{photography} – Page 74 – { feuilleton }

I:MAGE: An Exhibition of Esoteric Artists

El Trigono de las lesiones (2010) by Cristina Francov.

I:MAGE is an exhibition of occult-inspired art which opens a week on Sunday, 19th May at the Store Street Gallery, Bloomsbury, London. As exhibitions go it’s modest in scale but with an impressive roster of contributors old and new: Agostino Arrivabene, Ithell Colquhoun, Denis Forkas Kostromitin, Steffi Grant, Orryelle, David Chaim Smith, Michael Bertiaux, Andrew Chumbley, Cristina Francov, Barry William Hale, Francesco Parisi, Austin Osman Spare, Jesse Bransford, Peter Dyde, Rik Garrett, Noko, Residue, and Michael Strum. A few examples of the work on display are shown here, some of which will be available for purchase.

The event is being organised by Fulgur Esoterica, and their website has details of some related events including John Constable’s one-man play, Spare (about artist Austin Osman Spare), a one-off performance which will be held at Treadwell’s, London, on the 24th. This catches my attention because Constable was responsible for the acclaimed theatre adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast which David Glass and company staged in the 1990s. It’s always good to find one’s favourite people joined through these lateral connections.

The Earth Magic Series (2012) by Rik Garrett.

Steffi Grant.

Demon by Denis Forkas Kostromitin.

Kirlian photography

quarter3 (2006) by nebamix.

Thinking recently about the resurgence of interest in the various forms of parapsychological and occult phenomena that were so popular in the 1970s, I’m surprised not to see more mention of Kirlian photography, or the capturing of high-voltage coronal discharges on photographic plates. In the 70s the idea was that Kirlian photographs depicted auric fields, and the phenonemon was widespread enough for a while enough to attract the attention of (among others) David Bowie. From a purely aesthetic point of view I’ve always enjoyed the appearance of these photographs. Flickr has a Kirlian photography pool with a variety of examples (fewer than I’d hope) while there are more to be seen at the Full Spectrum site where they specialise in high-quality Kirlian images. While browsing the pictures you could maybe listen to Kirlian Photograph by Cabaret Voltaire, a track from their still strange and unsettling debut album, Mix-Up, itself a product of the 1970s.

A negative discharge (1896).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Thought-Forms and Auras

Underwater panoramas

Under Bonaire Salt Pier by Andre de Molenaar.

Who wants to go diving? A small selection from the many examples at 360Cities. There were fewer wrecks than I hoped but some of the pictures contain surprises, such as the manatee descending to investigate the camera in the Red Sea photo below.

Cape Maeda by Hitoshi Olkawa.

Olho D’Água River by Marcio Cabral.

Dugon, Red Sea by Igor Baskakov.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Weekend links 158

Pan II (2012) by Fredrik Söderberg.

• “Aubade was a surprise success, selling some 5000 copies and going into a second printing and an edition published in America. Martin was immediately a minor celebrity, being interviewed for articles that couldn’t mention what his book was actually about.” Rediscovering the works of Kenneth Martin.

• “I can’t stand covers which imitate other covers, or which slavishly look like whatever their designated genre is supposed to look like.” Ace cover designer Peter Mendelsund is interviewed.

• At The Outer Church Isablood & Henry of Occult Hand are interviewed about their mixtape.

I’d decided to pay my respects in an unorthodox way, by time-travelling into the period of Thatcher’s pomp, when she occulted the light, alchemised the bad will of the populace and did her best to choke the living daylights out of the awkward, sprawling, socially coddled essence of metropolitan London. Hers was a tyranny of the suburbs operating from a position of privilege at the centre: she might have invested in a Dulwich retirement property, but she couldn’t sleep in it.

Iain Sinclair visits Tilbury on the day of the Thatcher funeral. Related: Iain Sinclair and Jonathan Meades in Conversation, Oxford Brookes University, March 2013.

• Ormond Gigli’s best photograph: women in the windows in Manhattan. See it full size here.

• Balzac and sex: How the French novelist used masturbation to fuel his writing process.

• At Dangerous Minds: Kenneth Williams and John Lahr discuss Joe Orton in 1978.

• Yet more Bowie: Sukhdev Sandhu reviews Ziggyology by Simon Goddard.

• The Spectacular, Wild World of Tenjo Sajiki and its Posters.

• In 1967 Susan Sontag made lists of her likes and dislikes.

• Stephen Sparks on fin de siècle author Marcel Schwob.

• Day Jobs of the Poets by Grant Snider.

• James Turrell’s Ganzfeld Experiment.

• The Pan Piper (1960) by Miles Davis & Gil Evans | Panorphelia (1974) by Edgar Froese | Pandora (1984) by Cocteau Twins

Weekend links 157

Elektrik Karousel, a new release on the Ghost Box label by The Focus Group. “For a clue to its moods, think Czech animation, Italian Giallo, early Radiophonics, HP Lovecraft stories, 1960s underground cinema, Lewis Carroll and baroque psych.” Julian House’s package design is “heavily inspired by 1960s underground press and conceived as a kind of mind altering DIY board game”.

• Joseph Stannard of The Outer Church compiles a mix for Kit Records, and talks about rural psychedelia and malevolent lighthouses, among other things.

• At Sci-Fi-O-Rama: a sampling of Dan Nadel & Norman Hathaway’s Electrical Banana – Masters of Psychedelic Art (2012).

• Stranger than Paradise: Tilda Swinton photographed by Tim Walker in the Surrealist Wonderland of Las Pozas, Mexico.

• Whistler in Limehouse & Wapping: stunning etchings by the 25-year-old artist when he was newly arrived in London.

• The complete catalogue of Sunn O))) recordings is now on Bandcamp for preview and purchase.

• La Danza de la Realidad: Alejandro Jodorowsky returns to his childhood in Tocopilla, Chile.

• Enjoy The Silence: Jude Rogers talks to Michael Rother about joy of quiet.

• Dressing the Air, “the Bureau of Sensory Intelligence”, had a relaunch.

• Fast forward – and press play again: Cassettes are back

• The Lovecraft Expert: An Interview with S.T. Joshi

• Book Graphics: an illustration blog.

• Paint Box (1967) by Pink Floyd | Beat Box (1984) by Art of Noise | Glory Box (1994) by Portishead