Do You Crave Independent Media?

Independent film, art and media is important.

It enables us to create new ways of thinking and being. It attacks the grinding status quo.

Do you crave independence? Do you value your own choices, and wish you weren’t constantly being hammered by media, advertising and society? Are you sick of the powerful telling you what to eat, what to think, what to do and who you can love?

The good news is, you’re not alone. Not by a long chalk.

We’ve covered uprisings, we’ve taken apart the narratives of the powerful wolves in the board-room, we’ve explored the ways we can subvert and use the Drone-Future to our advantage.

We’ve used ancient archetypes to shed light on today’s patterns.

You’re not alone.

Throughout the world there are countless folks like you, who crave that independence, who have that urge to steal the fire from the newsrooms, and the studios, the corporations and the 1%.

And that’s the thing - the ones you think hold all the cards? They’re actually in the minority. A vanishingly small selection of people inhabit the shells of corporations and the halls of power.

Big empty rooms, echoing with the occasional footstep.

But imagine for a second - imagine what would happen if those empty, hollow spaces were filled up with a plethora of voices?

Even traditional media cannot deny the heaving crowd, the seething mass of all those individual voices raised. It’s just not possible any more.

You’ve probably read how Clark: A Gonzomentary is appearing at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival.

 Think about that. Independent people coming together to celebrate their achievements, to create things because they want to, because they need to.

Because dammnit, there is a way to do it, despite what you’ve been told.

And if you look, there’s always more:


Strange Factories - Trailer from FoolishPeople on Vimeo.

On Monday, FoolishPeople announced their collaboration with London’s Cinema Museum, to release their crowdfunded independent film, Strange Factories

Through that collaboration, a live cinema event occurs in October, the characters coming to life and interacting with the audience!

You can pre-order Strange Factories now, download it then, and stream it to join in with the rending of the veils on opening night.

You can explore its world through the doors of Theatric Arcana wherever - and whenever - you are, on the damn planet.

And this is possible because you are not alone.

We are not alone.

Collaboration and interdependence means exactly that.

In today’s networked society, you can lend your voice to the crowd, you can give politicians bloody noses and corporations kicks in the profit margins.

You can support blazing visions that burn brighter than the sun, and you can spread laughter that reminds you to be alive.

You are not alone, and it’s time we reminded you of that.

Independence is not isolation, it comes from inter-dependence. It comes from hundreds, thousands, millions even, supporting each other in any way they can.

Time to spread the word.

Be seeing you.

*** 
Craig 'VI' Slee is a Consultant & Theorist dealing with Mythology, Folklore, Storytelling & Culture.

Currently, he serves as Writer and Content Developer for FoolishPeople, an internationally acclaimed immersive theatre company who create ritual experiences, books and films. Their latest work is STRANGE FACTORIES, which will be released to worldwide distribution October 2013.

[Where is the fucking counterculture? Mythos Media.]

This Is Going To Make Marchel Duchamp's 'Fountain' look like a urinal.

Gonzomentary Selected for Philadelphia Independent Film Festival

"Clark: A Gonzomentary is a whole bucket of crazy, and I really enjoyed it for all of its insanity."
- Filmthreat review.

Clark: A Gonzomentary, a movie that keeps growing (like a cancer) and from which I can't escape (like a tiger cage in Vietnam), has been officially selected to screen at the 6th annual Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, June 26th - 30th, 2013.

Trailer: 

Can't make it to the screening? 

Why not watch the early-release cut of the movie on YouTube. 

The version to be screening has been shortened ~10 min and the sound has been improved.

[Where is the fucking counterculture? Mythos Media.]

Falling in love with Kali

By William Clark

It was on the night January 8th, 2000 that I fell in love with Kali. Despite having no previous introduction to Hinduism, I was graced with a vision of her which completely changed the course of my existence. Ever since that evening, I have sought to transmute my life into an offering for that black goddess who I saw dancing within my heart.

Traveling to India immediately became a top priority of mine. I found myself heading there within two years of my darshan (“divine vision”) and will undoubtedly be visiting this country again and again for as long as I am able. During this time, I have immersed myself in the study of Indian culture and religion, focusing primarily on the state of West Bengal where Kali enjoys a particularly exalted position of popularity and reverence. I have acquired a comfortable grasp of the Bengali language and my passionate interest in the folk music of that region has led to the attainment of some specialized knowledge in that area as well. While back home in the USA, I decided to spend some time learning the basics of field recording and photography in order to document the ongoing pilgrimage which has become the central pivot of my existence. During my last visit to India from 2011-2012, I began developing www.kalibhakti.com as a way to share my journey with those who might wish to come along for the ride.

Reality is an Art Project

Portlandia : Art Project

Gonzomentary: Clark

From Hyperallergic re: Art Project, Portlandia:

 For those uninitiated into its history, conceptual art can often seem like a trick — is that really a urinal in an art gallery? Is sticking yogurt caps on gallery walls really great art? Unfortunately for Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the stars and creators of the sketch TV show Portlandia, it turns out that conceptual art can actually trap you, even outside of a gallery opening ...
The danger of anything being art, as we are wont to argue these days, is that everything can be art if you want it to — and no one else has to agree with you to make it so. The Portlandia folks are living in a world in which postmodernism has run amok, sparing nothing, not even the coffee shop.

From Film Threat re: Clark, A Gonzomentary: 

What results from Warwick’s footage is a “gonzomentary,” a mix of fourth-wall busting filmmaking, mockumentary, Gonzo journalism and whatever else can be added into the mix, which includes: Uncle Binky the pedophile clown; a Christian producer/investor who wants the film to contain no swearing, no drinking and no drugs, right before she has a crisis of faith and becomes a mime; a silent film; Tito the drug dealer, who is actually a British actor (David Proch) stuck in a Method acting Hell and Warwick’s own descent into madness while chronicling the adventures of Clark and J.C. And penises. Lots of penises.

[Where is the fucking counterculture? Mythos Media.]

What Is A Gonzomentary?

A Gonzomentary is a film or video that combines objectivity with pre-scripted fictitious events, or that creates fictitious characters but presents them through outside media as realistic in order to obscure a distinction between reality and fiction within the story.

Gonzomentary is a marriage of two words:

CLARK!

Gonzo, a type of subjective journalism that favors style over fact to achieve accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered.
The word Gonzo was first used in 1970 to describe an article by Hunter S. Thompson, who later popularized the style. The term has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors.
Mockumentary is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format.

Plus, it sounds better than Gonzo Mocko. Or uh. Mockugonzoism. Because then there will be Post-Mockugonzoism. And that's just stupid.

Nevertheless, this means that a “Gonzomentary” is something so convoluted that it’s almost sometimes nearly impossible to even describe what it may or may not be maybe without inventing a new language for the purpose of translating it from another alien language which only surviving Atlanteans can interpret into English (but must first learn English) then unfortunately losing the original concept in translation. The only way you can experience it fully is to buy products from us. 


Or at least watch some of the initial episodes, supposing you have an attention span that's greater than a goldfish or small rodent. Here's the pilot: 

Clark: More Than Just The “Dick Guy”

Johan Ess made a post about Clark that helps frame this and several other projects that have come out of the apartment we are soon to depart from - Clark likely making his way to India.

"I would like to take the opportunity to discuss a highly unique individual who appeared in my life a couple years ago and has remained one of my best esteemed colleagues, post-human mutants, orgone ontologists, or however else you might want to try (but fail) to frame him properly. Many just call him the “Dick Guy”, but I will take the time to deconstruct such a crude generalization of this multifaceted force of nature a little later.

My first encounter with William Clark was in 2009 when the star of my previous post, Rachel Haywire, had him fly down to hang out with us in Fort Lauderdale where I used to live. Our mission was to play and record lots of music, channel wild chaotic spirits, and attend the Fetish Factory 13th Anniversary which was happening at that time.

Clark was someone who would talk about things that got him arrested, along with his experiences traveling in India, and the time he met the benevolent cult leader Raël. Our experience at the bacchanalia of the fetish event was fairly EXTREME, but Clark and I were able to have an existential conversation nonetheless. At some point later on, when the timing was right, we recorded the most absurd chanting possible, which will likely crop up at some point in our further collaboration.

It was not very long after that I got the fuck out of Florida, seeing as it was a hellish oppressive landscape for an estranged young mutant like myself, and made my eventual landing in a more northern region of glorious Americana. Meanwhile, I noticed that Clark had started posting images dressed as the Baron Samedi along with a perpetual stream of the most mind-bending anecdotes you could possibly stumble across. In the summer of 2010, I made a transpiritual pilgrimage to the North East which allowed me to spend some time in a mysterious underground bunker where the band HoodooEngine was forged and where one could also be known to find Clark."

(Full post)

Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Modern Myths Interview with James Curcio on Occult Sentinel

This is a live interview that ran about a month ago on Occult Sentinel, which I realized I didn't pass along here, as I was so focused on working on Clark at the time. (Play through that link or download directly here.) 
In it we talk about The Immanence of Myth, the Gonzomentary Clark, the novel Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End, and HoodooEngine's first album Egowhore. I feel that, my stammering aside, it was a pretty good coverage of that moment in time in terms of what I was working on and kind of usual "work load" I'm trying to get out the door at any given time. 
I hope you enjoy, if you haven't listened already. I also hope to see as many of the contributors here on the site engaged in so many projects so we can get that stuff up here and out to all of you, and I hope you support it. I recently added Rudy Rauben's Medicine Show to the store here on the site, and expect to see many more projects come together over this year.
However: I see the traffic growing and all but the only thing that is going to keep this kind of work going long, bottom line, is your financial support. Please don't forget this. 
A few little updates on those projects: 

• The Immanence of Myth is getting ready to be proofed and should be on track to be released as hardcopy and ebook by Weaponized in July. Pre-orders are already available. Pick one up. 
• I am shopping Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End to a number of publishers. I plan on recording an audiobook and have plans for it to become a full transmedia series, but part of that involves partnering with a publisher with the pull and assets to help make that a reality. A version of the book is available right now through Lulu, which I plan to pull when a publisher locks in a 'real' deal with me. I've done this because I know finding the right publisher could take years and I'd like to have the book available to you in the meantime. 
• Clark is in partial hiatus, as we slowly work on our interview pieces and some B roll material to cut together a film-length version. There have been technical difficulties keeping me from properly post-producing and mastering the sound. Don't get me started. But we'll figure it out. Meantime, enjoy the show! We almost literally killed ourselves for your enjoyment. 
• HoodooEngine has finally gotten to the point where we are full out mixing many of the tracks for our second album. It is, as I said, heavier, more progressive, and darker in many ways than the first. Johan Ess is taking the helm with the mixing now, as we've been having some hardware issues with our other setups and he did such a banging job with mastering EgoWhore. I'm sure I'll be pestering him throughout the post- process, however.

Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Synchronicity and a Call for Papers - All Your History Are Belong to Us: The Middle Ages, Medievalism, and Digital Gaming

By Mr. VI

Synchronicity works in funny ways:

I came up with the idea of incorporating Dragon Age 2 into a post on interactivity, incorporation, identity and storytelling. I mentioned this to James and discovered he'd been thinking on ARG's and transmedia projects - you can read some of his thoughts here and listen to an intriguing podcast here on the subject published by the folks who are also publishing the forthcoming Immanence of Myth book.

So this morning, I was cruising through my livejournal friends-list when I came across this:

All Your History Are Belong to Us: The Middle Ages, Medievalism, and Digital Gaming (more details below after I've finished pontificating)

I know, I know. LJ is so very stone-age, so very Web 1.0 but I love it anyway, even though as writer Warren Ellis says: '[I]t's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands.'

And actually, Warren's a bit of a favourite around here. His epic Transmetropolitan cyberpunk comic series has a main character who seems to have mainlined the Gonzo journalism of the late, great Hunter S Thompson which in turn has inspired the Gonzomentary of the CLARK webseries.

Warren's also no stranger to games either; he wrote the script for the 2001 game Hostile Waters:Antaeus Rising and more recently worked on the storyline for the well known survival horror game Dead Space - which the Call for Papers below actually refers to in terms of 'templarization of history'.

Interestingly enough, I didn't originally intend the remark about LJ to be anything more than a throwaway one - I missed the original reference to Dead Space in the Call, and yet it's there; an acausal connection.

Because here's the thing, narrative doesn't have to flow one single way. As James has already said in his post on time, place and convention of literature:

[O]ur expectations of narrative structure are actually incredibly unnatural. Our cognitive experience is not linear. Someone says something to you. You are reminded of something a few years ago. You wonder about the future. All of these things can happen while you are also walking and other things are happening around you which themselves may have past, present, and future layers occurring simultaneously, again from the perspective of their perception.

The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies: Character Assassination as Art Form

By James Curcio
I'm sure some of you are following the mockumentary Gonzomentary "Clark" we've been running since early autumn. Now the actors within the show get their chance to speak on what the experience was like. Generally we run this on the site dedicated to that project, or over on Alterati where it is being syndicated, (and iTunes, for those of you with these newfangled devices.)

But this layering relates directly to some of the ongoing discussion here on Modern Mythology, so here are three of those pieces. Enjoy! And check out the series.

Clark On Clark


JC on JC


Dave on Tito

From a phone conversation:

Daniel

I'm editing Tito's interview now

William

When did you shoot that?

Daniel

What do you mean, you were in it... you were actually interviewing him.

William

What? I don't remember that.

Daniel

Neither do I, but somehow I have 120 minutes of it on tape.

While we're on this, consider the following, from Aliester Crowley's Book of Lies:
ONION-PEELINGS
The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER PERDURABO, and laughed.But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow.Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.Below these certain disciples wept.Then certain laughed.Others next wept.Others next laughed.Next others wept.Next others laughed.Last came those that wept because they could not see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought it safe to act like FRATER PERDURABO.But though FRATER PERDURABO laughed openly, He also at the same time wept secretly; and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept.
Nor did He mean what He said. 
Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

The Cult of Personality: Charlie Sheen, Layne Staley, Tiger Blood In Our Veins

The past day I've been on a jag about reality art. Well, I've been on about it for a lot longer than that, but I've been tracking down a particular pattern the past few days. So check it out.

Maybe it began from working on Clark the past few months. The levels of fiction within reality within fiction with that project are getting downright absurd, to the point that I don't think I could coherently explain it. (Which is alright, since I haven't coherently explained anything since 95 when that kid gave me this tab of paper and asked me if I wanted to "take a ride." No clue how I would fit on a piece of paper that small but...)

Here's the second episode of Clark. There were 8 in season one so if you like it, watch the other ones before we revamp them in surround sound and work Jabba the hut into the background of every scene so we can say it was "DIGITALLY REMASTERED." Cause so far it wasn't "mastered" at all. (As Kool Keith sagely said, "I get real raw. Change arrangements on your face.")



But maybe it was also watching I'm Still Here. Maybe it was the realization I've had for years that there are layers within layers when it comes to persona, especially when it is embodied in media, and those that know how to dance between the layers are the real enigmas, manifesting the trickster archetype of our times. We think of Andy Kaufman. We think of Hunter S Thompson, or maybe Crispin Glover. Ego, in its classical rather than common sense, is more or less unchanging. The "feeling" of being me, the eye that perceives me, seems more or less the same now as it did back in 95. Persona, though? That's as mutable as the contexts we are immersed in. And media, like myth, adds halls of mirrors.

There are many other versions of these tragicomedies that are less self-apparent than Kauffman or Hunter. For instance, there was the seemingly sudden explosion of "grunge" music into the mainstream, an explosion which carried all of these misfit outsider artists into the limelight, so they could dance like puppets on David Letterman.  (Who has either been gaffed by almost every single trickster I mentioned above - for example - or who has secretly orchestrated quite a few reality-art pieces. I'm guessing the latter, either way it's the gap-toothed douchebag act that he pulls off so well whenever a guest does something unexpected that makes it work. "David Letterman, meet Clark!")

Grunge "Fashion"

It's not like they wore flannel originally to be stylish. It was cold, they were broke as fuck, and junk is expensive. The things that made grunge "cool" was how raw and outsider it was, though of course as usual the moment it became marketable, the end was nigh. It was surreal for me, even back in the 90s when I was a wee lad, I felt some kind of unease, an inkling of the surreal, seeing a heroin-infused, already nearly skeletal Layne Staley openly singing one of his suicide notes on MTV award shows and late night broadcast television. Kurt Cobain was the same story, and I'm not sure how different the core myth is from Janice, or Hendrix, or Morrison, or... So my thing is, when these guys are playing through networks of corporate shills, does no one listen to lyrics? Of course not, they know what they're into. I'm not saying that anyone could have gone out there and said, "So uh. Hey Layne...all this talk about blowing your brains out and shooting heroin, I guess you're not feeling so good, huh?" Or if they did, that it'd create his "come to Jesus moment." Like, "Wow! I guess you're right. I've been pretty depressed, huh? And you're all feeding off of it!"

No. No one is going to say that. And in a culture where we are spending billions on a war on drugs with one hand, with the other, we're shilling Junkhead which gets about as explicit as you possibly can. (Remember the days when Jim Morrison caused a stir by saying "higher" on the Ed Sullivan show? Me either.)

I mean, I'm all for legalizing many drugs for a variety of reasons, I'm just saying that our cultural hypocrocy is palapable. Always look to the bottom line. Who does the war on drugs benefit? And who does the idolization of outsider-drug-culture-rock-star myth benefit?

The so-called "majors" saw an opportunity to market to disaffected youth through the voices of some other disaffected youth, and fuck the body count. Which is the least of the issue in regard to corporate interest, as we've discussed on this blog many times before. I'm certainly not trying to moralize. It is only inevitable that some talented and some truly insane or tragically scarred individuals would try to play hopscotch into the public mind. For some of us, it might be our only ticket to a brief moment of "living the dream" before we've got to pay the toll. As I've said before, in the end the mob will only be satisfied to see your bloody sacrifice. But first, for a time, you can be King For A Day. You know the deal: today, virgins and feasts. All the kids can project their angst and suffering on you. Tomorrow, the volcano will have you, and they can grow up and get to work.
(Shortly after writing this, Alice In Chains bassist Mike Starr died.)



There's a train-wreck in effect right now that brings this to light. Yeah, you've probably heard about it.

Charlie Sheen's brilliantly insane rants on national TV are making Tom Cruise's couch hopping seem like light calisthenics, and Mel Gibson just seems like a bellicose retard by comparison. I normally could give a damn about pop or mainstream culture, and the tabloids are clearly bastions of high-order thinking, but I can't take my eyes off this particular train wreck, though it's not quite like rubbernecking at an accident.

No, it's simply because it is making me laugh so hard that I'm crying. Maybe I'm just a cruel hearted asshole, but the lines this guy is dropping are almost as good as the ones he's been snorting up his nose.

I always thought Charlie Sheen was a no-talent hack riding the coattails of his father, who is by all rights an incredibly talented - and multifaceted - actor. I honestly never gave him much thought. Now I'm beginning to wonder if he just missed his calling: he's been trying to do mainstream sit com schlock when he should be doing Gonzomentary improv. Finally he is heeding that creative calling, to be the jester-lunatic- now that he's got the platform to leverage. And watch us sacrifice him on the altar when his time comes. (Not that he's not sticking his own head on the block and screaming "DO IT!" Joaquin Phoenix or River Phoenix? We'll see...)

Gonzomentary Occult Method and Ritual in Acting

A post on the Gonzomentary site about the "Occult Method and Ritual in Acting":

"...That's basic method. Here's where you can take it a step further. Through embodying things that you may despise, or things that other people project on you, you can engage what Carl Jung called the "shadow self," and transmute them into something else. Let me mix some metaphors. The impulses and parts of yourself that you turn your back on, the fears other people project on you, take on a hidden life. But you can eat them alive..." 

Clark Gonzomentary Season 1 Finale Coming Soon

As some of you know, we've been hard at "work" on an ongoing series. Rather than ramble about it here, check out this trailer.

And then check out the site. Subscribe...and look for our upcoming DVD!

Clark Episodes 1-4

There have been few artists who have changed our perception of reality, and even less who have changed the world. This story is about neither.”

Exodus Films presents “Clark,” a gonzomentary reality show art film surrounding the struggles of an independent artist in a capitalist world.


We have now run 4 episodes of Clark, and are halfway through our first season. Check it out and subscribe through your preferred method... or watch them on Blip.tv or on Alterati.com.

Yeah, we're full of options. More to come, and the insanity will only mount as we enter the second half of the season.

CLARK

Short Trailer 

ALTERATI.COM "CLARK" CHANNEL

Produced by Exodus Films LLC, CLARK is a gonzo mockumentary about a man struggling as an independent artist in a capitalistic world. It follows the comedic, downward spiral that can sometimes result in tragedy or greatness and the co-dependence of Clark and his manager, JC. Or it’s all pretentious bullshit. You decide. The results are hilarious and awful, no matter how you cut it.

Credits: This show is the brainchild of Daniel Warwick, William Clark, and James Curcio, this season features a special appearance by Jazmin Lee.

Long Trailer 

The show will air every on Alterati other Saturday beginning with this Saturday (the 30th of October). We will also be setting up a site/blog for the show in due time. Enjoy the show!