loved to somehow record my dream version of the language.) She was extremely pretty and spoke very clearly, giving me directions to follow her closely. We walked into what appeared to be a vast library, where she started pulling down huge dusty ancient volumes and thumbing through the pages. They were full of beautifully bizarre engravings and I was horrified when she started to tear them out from the books. We went from one place to another, one moment somewhere in Paris, then in London and some unrecognisable places. I followed her onto a train carriage, where I recognised five of the passengers as dead friends of mine. I desperately wanted to speak to them, but this pretty French adventurer kept pulling me from one place and emotion to another. Suddenly we were running along the Hammersmith Bridge, at which point I suddenly 'let go' and climbed over the edge and dived into the water. I can't quite remember what happened next, but we were both in a sewer tunnel and came to a standstill. The woman faced me and proceeded to pull away her face, which had become a mask, to reveal Erik Bohman! He was falling around laughing, but I started to laugh, because he looked so comical in drag.
Third dream: Mattias, morning of Thursday 18 April:
Tonight is the big night. Members of SLAG have prepared for this for months, if not years. Several have taken up undercover identities and lives in small university towns scattered throughout the American plains, just to stay near and stay alert. And this very evening, the stars were unambiguous (was there a meteor shower?), this is it. Leaving the carefully constructed lives behind never to return, we silently take to the roads. I find a place in a car. The driver is a young woman, very serious, and an utterly poor driver (Josie?). We take the wrong turn a couple of times, but eventually we make it to the rendezvous site, a big parking lot next to a dense thicket which seems to be the beginnings of a vast forest. But we are jumpy as hell and when it seems we have arrived first, we suddenly take off to circle the little town once more, and then, when we return, someone else is there. We step out. There is a typical horror movie atmosphere which easily occurs for real in secluded spots in warmer climates on somewhat chilly nights. There is a fog, and the choir of crickets and cicadas is hesitant.
The person who is there is Michael Richardson, and he seems to be the technical expedition leader. At least he is dressed for it, he is wearing a big thick brown knitted sweater and wellingtons, and carrying a rifle on his back. And he is very well organised too, he even brought a stack of gossip magazines for the younger among us to read so as not to disturb him while he assembles the complicated trap mechanisms. They are indeed complicated designs, some kinds of tent/cage with a chaotic latticework of light metal rods. He says between his teeth: "We're gonna trap the shit out of this place."
Fourth dream: Mattias, morning of Thursday 18 April:
There is a big but solemn party in the apartment in Abrahamsberg which is the "office" of the gallery where Levitandum took place. My (dead) grandmother is standing in one corner with my parents, the rest of us are facing them. This is their big farewell party.
It becomes silent, and my brother pokes me and tells me I have to start the singing. I am confused, I can't think of any traditional farewell song whatsoever. The silence is getting disturbing, my brother starts singing, and he is mumbling so much, and can't hit the right notes, so even though I hear it's a waltz rhythm I still don't get either the lyrics or the melody. A museum guide steps in, singing the melody out loud, with some dramatic intervals to high notes. I say loudly: "Oh, so it's a Viennese waltz, why didn't you say that to start with?" and I take a few demonstrative waltz steps on the floor, but I realise I still don't remember the words. I could go on singing "Farewell, farewell," there are a number of sailor's songs which are like that, aren't there? (But thinking about it afterwards, it seems like the tune was specifically Evert Taube's Swedish "sea eagle waltz".)
A male English surrealist follows me from there (it is partly Wedgwood Steventon, partly Bill Howe), we walk from the Solna Centrum metro station and I am apparently taking him to my parents' old apartment. We are carrying a lot of bags. We are talking about the lyrics of that farewell song, and how many of the items enumerated in it will turn out to be gone now, several decades later. Oh yes, the apartment will be almost empty, a blank slate for him to move into. In fact the song also mentioned the metro, and there is certainly not going to be a metro in the apartment.
The little oak hill between the metro exit and the football stadium is bigger and steeper than it used to be. And it's raining heavily. I warn him that some parts will be very slippery, just through the combination of the incline and the amounts of water moving on the surface. We advance carefully. But along with the water, small children come darting down the slope. I mean kids of 2–3 years of age, well wrapped up in overalls, but it still looks a bit dangerous as they are rushing down at great speed, with a risk of hitting trees and boulders, or perhaps falling off some steep rock side. And it is difficult for us to continue our walk across the slope with this bombardment of children. In fact, I am standing alone and cannot see my friend any more. And when I reach the peak of the hill, I look out over a beautiful forest landscape with dramatic hills, coniferous forest and lakes (it could possibly be northern Sweden but I am guessing more British Columbia); the suburb I was expecting is all gone!
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
The Thatcher's Tomb Game
To mark the occasion of Thatcher's funeral, we invited some of our friends to tell us what gift or offering they would like to leave on her tomb.
We are proud to present the corpse with the following:
A statue of the Grim Reaper vomiting into a bucket.
A cylinder of helium with which to inflate her corpse and fly it above Battersea Power Station.
An object:
A pile of cat shit above her head, and the remaining urine-soaked cat litter scattered over the tomb.
A very large map of Equatorial Guinea, on which the severed penis of her son has been most ceremoniously laid.
A Coal Not Dole badge.
Twelve piercing rays from the Brixton sun.
Nine cages of various sizes painted in the seven colours of the rainbow, book-ended by black and white; each cage will contain a big, framed photo of her face, one from each decade of her life, all of them seriously smeared with shit. (Each cage may also contain an alarm clock, all set to ring very noisily in succession, at one-hour intervals, from 12 midnight to 8am.)
Her tomb will be filled with gallons of icy black water, in which silvery South Atlantic fish, glittering with burning oil from wrecked and plundered ships, can dart and play between her petrified bones, chased by penguins with their throats slit by hired assassins. Sheep will graze on the lid of her tomb, shying away from the slick and toxic waters.
Paul Cowdell, Merl Fluin, Sandra Guerreiro, Nikos Stabakis, Wedgwood Steventon, Theoni Tambaki, Ika Österblad
with some additional inspiration from Christian Anderssson
We are proud to present the corpse with the following:
A statue of the Grim Reaper vomiting into a bucket.
A cylinder of helium with which to inflate her corpse and fly it above Battersea Power Station.
An object:
 |
| [in this new economy of mass production of famine, both physical and of the mind, we are entering a new stage of living - subvival. it is time to find new ways for a combative sharing] |
A pile of cat shit above her head, and the remaining urine-soaked cat litter scattered over the tomb.
A very large map of Equatorial Guinea, on which the severed penis of her son has been most ceremoniously laid.
A Coal Not Dole badge.
Twelve piercing rays from the Brixton sun.
Nine cages of various sizes painted in the seven colours of the rainbow, book-ended by black and white; each cage will contain a big, framed photo of her face, one from each decade of her life, all of them seriously smeared with shit. (Each cage may also contain an alarm clock, all set to ring very noisily in succession, at one-hour intervals, from 12 midnight to 8am.)
Her tomb will be filled with gallons of icy black water, in which silvery South Atlantic fish, glittering with burning oil from wrecked and plundered ships, can dart and play between her petrified bones, chased by penguins with their throats slit by hired assassins. Sheep will graze on the lid of her tomb, shying away from the slick and toxic waters.
Paul Cowdell, Merl Fluin, Sandra Guerreiro, Nikos Stabakis, Wedgwood Steventon, Theoni Tambaki, Ika Österblad
with some additional inspiration from Christian Anderssson
Friday, April 05, 2013
Levitandum: an exhibition by Patrick Hourihan and Kathleen Fox
Levitandum is an exhibition of work by Patrick Hourihan and Kathleen Fox, both revealing through automatic means those concealed worlds of wonder submerged in the unconscious.
Patrick was born in London and is a member of SLAG.
Kathleen was born in South Africa and is a friend and associate of SLAG.
Both currently live in the UK.
The exhibition will be held at Arkitektvägen 44 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Private view on Saturday 13 April, 2pm – 6pm.
Open to the public on Sunday 14 April, 1pm – 4pm.
Viewings thereafter by appointment: call +46 736 17 20 20.
Untitled automatic drawing by Patrick Hourihan
Untitled automatic drawing by Patrick Hourihan
Untitled automatic drawing by Patrick Hourihan
Slow Ride At Sunrise by Kathleen Fox
He Fly Almost by Kathleen Fox
Iron Journey by Kathleen Fox
Patrick was born in London and is a member of SLAG.
Kathleen was born in South Africa and is a friend and associate of SLAG.
The exhibition will be held at Arkitektvägen 44 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Private view on Saturday 13 April, 2pm – 6pm.
Open to the public on Sunday 14 April, 1pm – 4pm.
Viewings thereafter by appointment: call +46 736 17 20 20.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Tell me then of what virtue would consist
To Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont, born 4 April 1846
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Investigating automatism
An exquisite corpse and collective collage done in response to a text by Jonah by Josie, Mattias, Merl, Patrick, Paul and Sandra.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
His Wife Judith
Text written and read (in Swedish) by Emma Lundenmark.
Images by Niklas Nenzén.
An English translation of this story by Emma Lundenmark and Merl Fluin appears in the collection Hydrolith, which is free to download.
Images by Niklas Nenzén.
An English translation of this story by Emma Lundenmark and Merl Fluin appears in the collection Hydrolith, which is free to download.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Monday, February 04, 2013
An Anthology for Angye
All proceeds from the anthology will go directly to Angye, a Surrealist poet who has been fighting wholly fabricated charges in the Colombian courts for the past three years. As well as having to take care of her seven-year-old daughter, Angye needs money to pay her legal fees, and her circumstances mean that apart from the occasional odd job she is financially dependent on her friends. Book sales are therefore intended to provide Angye with some additional support.
To place your order, send your name, postal address, telephone number and email address, stating the number of copies you wish to buy, to:
Danger poésie
53 rue Yves Klein
(Placette Honoré Daver)
F-06480 La Colle s/Loup
France
The anthology is priced at €12.50 (€7.50 for contributors), and cheques should be made payable to "Danger poésie". Shipping within the EU is free, but if you are outside the EU, or if you would like to pay by bank transfer rather than cheque, email danger-poesie[AT}orange.fr to place your order.
You can keep up to date with news about Angye's case through the campaign's Facebook group.
Friday, February 01, 2013
Solidarity with Freedom Bookshop!
We were horrified to learn that Freedom Bookshop in Whitechapel was firebombed early this morning.
Details of the attack have been published on the IT and Freedom sites, with periodic updates on the situation on Freedom's Facebook group and Twitter feed.
The good news is that no one was hurt. The bad news is that parts of the building were badly damaged, including the wiring, and they have no insurance.
Some of the items that have been destroyed include copies of the Raven. This historic anarchist periodical also played an important role in the history of Surrealism: issues 2 and 3 published an important debate about the state of the movement in Britain, with contributions by Franklin Rosemont, Conroy Maddox, George Melly and others. The loss of the periodical is a bitter one.
Freedom are asking for volunteers to help with the cleanup from 1pm tomorrow (Saturday 2 February).
The bookshop has put out a call for book donations to replenish the stock – drop them off at the shop during normal opening hours (Monday to Saturday 12 noon to 6pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4pm).
Other initiatives to support the recovery include the Donate a Poem campaign, which will publish a book of donated poetry to help raise funds, and a compilation album by Iron Column Records, for which audio donations are being sought.
Financial donations can also be made: cheques or postal orders made payable to Freedom Press can be sent to Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Alternatively you can make a financial donation by making a dummy purchase through Freedom's online shop. After placing your order, email them at shop[AT]freedompress.org.uk to let them know that the "purchase" was really a donation: they will not send you the goods, but they will still receive the money.
None of the Surrealists we know is exactly rich, but we ask all our friends to do whatever they can to help with the rebuilding of this precious bookshop and meeting space, and to spread the word about the rebuilding campaign.
Details of the attack have been published on the IT and Freedom sites, with periodic updates on the situation on Freedom's Facebook group and Twitter feed.
The good news is that no one was hurt. The bad news is that parts of the building were badly damaged, including the wiring, and they have no insurance.
Some of the items that have been destroyed include copies of the Raven. This historic anarchist periodical also played an important role in the history of Surrealism: issues 2 and 3 published an important debate about the state of the movement in Britain, with contributions by Franklin Rosemont, Conroy Maddox, George Melly and others. The loss of the periodical is a bitter one.
Freedom are asking for volunteers to help with the cleanup from 1pm tomorrow (Saturday 2 February).
The bookshop has put out a call for book donations to replenish the stock – drop them off at the shop during normal opening hours (Monday to Saturday 12 noon to 6pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4pm).
Other initiatives to support the recovery include the Donate a Poem campaign, which will publish a book of donated poetry to help raise funds, and a compilation album by Iron Column Records, for which audio donations are being sought.
Financial donations can also be made: cheques or postal orders made payable to Freedom Press can be sent to Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Alternatively you can make a financial donation by making a dummy purchase through Freedom's online shop. After placing your order, email them at shop[AT]freedompress.org.uk to let them know that the "purchase" was really a donation: they will not send you the goods, but they will still receive the money.
None of the Surrealists we know is exactly rich, but we ask all our friends to do whatever they can to help with the rebuilding of this precious bookshop and meeting space, and to spread the word about the rebuilding campaign.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
L'Or aux 13 Îles: Surrealist Exhibition in Paris
17 January – 5 February
18 rue Dauphine / 13 bis rue de Nevers
75006 Paris
(Odéon metro station)
Featuring works by:
Jean-Christophe Belotti, Pierre Bérenger, Guylaine Bourbon, Charles Cako Boussion, Alexandre Cattin, Mélanie Delattre-Vogt, l'Ermite de Rotheneuf, Nicole Espagnol, Josette Exandier, Alexandre Fatta, Alan Glass, Alain Gruger, Pierre-Louis Martin, Bruno Montpied, Georges-Henri Morin, Virgile Novarina, Jean-Pierre Paraggio, Diego & Mauro Placi, François Sarhan, Jan Svankmajer, Jean Terrossian and Claude Variéras.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Anthropomancy
by Merl Fluin
These statements – and many others like them, some examples of which are discussed below – have all been made by Surrealists during the last couple of decades or so. While most anthropologists, NGOs and indigenous rights’ activists nowadays regard the term ‘primitive’ is as outdated at best, we Surrealists have continued to use it, often appealing to ‘primitive culture’ as a touchstone in our development of poetic thought and practices. As recently as winter 2011, a film review in the Surrealist journal Phosphor referred to ‘primitive “contact” magic’, a concept first proposed by the now entirely discredited Victorian anthropologist JG Frazer. It seems that Surrealists have been rummaging in anthropology’s dustbins, and have pulled out some rubbish that can be transformed into treasure. The purpose of this short essay is to help clean off some of the mud to reveal the gold beneath.
Primitive social organisation, before the advent of religion, private property or the state, was a form of communism in which humans lived in harmony with the Earth and regarded animals as siblings.
The earliest human societies thought analogically.
The thought of primitive peoples is non-directed and connected to the pleasure principle.
Primitive peoples have magic instead of science, and myth instead of history.
These statements – and many others like them, some examples of which are discussed below – have all been made by Surrealists during the last couple of decades or so. While most anthropologists, NGOs and indigenous rights’ activists nowadays regard the term ‘primitive’ is as outdated at best, we Surrealists have continued to use it, often appealing to ‘primitive culture’ as a touchstone in our development of poetic thought and practices. As recently as winter 2011, a film review in the Surrealist journal Phosphor referred to ‘primitive “contact” magic’, a concept first proposed by the now entirely discredited Victorian anthropologist JG Frazer. It seems that Surrealists have been rummaging in anthropology’s dustbins, and have pulled out some rubbish that can be transformed into treasure. The purpose of this short essay is to help clean off some of the mud to reveal the gold beneath.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
