FoolishPeople are currently inviting submissions from artists working in all mediums to create artworks and installations for our forthcoming exhibition, Virulent Experience, a unique collaboration between Conway Hall and FoolishPeople.
This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your work to a wide audience in an historic Central London venue throughout August 2012.
Virulent Experience explores the evolution and devolution of ethics, morals and the impact to the mind, imagination and free will of humans via a fictional future version of London on the eve of the 2040 Olympics.
FoolishPeople will transform the historic Conway Hall – a landmark of London’s independent, intellectual, political and cultural life – into The Museum of Virulent Experience, housing the entire banned index of thoughts, emotions and desires in an age where Information Prohibition has begun.
We are looking for artists working in any medium to create a series of works that exist within the narrative and fictional world of the Museum of Virulent Experience.
We will also accept proposals for completed works that fit within the context and are pertinent to the piece.
All artists featured within the Virulent Experience exhibition will be included in the exhibition book published by Weaponized, this further explores the themes and context of the project. Please contact art@foolishpeople.org to obtain the full artist’s brief.
Kilto Take http://www.kiltotake.com Three musical catalysts collide by chance, like some audio-laboratory experiment gone wrong. After the smoke has cleared, what's left is a volatile compound of commanding guitars and regimented percussion.
Sally Rushbrook Divine Jazz and blues infused with a deep fascination with poetry and storytelling.
Guignol's Band Blackly humorous songs about death cults and decline for electric guitar and soprano saxophone, members of The Devil May Cares, the Young Lovers, various improv groups, et cetera.
STRANGE FACTORIES Exclusive expedition featurette and Society of Vandals footage and immersive research presentation.
The unveiling of the Strange Factories debut trailer. A thank you to the supporters of FoolishPeople for helping us to successfully fund the 'Strange Factories' expedition.
A few tickets remain to this unique 'Strange Factories' event, you can purchase entry for two people into the Society of Vandals guild by purchasing Waystation I via the Weaponized online store.
This will also give you access to exclusive content and future special events, alongside access to the 'Strange Factories' Radiograms. The online transmedia narrative which supports the 2012 release of FoolishPeople's first feature film 'Strange Factories'.
James Curico dicusses the battle to create new stories and the background of the Citizen Y project...
Citizen Y and Independent Media Production From The Trenches
There’s always a side of the creative process that remains in shadow. We used to call it “behind the scenes,” but the angle shot from behind the scenes has become the new normal. The actor playing the character is, if anything, more at the forefront of the viewers consciousness.
As an example of this, here is me playing the actor JC, who played the character JC in Clark:
(More on that project in a second.)
Maybe we can see “behind the scenes” if the project has not yet been produced. I want to share a bit of a project with all of you that, so far, has not seen the light of day.
If it hasn’t seen the light of day, why should you care about it, you might ask?
Because it is a story more common than you might think. Because it is the norm rather than the exception. The number of things you haven’t seen far outweighs what you have. For every Picasso there are millions of other painters, some excellent and some awful, that you never happened upon. And of the artists you have heard of, except for when they are put under the microscopic scrutiny of historians, there are probably works in progress that never made it.
Some of these projects are abortions, some are miscarriages, and some, fighting all biological possibility, simply remain in a kind of limbo space, maybe to manifest at some point in the future, and maybe not.
The project I’m talking about is Citizen Y, and it is an example of the latter case, neither an abortion nor a miscarriage, but instead, as the blueprints of the experience we developed are soon to be released, it is something that exists as many ideas and myths exist, an unmanifest possibility. Time will tell, as it always does.
This is how conception went. In 2007, I went to the first Esozone in Portland. At the time I was senior editor of Alterati. I had the chance to meet a number of people I had been talking with online, even working with, but who I had never met in “meat space.” You can write a book, produce an album, or talk for hours with people halfway across the globe. But there is something unique about being in person with them. Something very different about the experience.
After seeing FoolishPeople perform, Joseph, John and I talked and we decided we wanted to work on a project together. Probably a live event slash film. We didn’t know what yet. We just knew we wanted to do it.
A year of writing and bouncing ideas around later, John and I had a workable script. The script itself was futuristic in content but written with a tone that is almost reminiscent of Greek tragedy, if it was parsed through the brain of someone like Philip K Dick. It is not a tone that I usually use. To an extent I was taking John’s lead with that, and to an extent it was just what came out of the chemistry of that moment and that interaction.
We had a few concept artists onboard, and we were in the process of planning the event. First we had our sights on LA. At the last minute - though thankfully before we announced, if memory serves - that angle fell through. We then spent some more time refining our creative materials, regrouping, and we conceived of doing it in London, after FoolishPeople pulled off yet another successful event there in the Abattoir.....
Civilisation has fallen. In the rubble, we at the Y Corporation have developed the ultimate solution to save society: the Y Show. We encourage all good citizens to sign up for the show. You will be housed within a wonderful Haze Treatment Facility and undergo unique psychological treatment, which will clear away the illness of individuality. This reprogramming will be broadcast to the eyes and ears of citizens in our New World, populated with previous contestants and patients. This is a reality show unlike any other! There is a secret that haunts Haze01, the original treatment facility. Two patients, locked deep within its walls, contain archetypes that reject all reprogramming. They channel portents and omens of another future, a world where myth and divinity remake reality, manifesting a planet fit for Gods. In this season of the Y show, the doctors of the facility make their final attempt to process these two patients, before they break free and unleash total anarchy. Tune in.
Weaponized is proud to announce the publication of Citizen Y by John Harrigan and James Curcio. More than a script, Citizen Y is a blueprint of a ritual experience. It is a demonstration of how you can create an immersive, transformative experience for an audience that goes beyond passive entertainment. Parodying our fixation on spoon-fed media, it transports the reader into a post-apocalyptic reality show where the grand prize is the future itself. Citizen Y fuses characters from James Curcio’s Fallen Nation books and John Harrigan’s GraveLand myth into a unique hybrid narrative. Both writers have decades of experience producing mythic, occult experiences that transcend the boundaries of media, audience and stage. The book also stands as an example of modern myth as discussed in The Immanence of Myth Anthology.
This release by Weaponized includes concept artwork by James Curcio, Daniele Serra, and P. Emerson Williams. Edited by Lucy Harrigan, it will be published by Weaponized and available in print through major retailers and in eBook format from April 2011.
Weaponized is brought to you by FoolishPeople. John Harrigan is writer, dramatic catalyst and performer alongside Lucy Allin and the rest of the FoolishPeople cast. Atmosphere, electronic voice phenomena and the occasional character sketch are provided by P. Emerson Williams. The scope of the Weaponized ranges from darkly humorous vignettes to claustrophobic occult horror. From monologues to full on audio theatre.
FoolishPeople have produced work in prestigious cultural venues such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Arcola Theatre and the Horse Hospital, historical buildings like the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, internationally to America and Amsterdam and worked for clients such as the BBC. The FoolishPeople core collective features artists from England, Czech Republic, Sweden & America, and they also collaborate with many artists worldwide who specialise in a broad range of media.
For Immediate Release: London, 14th of February 2011 Weaponized is proud to announce the publication of Citizen Y by John Harrigan and James Curcio. More than a script, Citizen Y is a blueprint of a ritual experience. It is a demonstration of how you can create an immersive, transformative experience for an audience that goes beyond passive entertainment. Parodying our fixation on spoon-fed media, it transports the reader into a post-apocalyptic reality show where the grand prize is the future itself.
Citizen Y fuses characters from James Curcio’s Fallen Nation books and John Harrigan’s GraveLand myth into a unique hybrid narrative. Both writers have decades of experience producing mythic, occult experiences that transcend the boundaries of media, audience and stage. The book also stands as an example of modern myth as discussed in The Immanence of Myth Anthology.
This release by Weaponized includes concept artwork by James Curcio, Daniele Serra, and P. Emerson Williams. Edited by Lucy Harrigan, it will be published by Weaponized and available in print through major retailers and in eBook format from April 2011.
About Citizen Y Civilisation has fallen. In the rubble, we at the Y Corporation have developed the ultimate solution to save society: the Y Show. We encourage all good citizens to sign up for the show. You will be housed within a wonderful Haze Treatment Facility and undergo unique psychological treatment, which will clear away the illness of individuality. This reprogramming will be broadcast to the eyes and ears of citizens in our New World, populated with previous contestants and patients. This is a reality show unlike any other! There is a secret that haunts Haze01, the original treatment facility. Two patients, locked deep within its walls, contain archetypes that reject all reprogramming. They channel portents and omens of another future, a world where myth and divinity remake reality, manifesting a planet fit for Gods. In this season of the Y show, the doctors of the facility make their final attempt to process these two patients, before they break free and unleash total anarchy. Tune in.
James Curcio, Creative Director of Mythos Media, says: “Mythos Media was founded specifically to work on projects like this, and modern myths have been my life passion. I am eager to share the world of Citizen Y, and hope it inspires others to create their own.”
John Harrigan, Artistic Director of FoolishPeople comments: “Citizen Y is a mutant narrative. A frankenstein monster that has roamed our minds for over three years. I’m happy to open the doors to the castle and set our creation free to roam the wild and infect other people’s imaginations.”
NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Mythos Media: Mythos Media was founded by James Curcio, Peter Emerson Williams, Michael Szul and Tovarich Pizor in 2006 to produce modern myths. In the past, these have taken the form of comics, novels, and albums. For more information, please visit: http://www.mythosmedia.net
About Weaponized: The Weaponized imprint extends the immersive art of FoolishPeople into the realm of publishing. Our mission is to seek out and disseminate experimental forms of fiction, prose and art which offer new ways to experience stories and myth. We are passionately committed to finding unique narrative hybrids that challenge, engage, inform and inspire our readers. For more information, please visit: http://www.weaponized.net
About John Harrigan: John Harrigan is a writer, director, performer and artist. He is also known as the founder of FoolishPeople and a contemporary magician whose work centres on the creation of immersive ritual theatre, installation art, books and film that aim to raise a numinous experience within the witness. His work has been exhibited at the ICA, The Horse Hospital, Arcola Theatre and has been presented internationally in the United States and the Netherlands. For further information, please visit http://www.johnharrigan.com
About James Curcio: James creates dystopian propoganda for a generation of disenfranchised hedonists, intellectuals, and drug addicts. This propoganda is fed by a fascination with the overlap of narrative, psychology, philosophy, systems theory, and of course mythology, which seems to be an almost pathological fixation of his. Previous brain-washing agents have taken the form of novels, essays, scripts for comic and films, musical albums, soundtracks, podcasts, live performances, and installations. They were distributed to the eyes and ears of an unwitting public through the internet, print, and social media subversion. Now, in a move that may telegraph some kind of psychotic break, he’s acting in the world’s first Gonzomentary.
PRESS CONTACT For further information please email press@weaponized.net
Citizen Y Published by Weaponized April 2011 ISBN 978-1-907810-10-7
METAPHYSICS AND MECHANICS IN THE NUDE, WITH SEX AND DRUGS!
The Sparky Show read by author Xanadu Xero in an exploding dossier of words and photography of a doomed and perfect relationship, retrofitted with psilocybin. A report from the trenches of love post culture, mid-life, reminiscent in its gonzo style and ‘take no prisoners’ attitude to Hunter S. Thompson. Not your average empty-nest Beverly Hills Mom.
Weaponized is brought to you by FoolishPeople. John Harrigan is writer, dramatic catalyst and performer alongside Lucy Allin and the rest of the FoolishPeople cast. Atmosphere, electronic voice phenomena and the occasional character sketch are provided by P. Emerson Williams. The scope of the Weaponized ranges from darkly humorous vignettes to claustrophobic occult horror. From monologues to full on audio theatre.
FoolishPeople have produced work in prestigious cultural venues such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Arcola Theatre and the Horse Hospital, historical buildings like the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, internationally to America and Amsterdam and worked for clients such as the BBC. The FoolishPeople core collective features artists from England, Czech Republic, Sweden & America, and they also collaborate with many artists worldwide who specialise in a broad range of media.
For Immediate Release: London, 17th of January 2011 Weaponized is proud to announce the publication of ‘The Immanence of Myth’, an anthology arranged by James Curcio of Mythos Media. This anthology includes conversations, art and articles with those in the process of creating myth now, from up-and-comers and long-time underground myth-makers to celebrated artists such as Laurie Lipton and David Mack.
It will be published by Weaponized and available in print through major retailers and in Kindle and other eBook formats from July 2011.
About ‘The Immanence of Myth’: Thinkers such as Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Karl Kerenyi, and many others have helped to popularize an awareness of the psychological significance of archaic myth inside, as well as outside, the ivory tower of academia. However, the vast majority of their work has been focused on understanding and legitimizing the myths of the past.
Yet myth is an immanent, ongoing dialogue, an assemblage that interconnects us all. Joseph Campbell made it a part of his life’s work to emphasize the central importance an understanding of myth plays for the artist, and it is a perspective that arguably has been lost in many corners of the modern art world. This makes this investigation essential for artists (and would-be artists), regardless of their medium.
However, myth’s central importance does not end with art. Our beliefs and ideas about the world determine how we treat the world, how we engage with it and enter into it. Far from being archaic relics of the past, myths will affect the future for all of us. Even if we are unaware of them, they will continue to affect us.
Nearly half of this five-hundred page book was written by James Curcio, a writer and art director with extensive independent media experience. Since getting involved in media production as co-founder of Evolving Media in 2000—the first in many media/arts collectives he helped organize—he has built engaging narratives, utilizing the mediums best suited to the task.
He says, “I am excited to be building a platform for the exploration of the subject of mythology in a modern light, both through the release of this book and the website modernmythology.net, and believe that Weaponized is the perfect partner to bring this to fruition. I hope that this continues to be a springboard for the much-needed discussion of the role that myth plays in all our lives, as well as the creation of new media which builds upon this knowledge.”
John Harrigan of Weaponized says “One of the key reasons FoolishPeople founded the Weaponized imprint was to ensure that important works such as ‘The Immanence of Myth’ are published and made widely available. Now more than ever the subject of Myth is of vital importance to the very nature of humanity and we’re proud to publish this book.”
We must invent our myths—or re-invent them—ourselves. If you haven’t already, take this as a wake-up call to join in and become a myth-maker of the 21st century.
FP started off 2010 in February when we returned to the Old Abattoir with 'A Red Threatening Sky', an immersive performance that explored the earliest Gnostic traditions of Valentine's day.
Love. A vicious, bright beast and one of the most interesting forms of idea/deity we've worked with. I barely survived love's rawest essence with sanity intact.
In March I was rewarded, I married Lucy, FoolishPeople's producer and performer.
In July we held the first 'Theatre of Manifestation' workshop which explored FP's core working practice. The workshop sold out and has lead to collaborations that should touch down in 2011.
A lot of effort and time this year has been spent creating the Weaponized Imprint, extending the immersive art of FoolishPeople into the realms of publishing.
Cirxus and Dead Language were the first books to be published from FP's back catalogue of scripts, it's a misconception that the work of FP is devised. All FoolishPeople projects are developed from a script.
Weaponized has begun the task of releasing the scores and soundscapes that accompany our projects and performances created by P. Emerson Williams. We'll be releasing scores and soundscapes created for FP by Sonica Storm in 2011.
The end of the year has been our busiest period. On the 5th of November we launched Test Bed One of 'The Providence Experiments'.
'The Providence Experiments' were a unique series of workshops and events that fused experimentation, visualisation, ritual, psychological intervention and immersive game. Test subjects were thrust into bizarre events that offered participants the opportunity to undergo challenging yet positive artistic transformation. 'The Providence Experiments' concluded succesfully with the creation of Rachael Blythe's 'Lilith' performance.
In November we partnered with Secret Cinema on their presentation of Milos Forman's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
FP created 'The Basement' - Ward 12, which explored the background and history of author Ken Kesey’s participation in CIA MKULTRA Mind Control experiments conducted at Stanford University on the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD. This in turn influenced the themes of institutionalization and mind control explored in the book and film.
On the 14th of November we celebrated the offical launch of Weaponized and the publication of 'The Sparky Show' at The Horse Hospital, a venue very important to the mythology of FoolishPeople. FP core members Xanadu Xero and P. Emerson Williams, both from the States were present in the flesh along with authors and artists such as Richard Webb, Paul Bassett Davies and Gabriella Apicella of Storytails.
There's a number of other projects we've been working on throughout 2010 that we're looking forward to sharing with you in 2011.
The form of ritual and art FoolishPeople manifest would not be possible if it wasn't for the artists and performers who join our core creative group to work with us, sometimes for just one project, all in pursuit of creating work which offers numinous truths to those that experience it. Thank you to those of you that have been a part of the journey, both past and present.
The most important element of any FoolishPeople ritual is the paricipants. Our audience. Thank you for continuing to support our work.
'The Basement - Ward12' was created in partnership with Secret Cinema for the November 2010 presentation of Milos Forman's ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.
Ward 12 explored the background and history of author Ken Kesey’s participation in CIA MKULTRA Mind Control experiments conducted at Stanford University on the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and how this in turn may have been an influence on the book and film's themes of rebellion against society.
Ken Kesey’s reported voluntary participation in the MKULTRA program 1959, his subsequent experimentation with drugs and his work as a night orderly at an asylum provided his inspiration to write 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. These first steps led to his taking an active role in the sixties counter culture movement with the aim to instigate an alternative world view. Ken Kesey became one of the main proponents of sixties drug culture and the hippie movement.
Participants who entered Ward 12 at Secret Cinema were encouraged to take an active role in learning the truth of their own insanity. Were they part of a mythic MKULTRA test, or had they joined a family of patients who had fallen through the cracks of the system seeking escape via the basement beneath the Oregon State Hospital?
FoolishPeople’s 'The Basement' responded in real time to the expectations of the audience who were seeking to break the system. Unexpectedly, they found themselves in a world inhabited by archetypes and characters who may or may not be figments of the imagination. Or was it a psychoactive side effect and symptom caused by long term treatment with a cocktail of powerful antipsychotic medications?
The Basement - Ward 12 Written by John Harrigan and Xanadu Xero Directed by John Harrigan Produced by Lucy Harrigan ‘MKUltra’ video art by P. Emerson Williams, written by John Harrigan
Cast Archie – David Monard Doctor Armstrong – P. Emerson Williams Doctor Tollhaus – Tereza Kamenicka Elijah – John Harrigan Ellie – Laura Gallacher Lucinda C – Lucy Harrigan Mary – Josephine Arden MK12 Orderlies – Michael Christofis, Eleanor Young & Alexa Mathews Nurse Always – Xanadu Xero Nurse Cestoni – Laura Wolfe Nurse Phillips – Cathy Conneff Tessa – Kirsty Hudson
With special thanks to Secret Cinema, the London Film Museum and Space Engineering.
There is one place where all you can eat reality still exists and every banned emotion, experience, dream and nightmare can still be made real: The Museum of Virulent Experience, housing the entire banned index of thoughts, emotions and desires.
TICKET DETAILS
6 – 31 August 2012 7.30pm & 8.15pm entrance times Tickets: £20 (£15 concessions)
A writer, possessed by a terrifying fiction hunts for the heart of his story in a pagan landscape, haunted by the infamous hum emitted by a Strange Factory.
'Strange Factories' is a feature film that fuses cinema with a dreamlike environment to create an experience like no other.
1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus; an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station.
Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season. Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows to the other side of time.
Cirxus defies genre and form and offers a literary experience like no other. A combination of hallucinogenic novel and blueprint to a physical experience.
A rowdy gang of Tracey Emins wrestle half a dozen dazed Andy Warhols to the ground. IT IS THE FUTURE AND ALL FORMS OF ART ARE FREE. Perfect replicas exist of every masterpiece ever created, artworks and ideas are stolen from the mind before they’re even created.
Copyright or ownership is meaningless. FLESH-WORTH is all that matters. Arm yourself with weaponised art and explore the notions of open-source myth. What are intellectual rights worth in a decomposing culture?
Featuring full archival material from FoolishPeople’s performance run of Dead Language at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
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