THE HAUNTED WORLDS OF NIGEL KNEALE
WHEN: Saturday 17 November 2012, midday-9pm
WHERE: Michelson Theater, Room 648, 721 Broadway, New York
[at Broadway and Washington Place] [map]
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
SCHEDULE
Midday: Introduction (by Sukhdev Sandhu)
12:15: Screening: The Stone Tape (1972, 90 min) (introduced by Dave Tompkins)
2:00 – Screening: Murrain (1975, 60 min) (introduced by Bilge Ebiri)
3:30 – Panel Discussion including Mark Pilkington and Will Fowler
4:45 – Screening: ‘Baby’, from Beasts (1976, 60 min)
6:00 – Screening: Quatermass and The Pit (1967, 97 min) (introduced by David Pike)
8:15 – Musical Performance: The Road (1963) – reading / live synthesiser and percussion soundtrack by Rose Kallal, Micki Pellerano and Mark Pilkington of a long-lost Kneale TV play
Nigel Kneale (1922-2004) was a visionary dramatist, a pioneering screenwriter-auteur, one of the most important British science fiction writers of the 20th century. In works such as the Quatermass trilogy (watched by one third of UK television owners), The Year of the Sex Olympics and The Stone Tape, Kneale forged singularly visceral and unforgettable fusions of horror, spooked thriller and Cold War-era weirdness that have captured the imaginations of artists and intellectuals as diverse as Pink Floyd, Monty Python, Greil Marcus, psychogeographer Patrick Keiller and novelist China Mieville. The radical sound designs these dramas deployed (often courtesy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop), allied to their prescient explorations of the eldritch fringes of auditory Albion, have attracted the attention of theorists such as Mark Fisher and the Ghost Box record label.
A Cathode Ray Séance is a day-long celebration of this hauntological icon whose work, even though it paved the way for well-known series such as Doctor Who, is less familiar to American than to British audiences. Staged by the New York-based Colloquium for Unpopular Culture (Kiss Me Again: The Life and Legacy of Arthur Russell; Leaving The Factory: Wang Bing’s Tie Xi Qu – West of the Tracks) in collaboration with London’s Strange Attractor (, it will include rare screenings, talks by Kneale admirers, and a special musical interpretation by Mark Pilkington, Rose Kallal and Micki Pellerano of Kneale’s legendary-but-lost 1963 drama The Road.
To mark A Cathode Ray Séance, there will be available for sale copies of a very limited-edition book designed by Rob Carmichael (John Cale, LCD Soundsystem, Animal Collective ‘Crack Box’)and featuring contributions by a wide range of musicians, artists, curators and cultural theorists including Sophia Al-Maria, Bilge Ebiri, Mark Fisher, Will Fowler, Ken Hollings, Paolo Javier, Roger Luckhurst, China Mieville, Drew Mulholland, David Pike, Mark Pilkington, Joanna Ruocco, Dave Tompkins, Michael Vazquez, and Evan Calder Williams.
Initial copies will come with Restligeists, a tape of specially-recorded Knealiana by The Asterism & Xylitol, Emma Hammond & Robin The Fog, Hong Kong In The 60s, Listening Center, Mordant Music, and The Real Tuesday Weld.
SCHEDULE
Midday: Introduction (by Sukhdev Sandhu)
12:15: Screening: The Stone Tape (1972, 90 min) (introduced by Dave Tompkins)
2:00 – Screening: Murrain (1975, 60 min) (introduced by Bilge Ebiri)
3:30 – Panel Discussion including Mark Pilkington and Will Fowler
4:45 – Screening: ‘Baby’, from Beasts (1976, 60 min)
6:00 – Screening: Quatermass and The Pit (1967, 97 min) (introduced by David Pike)
8:15 – Musical Performance: The Road (1963) – reading/ live synth and percussion soundtrack by Rose Kallal, Micki Pellerano and Mark Pilkington of a long-lost Kneale TV play