Events
Upcoming Events
March 14, 2012
14 March: The White Worm Rises
The Lair of The White Worm (1988, 96 mins) + Discussion
14 March 2012,
The Horse Hospital
Colonnade, Bloomsbury,
London WC1N 1JD
£6/£4
‘It has a lair, it has a worm, the worm is white.’ Roger Ebert
Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor are proud to present a rare outing for this unjustly neglected horror romp from the late Ken Russell as part of Russell Forever, a tribute to the director organised by the good people of Scala Forever to coincide with the release of The Devils on DVD in March.
Tenuously based on a 1911 novel by Bram Stoker – itself inspired by the ancient tale of the Lambton Wyrm, a staple for every book of true monster stories – this shamelessly camp horror comedy is generally considered to be Russell’s last great film.
Our Ken gleefully captures the spirits of Hammer and Carry On, doses them both with LSD and then dangles them over a bottomless pit containing an 80ft phallus while standing at the side pointing and laughing.
Featuring a soon-to-be-all-star cast including Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi and Amanda Donahoe, gags and gore galore, not to mention sex, folk rock and slapstick, The Lair of the White Worm is a joyful outrage from beginning to end.
Plus talk with BFI archive curators and Flipside programmers Vic Pratt and Will Fowler about the film, Ken Russell and his legacy.
Advance tickets £5 from WeGotTickets.
For more information on other Russell Forever events, please see the Russell Forever Facebook event page, or follow Scala Forever on Facebook and Twitter.
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Previous Events
February 15, 2012
The Glasgow Working 15.02.12
Strange Attractor presents The Glasgow Working
15 February 2012,
at The Old Hairdressers, 27 Renfield Lane, Glasgow.
Doors: 7:00pm – 11:00pm
Price: £5.00
To celebrate the opening of Objections to an Empty Mind at The Hidden Noise gallery [see below], Strange Attractor presents a night of talk, music and film.
∞ Phil Baker, author of Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London’s Lost Artist, presents an illustrated talk about the artist and his work.
∞ Magick Concrète : a mediumistic improvisation for phonomantium and guitar, featuring Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor) and Drew Mulholland (Mount Vernon Arts Lab).
∞ The London Nobody Knows (1969, 60 minutes): James Mason presents a wry view of unseen London, based on the books of Geoffrey Fletcher – a psychogeographer’s delight.
Tickets available online or at Monorail in Glasgow
Objections to an Empty Mind
Austin Osman Spare with Richard Brown
Hidden Noise, 1/1, 24 Hayburn Crescent, Glasgow, G11 5AY
17 February – 17 March 2012 – Free Admission
Opening times: Thursday – Saturday 12 to 5pm or by appointment
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January 24, 2012
Strange Attractor at Off the Page 2012
Frances Morgan and Mark Pilkington will be speaking at The Wire magazine’s Off The Page Festival on 24 February 2012, as part of a great lineup that includes Vicki Bennett, Gavin Bryars, Tony Herrington, Anne Hilde Neset, Evan Parker, Simon Reynolds, Aura Satz, Dave Tompkins, Jonny Trunk, Rob Young and many others.
‘Off The Page 2012 takes place 24–26 February 2012 at the Playhouse Theatre, Whitstable. £40 weekend pass/£12 Friday pass/£20 Saturday pass/£15 Sunday pass. Tickets available via Ticketweb.’
Mark Pilkington’s talk is:
From the Akashic Jukebox: Magic and Music in Britain, 1888-1978
Magic and music are as old as humanity, but organised witchcraft, a British cultural export whose influence has been felt all over the world, is younger than jazz. In this talk, illustrated with images, music and rare recordings, Mark Pilkington, writer and publisher of Strange Attractor Press, explores British occultism’s origins in the bohemian groves of late 19th century London, and charts its impact on popular music and some of its players, from the rock ‘n’ roll years through to the paradigm shift of punk. The emerging stories glow with transcendence, ripple with mystery, honk with absurdity and are all too often shadowed by tragedy.
While Frances Morgan is part of a panel discussing:
Critical Mass: Music Theory in the Information Age
The advent of the blogosphere, social networking and e-books have capsized the traditional dynamics of cultural criticism. Today, anyone who wants to disseminate information or express a judgment on music has free access to the technology that will allow them to share concepts and philosophies on a global scale. But has this new theory-babble expanded the discourse around contemporary sound and music or shut it down, democratised debate or created a climate defined by wooly thinking and subjective axe-grinding?
More details here
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December 10, 2011
‘Wyrd Tales 2′ Launch: 10 December
English Heretic present Wyrd Tales 2
Saturday 10th December
7.00 – 10.30pm
at Luminous Books,
3.5 Frederick Terrace
E8 4EW
Free entry!
Luminous Books is delighted to host the launch of Wyrd Tales 2. A salvaged miscegenation of occult pulp, speculative meta-fiction, neolithic fantasy and mythic sci-fi. Featuring contributions by a renowned and talented roster of guest artists and writers and an accompanying CD of aural lagan,Wyrd Tales 2, promises to provide the magical vehicle for an archetypal voyage to England’s deep.
Wyrd Tales 2 includes art and writing by Lisa Cradduck, Mark Fisher, English Heretic, Ken Hollings, Dean Kenning, Phil Legard, Mark Pilkington and Sarah Sparkes.
The evening will include Performances and annotated readings by Ken Hollings, author of Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959, with live electronics and theremin backing from Indigo Octagon; Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism and writer of the blog K-punk, Andy Sharp of English Heretic and DJ set by Dean Brannagan.
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November 25, 2011
Steve Moore at Luminous Books
Steve Moore makes a rare appearance to read from his novel Somnium at Luminous Books. Steve will also be signing copies of the book.
The event takes place from 6 til 9pm at Luminous Books, 3.5 Frederick Terrace, London E8 4EW on Friday 25 November. Entrance is free.
Also reading will be James Attlee, author of Nocturne: a Journey in Search of Moonlight and science collective Super/Collider will be screening Moon films.
Meanwhile you can feast on Moon Cakes, sky lanterns and Luminous Books’ collection of space books.
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November 15, 2011
Electric Sheep presents: Sex Jack
Sex Jack (1970) + Man Eater Mountain (2008)
Plus discussion with Julian Ross, Jasper Sharp and Virginie Selavy
7pm (films at 7.30pm), Tuesday 15 November 2011
The Horse Hospital, 1 Colonnade, London WC1N 1JD
Tickets £6/£4 / WeGotTickets
Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor present a screening of Sex Jack (1970, 69 mins), directed by yakuza-turned-filmmaker Kôji Wakamatsu and written by his politically engaged acolyte Masao Adachi. Set against the background of the 60s Japanese student movement, it follows a group of young revolutionaries who take refuge in the flat of a stranger. Screened at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the 1971 Cannes festival, it remains one of Wakamatsu’s most striking works.
Wakamatsu and Adachi chose to work in the pink film (soft porn) industry as a way of ensuring financial independence and artistic freedom, and Sex Jack offers a typically radical mix of sex and politics. Denouncing both government repression and the apathy of the revolutionary movement, the film paints a disillusioned picture of collective action, ultimately suggesting that liberation from all shackles can only come from individual action. With thanks to the French-based international label Dissidenz, which has recently released three Kôji Wakamatsu DVD box-sets.
Sex Jack will be preceded by the black and white animated tale Man-Eater Mountain (dir Naoyuki Niiya, 2008, 28 mins), which uses paper theatre to tell a gruesome folk tale. A couple of police inspectors and their guide take a serial killer to the mountains to find the bodies of his victims, but soon they face the demons that reside there. Both beautifully atmospheric and hellishly nightmarish, it has Bosch-like visions of blood-sucking trees, impaled animals, bodies torn apart or eaten by demons. Man-Eater Mountain is presented by Zipangu Fest, the first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film, which runs from 18 to 24 November.
The films will be followed by a talk with Jasper Sharp, author of Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, director of Zipangu Fest and co-editor of the Japanese cinema website Midnight Eye, and Julian Ross, commissioning editor at Vertigo Magazine and programme coordinator for the Theatre Scorpio season at Close-Up Film Centre and the Art Theatre Guild season at the BFI Southbank in July-August 2011. The talk will be hosted by Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy.
Doors at 7pm, film at 7:30pm, talk at 9:30pm.\
Full details on the Horse Hospital website.
Buy tickets from WeGotTickets.
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October 1, 2011
Good Neighbours, 1 October 2011
Sculptor and SA pal Tessa Farmer has a new exhibition opening this weekend at Viktor Wynd Fine Art, 11 Mare St, Hackney, London E8. It runs until 30 October.
As part of the exhibition Strange Attractor have collaborated with Tessa and Viktor Wynd to put together a one day symposium on faery lore and Tessa’s artwork.
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Good Neighbours:
Faeries, Folklore and the Art of Tessa Farmer
A day of presentations, readings, films and discussion:
Saturday 1 October 2011, 11am til 7pm
Viktor Wynd Fine Art, 11 Mare St, London E8
* 11am Introduction - Tessa Farmer, Viktor Wynd and Mark Pilkington
* 11.30 Jeremy Harte – Faeries and Otherness
* 12.30 Gwilym Games – “The Obscure and Horrible Race of the Hills”, Arthur Machen’s faeries
* 1.30pm lunch
* 2.30 Wynd reads a faery tale to aid digestion
* 2.45pm Petra Lange Berndt – Swarming: Insects in art
* 3.45pm Diane Perkiss – The Changing Face of Faery
4.45 pm Quick tea break
*5pm Screening of Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels’ three short films
* 5.15pm Catriona Mcara in discussion with Tessa Farmer and Mark Pilkington
* 6pm Carol Mavor faery tale reading
* 6.30 pm Closing discussion and questions
7pm close
Tickets are £25, though early bird tickets, and those bought from the gallery are only £15. You can book tickets here
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September 20, 2011
Scala Forever festival
Tuesday 20 September 2011
6.30pm for 7pm start
The Horse Hospital, 1 Colonnade, London WC1N 1JD
Tickets £6 (SOLD OUT)
As part of the fantastic Scala Forever festival Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor are thrilled to present a screening of a Scala cinema staple, Curt McDowell’s infamous Thundercrack! starring Marion Eaton and George Kuchar.
(Read the Motion Picture Purgatory review here)
The screening takes place on Tuesday 20 September at London’s Horse Hospital, and will be preceded by a discussion with Scala film programmer Jane Giles, author and film historian Kim Newman, Electric Sheep’s Virginie Selavy and Strange Attractor’s Mark Pilkington.
Tickets are now sold out – sorry!
The Scala Forever season runs at several venues from 13 August to 2 October and looks fantastic – take a look for yourself here…
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August 12, 2011
20 August 2011: English Heretic live!
[click for bigger picture]
English Heretic present Great Plaque Nights: Live at The Montague Arms
289 Queen’s Road, London SE14 5JN [map]
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