{surrealism} – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 732

Chasing Fireflies, A Lady of the Tenmei Era, from the series Thirty-six Elegant Selections (1894) by Mizuno Toshikata.

• While working on the Herald of Ruin cover late last year I was wondering when we might get to see the BFI or Eureka releasing Louis Feuillade’s silent serials on Region B blu-ray discs. Six months later, Eureka have announced this very thing: Louis Feuillade: The Complete Crime Serials (1913–1918), a box comprising the Gaumont restorations of Fantômas, Les Vampires, Judex and Tih Minh. I’ll probably have more to say about this in September.

• At A Year In The Country: Wyrd Explorations: A Decade Of Wandering Through Spectral Fields, a book which collects revised and extended pieces from the first ten years of A Year In The Country posts.

• At The Paris Review: Eliza Barry Callahan visits and revisits Joseph Cornell’s house at 37-08 Utopia Parkway, NYC.

• New music: Jinxed By Being by Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance.

• Browse artworks by Pablo Picasso at the Picasso Museum, Paris.

• At Unquiet Things: Victor Kalin’s Paradoxical Paperback Art.

• Strange Transmissions: The World Of Experimental Radio.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s Satoshi Kon‘s Day.

• Aaron Turner’s favourite music.

• DJ Food’s haul of Acid Badges.

• Acid Head (1966) by The Velvet Illusions | Acid Heart Mother (2000) by Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. | Acid Death Picnic (2013) by Cavern Of Anti-Matter

Adam 2, a film by Jan Lenica

Adam 2 is the first feature-length animated film by Polish animator and graphic designer Jan Lenica (1928–2001). The film was a German production, made in 1968 after Lenica had spent the past decade making shorter films in Poland, several of which look like rehearsals for this one.

Lenica called it “a sort of an intellectual comic strip”. A trip across ages and spaces, remindful of the biblical Paradise; a struggle for one’s individuality; a parody of Stalinism and totalitarianism. Critics emphasized the pessimism of its message. (More)

A pair of title cards at the beginning proclaim: “The strange, nightmarish, monstrous, utterly incredible yet true story of his life.” Lenica styled his intellectual comic strip with engraved backgrounds and decors similar to those he used in Labirynt, while the travails of “Adam 2” resemble the predicaments of the anonymous characters in both Labirynt and A. The minimal dialogue, presented in the form of intertitles, was written by Eugène Ionesco whose Rhinoceros Lenica had previously adapted. I’ve no idea what the number 44 represents in this scenario but it’s a prevalent fixture throughout.

In a year in which the posts here have been preoccupied with Surrealism I ought to note that Lenica’s animated films are often a lot more “Surrealist” than much of the live-action cinema that gets tagged with the S-word. But Lenica was an animator, and animation is the poor relation of the film world, persistently overlooked and under-represented. Lenica reinforced the Surrealist tenor of his work a few years later with two animated adaptations of Jarry plays, Ubu Roi and Ubu et la Grande Gidouille, the latter being another full-length feature. I’d love to see a restored collection of his films but I’m not expecting this any time soon.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Surrealism archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Rhinoceros by Jan Lenica
• Repulsion posters
• Dom by Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica
• Labirynt by Jan Lenica

Weekend links 727

Untitled (Hand-Shell) (1934) by Dora Maar.

• “The Secret Public…reads like the book he was born to write…and speaks to the taboo around homosexuality which the bravest pop stars did their best to dispel.” Alex Needham reviewing The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955–1979) by Jon Savage. Anyone buying the book should also find themselves a copy of Savage’s Queer Noises compilation.

• At Dangerous Minds: Richard Metzger advises everyone to seek out Sion Sono’s 237-minute Love Exposure (2008), “Japan’s eroto-theosophical answer to the allegorical journeys of Alejandro Jodorowsky”.

• Prince – Sign O’ The Times (Live at Paisley Park 12/31/87). Pro-shot video of the last performance of the Sign O’ The Times tour, with a unique contribution from Miles Davis.

• Old music: Camembert Electrique by Gong. A rocking riposte to the stereotype of the group as a bunch of whimsical hippies.

• New music: Lambda by ZULI. This is another release on the Subtext label which I designed.

• The Devil in the Flesh: Patrick Clarke on David Sylvian’s Red Guitar at 40.

• Milky Way photographer of the year 2024.

• The Strange World of…Gastr del Sol.

• Jungle Guitar (1961) by The Palatons | Lunatic Guitar (1980) by Ippu-Do | Naive Guitar (1982) by Adrian Belew

Four short films by Vince Collins

The expressions “psychedelic” and “surreal” are often so casually applied that they lose any useful definition, but in the case of these early films by American animator Vince Collins “psychedelic surrealism” is an accurate description. All have somehow managed to evade my weirdness radar until now, despite being superior examples of the endlessly mutating dream-landscape which animation can do so well. The last of them, Malice in Wonderland, is a breathless run through Lewis Carroll scenarios which Collins made in collaboration with his wife, Miwako Collins. That punning title has been overused in the music world but the pair ought to be given sole ownership of it, their bad-trip film is the most grotesquely nightmarish reworking of Alice themes that I’ve seen.

Vince Collins’ YouTube channel contains many more recent works done with computer animation. The hand-drawn films are more to my taste but it’s good to see him still being active and creative.

Gilgamish (1973).

Euphoria (1974).

Fantasy (1976).

Malice in Wonderland (1982). (Or avoid YouTube’s adults-only policy by going here.)

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The groovy video look

Weekend links 725

Springtime in Paris (1923) by Georg Kretzschmar.

• I’ve been asked to mention that the tribute book put together for Alan Moore’s 70th birthday, Alan Moore: Portraits of an Extraordinary Gentleman, is still available. As before, the book features contributions from many well-known comic artists, a foreword by Iain Sinclair, and this piece of my own.

• “I never posted any lecture of mine on Tumblr, even though Tumblr would seem to have plenty of elbow-room for hour-long, learned, European public lectures (with many lecture slides).” Utopian Realism, a speech by Bruce Sterling.

• Reading the Signs: John Kenny in conversation with Mark Valentine about Mark’s new collection Lost Estates.

There remains something suspect about blotter, a stain that is both a blessing and a curse. As the blotter producer Matthew Rick, who started selling sheets as non-dipped ‘art’ collectables at festivals in 1998, puts it: ‘[B]lotter is the last underground art form that’s going to stay underground, simply because you’re creating something that looks like and functions like a felony.’ In other words, blotter is ontologically illicit; it is, as Rick says, ‘drug paraphernalia by its very existence’.

Erik Davis (again) on LSD and the cultural history of the printed blotter

• At Colossal: Uncanny phenomena derail domestic bliss in Marisa Adesman’s luminous paintings.

• Standing stones, urban hellscapes and male nudes: Andrew Pulver on Derek Jarman’s Super-8 films.

• “ [breaking news] An anomaly on earth has brought the cats to over 150 meters. Please be patient.”

• At We Are The Mutants: Alien Renaissance: An interview with illustrator Bob Fowke.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…René Crevel My Body and I (1926).

• At Public Domain Review: The Little Journal of Rejects (1896).

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Sandhouse.

• RIP Steve Albini.

• Sandoz In The Rain (1970) by Amon Düül II | Bon Voyage Au LSD (2001) by Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. | Careful With That Sheet Of Acid, Eugene (2019) by Jenzeits