Puking up ghosts (Liam)

The ghost's hands

Engender Trouble

I will have a couple of drawings in "Engender Trouble" at Iceberg in Chicago.  It is an exhibition of two new videos by Doug Ischar, "come lontano" and "CB," the latter in collaboration with his partner, Tom Daws, accompanied by a small exhibition curated by Doug of works by Erin Leland, Michael Sirianni, and myself.  Description from the press release of Doug's exceptional videos below.

New work by Doug Ischar, Doug Ischar/Tom Daws and an exhibition of new work by Elijah Burgher, Erin Leland and Michael Sirianni

‘come lontano’

come lontano (2010) is a perverse historical romance in which two lives are exposed, inter-mixed, doused with sentiment, and – hopefully - redeemed. The work revolves around a central ‘couple’ - Pier Paolo Pasolini and Maria Callas. There is a third main character, an ambiguous villain made of steel, glass and rubber. Each member of our central couple has her/his own external distractions which impinge – to varying degrees - on their brief, ecstatic encounter. This encounter was in fact a cinematic collaboration; it’s product the film Medea (1969)

come lontano is a formal experiment in which cinematic tropes serve as organizing devices for a work which anxiously seeks to distinguish itself from post-modern precedent. It hates with all its heart the notion of appropriation. It prefers theft, seduction, and passion - even if the theft is aggravated, the seduction botched, the passion unrequited. One might view the come lontano as a meager analog to Pasolini’s masterpiece, Salo, in which the pleasures of the masters – in this case the filmmaker – are taken to monstrous extremes for which no apology is offered, no acquittal sought.

come lontano is a heartfelt homage to two singular artists whose utterly different lives, personas, and politics intersected briefly in the production of one radiant film, leaving them forever changed. (NTSC; 22 minutes) World premier.

‘CB’

CB (2010) is an experimental bio-pic: its heroine, Charlotte Brontë. A collaboration between Doug Ischar and Tom Daws, CB was commissioned by the Laumeier Museum, St. Louis, for their inaugural Nightlight series; it premiered in St. Louis on June 11th.

The film was inspired by a 1976 audio recording of a séance with Charlotte Brontë, of which the film makes ample use. But the séance audio is merely the tip of the affective iceberg as its heroine turns out to have an emotional – not to mention intellectual – life of epic proportions. Her searing letters – another primary element in the video – throw the eerie platitudes of the séance into razor-sharp relief and disclose a 19th century woman whose brief life was both an artistic triumph and a relentless battle against grief, loss, and despair. Her dark moments – confided in her letters – drove the film far beyond the initial ambitions of its makers. ‘CB’ uses footage from a 1947 Hollywood production of Jane Eyre – co-staring a very young Elizabeth Taylor (un-credited) – to augment enactments of scenes inspired by the ambiguous nature – both conversation with the dead and univocal performance - of the séance audio. Staring Erin Leland, Charlotte Geissler, Jalyn Mosely, and Gwendolyn Geisler; cinematography by Mike Gibisser; concept, research, editing and direction by Doug Ischar and Tom Daws. (high-definition video; 16.5 minutes) Chicago premier.

After Invocation of the Queer Spirits (Governor's Island) 3

After Invocation of the Queer Spirits (Governor's Island) 2

After Invocation of the Queer Spirits (Governor's Island) 1

Puking up ghosts 2

Puking up ghosts

Love Spell

from William S. Burroughs' The Ticket That Exploded:

The young monk led Bradly to a cubicle-On a stone table was a tape recorder-The monk switched on the recorder and sounds of lovemaking filled the room-The monk took off his robe and stood naked with an erection-He danced around the table caressing a shadowy figure out of the air above the recorder-A tentative shape flickering in and out of focus to the sound track-The figure floated free of the recorder and followed the monk to a pallet on the floor-He went through a pantomime of pleading with the phantom who sat on the bed with legs crossed and arms folded-Finally the phantom nodded reluctant consent and the monk twisted through a parody of lovemaking as the tape speeded up: "Oh darling i love you oh oh deeper oh oh fuck the shit out of me oh darling do it again"-Bradly rolled on the floor, a vibrating air hammer of laughter shaking flesh from the bones-Scalding urine spurted from his penis-The Other Half swirled in the air above him screaming, face contorted in suffocation as he laughed the sex words from throat gristle in bloody crystal blobs-His bones were shaking, vibrated to neon-Waves of laughter through his rectum and prostate and testicles giggling out spurts of semen as he rolled with his knees up to his chin-

All the tunes and sound effects of "Love" spit from the recorder permutating sex whine of a sick picture planet: Do you love me?- ...

I seek the Idyll Name of Nought

What is the relationship between decapitation and creativity? pt. 2

All the ghosts came to that party ...

From Derek Jarman's Kicking the Pricks:

AND THE SHIP SAILED ON

Adam and Eve (that's you),

And Pinch-Me-Not (that's us),

Went down to the sea to bathe,

Adam and Eve were drowned,

Who do you think was saved?

PINCH-ME-NOT.

What was Pinch-Me-Not up to? Well, years ago he danced to a wind-up gramophone on the deck of HMS Invincible with his mates. Afterwards the lads went below decks, stripped off, and fucked so hard they forgot the war. The ship sailed on and on, and reached a desert island. Was it the Isle of the Dead? I'm not certain.  It could have been Easter Island with its giant statues, or Stromboli, where in the sulphurous smoke of the volcano, he discovered a wild flower growing 'essence'. He picked it, and pressed it, and sent it home, to the neat little back-tobacks which he had left far behind.  His mates were pirates now, deserters, they fucked each other all night; no one came less than eight times; in the dawn they were like a clean room, minds opened.  The fucking burnt away the cobwebs, and broke their manacles.

One day, as the sun came up, they reached the very edge of the horizon. They lay in the dawn, crushed in each other's arms, satiated, but still erect. Who made love to whom that night? All the ghosts came to that party: Alexander the Great threw himself to the battalions that died for him, Socrates pronounced a blessing. Many were there secretly, but I'll not give them away. There was Richard Coeur de Lion with Lord Kitchener, who pointed at us and said 'Your country needs YOU'; Gaveston had his cock up Edward's arse; they had minstrels-Tchaikovsky was blowing Britten-and painters to record them: Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Caravaggio.  The guest-list was endless and they built their own world far away from yours, with doctors and dentists, bricklayers and ploughmen. The authorities never caught up with them because they were wizards and witches and faeries.  It was a queer old world; you can stamp on a fairy ring, but it will bring you terrible luck, and neither you, or your children, who know how sweet the faeries are, will sleep soundly ever again.

Hiking Queer Mountain b/w Dangerous Waiting

Where are Witches?

Where are Ghosts?

Where is Queer Mountain?

Roamers gather ...

I want to visit Queer Mountain: http://www.peterhobbs.ca/ 

and invoke queer spirits: http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2008/invocation/home.html

and practice Chaos Kung Fu*: http://www.templex.org/Tantra/Files/ckf.pdf

*I'm not Frater Elijah, but I'd like to meet him!

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