{film} – Page 36 – { feuilleton }

Cosmic Alchemy, a film by Lawrence Jordan

More alchemical collage animation, this time by one of the earliest practitioners of the form. Lawrence Jordan has been creating collage films since the 1950s, and is still doing so today. Cosmic Alchemy which dates from 2010, is a 24-minute piece that immediately attracted my attention for its use of cosmological charts and other maps of the heavens. The alchemy here is more astronomical (or astrological) than chemical, exploring a cosmos where the celestial spheres are populated by a variety of orbs and glittering stars, together with familiar figures from the Dover Publications Pictorial Archive. The droning soundtrack is by John Davis. There are more collaborations between Jordan and Davis at Davis’s Vimeo page.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Edge of Alchemy, a film by Stacey Steers
• Still Life, a film by Connor Griffith
• Hamfat Asar, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Carabosse, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Labirynt by Jan Lenica
• Heaven and Earth Magic by Harry Smith

Edge of Alchemy, a film by Stacey Steers

Stacey Steers’ Edge of Alchemy (2017) presents a unique approach to collage animation by combining backgrounds, objects and creatures taken from engraved illustrations with characters lifted from early cinema. The latter are two of the stars of the silent screen, Mary Pickford and Janet Gaynor, whose roles in several films are repurposed by Steers into a wordless 20-minute exploration of weird science: Pickford becomes “The Scientist”, a part she never would have been allowed to play in the silent days, while Gaynor is “The Creature”, a plant woman born from the Scientist’s experiments whose first appearance in bandages is borrowed from The Bride of Frankenstein. Bees proliferate in this scenario, very large ones with which the Creature has a natural affinity. The cumulative effect is like seeing Wilfried Sätty’s collages brought to life, in particular those in his first two books which incorporated photographic material with the engravings. The icing on the cake is a choral score by Lech Jankowski, best known for the music he composed for several of the Quay Brothers’ films.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Still Life, a film by Connor Griffith
• Hamfat Asar, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Carabosse, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Labirynt by Jan Lenica
• Heaven and Earth Magic by Harry Smith

Weekend links 711

Les Étrangers (1937) by Wolfgang Paalen.

• “I was picturing Monty Python’s spoof Pasolini cricket film The Third Test Match, a man frantically rubbing his groin with a cricket ball.” Paul Gallagher writing about the time that Kenneth Anger wanted to make a film about cricket.

• The week in deserts: This camera is taking a 1,000-year-long exposure photo of Tucson’s desert landscape; Explore the surface of Mars in spectacular 4K resolution.

• At the Wired YT channel: puzzle-box maker Kagen Sound talks about the creation and operation of his amazing boxes.

• RIP Wayne Kramer, the MC5’s other incendiary guitarist. Here they are kicking out the jams on Beat-Club in 1972.

• National Gallery of Ireland acquires Harry Clarke artwork for national collection.

• At Bajo el Signo de Libra: The (mostly homoerotic) Italy photographed by Herbert List.

• New music: Fragmented by Parallel Worlds, and The Crystal Parade by Cate Brooks.

• At Wormwoodiana: Aquarius, Arcania, Arcturus: Exploring New Age shops.

• At Public Domain Review: Early modern blackwork prints.

• Sun In Aquarius (1970) by Pharoah Sanders | Aquarius (1998) by Boards Of Canada | Aquarius (2018) by Beautify Junkyards

Weekend links 710

Menace (1974) by Ivan Tovar.

• “I find myself going back to Early Water more and more in recent years. It should be better known.” B. Sirota reviewing the one-off musical collaboration between Michael Hoenig and Manuel Göttsching. (Previously.) It should indeed be better known.

• At Unquiet Things: “Come for the cosmic awe, stay for the skeletons in spacesuits”; S. Elizabeth talks to Adam Rowe about the science-fiction art of the 1970s.

• “The architectural style wars have started all over again.” Owen Hatherley on the unending debate between traditionalists and modernists.

• At Public Domain Review: Clear Shadows (1867), a book of Japanese silhouette portraits by Ochiai Yoshiiku.

• New music: Flux Gourmet Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Various Artists, and Volta by Loula Yorke.

• Meta machine mantras: Steve Barker on the birth of the Buddha Machine.

• Cosmohedron, a short animated film by Duncan Hatch.

• Mix of the week: isolatedmix 125 by Sa Pa.

• Chelsea Wolfe’s favourite music.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Mirrorers.

• A Silhouette Of A Man And A Wasp (1995) by Add N To (X) | A Silhouette Approaches (2005) by Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd | Silhouette (2015) by Julia Holter

Weekend links 709

Guardian Angels (1946) by Dorothea Tanning.

• “If photographs can outlive their subjects, and memory works like photography, do images somehow endure in the brain after death? Could these undead memories be recovered with the right technologies?” Speculative fiction from 1899 in Dr Berkeley’s Discovery by Richard Slee and Cornelia Atwood Pratt.

• Mix of the week: Astral Loitering: Excursions In New Age, 1970–1989: 210 minutes of well-chosen selections that continue where I Am The Center left off. In a similar zone, albeit more recent, there’s the regular monthly report from Ambientblog, DreamScenes—January 2024.

• At American Scientist: The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate: “The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth”. An article from 2006 that you’d think would be more widely known today.

• The Anomalist: “World News on UFOs, Bigfoot, the Paranormal, and Other Mysteries at the Edge of Science”. Too many of the links lead to worthless tabloid filler but the headlines can be fun.

• Coming soon from Strange Attractor: Two-Headed Doctor: Listening for Ghosts in Dr John’s Gris-Gris, a book by David Toop which analyses the Doctor’s voodoo-themed debut album.

• At Unquiet Things: Beyond The Shadows Of The Labyrinth: Exploring the Groovy Kaleidoscope of Ted CoConis’ Art.

• DJ Food unearths a batch of Portuguese Hauntology via Prisma Sonora Records.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: John Waters Day (restored/expanded).

• New music: Moon by Retep Folo & Dorothy Moskowitz.

• New Age (live) (1969) by The Velvet Underground | New Age (1980) by Chrome | 1966 – Let The New Age Of Enlightenment Begin (2014) by Sinoia Caves