Strange Factories: The Imaginari

Strange Factories 2014 tour details coming soon...

[Take a Trip with us... Mythos Media.]

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.]

Big Brother And His Drones: What YOU Can Get Out Of Surveillance and the Machine Future

It's time to face facts – technology advances by harnessing human drives, and the most primal are sex and death.

Drones and cybersex. So, what can YOU get out of it?

Pornography and the military-industrial complex are often the prime funders of technological research. Without DARPA, we wouldn't have the internet, and without the urge to stream porn, we wouldn't be constantly trying to improve data compression techniques.

Without lust, there'd be no YouTube – and without the urge to achieve maximum effect with minimum effort, we wouldn't develop labour saving devices. We wouldn't develop technology to extend our reach, and refine our apparent control over the situation. Without apparent scarcity and rarity, we wouldn't consider certain things precious, and we certainly wouldn't care about loss. We wouldn't care about extending our sphere of influence, or expanding our territory.

Here in the UK, we're seemingly constantly under the eye of CCTV. According to the BBC, one London Borough, Wandsworth, has more cameras than Dublin, San Francisco, Johannesburg and Boston COMBINED. Manchester has more than 4 times the number of CCTV cameras than Paris.

Where is your attention?

Leaving aside the use of drones in current conflicts across the globe, the increasing militarisation of police forces may be reaching its zenith in California. A County Sheriff wants to buy one for use over his area, right over your back yard. The EFF and other civil liberties organisations are protesting however.

Ultimately drones – small unmanned aerial vehicles - are here to stay, whether or not they're weaponised or otherwise. Futurist and military strategist John Robb points out that they could be used for logistics and other things – a Dronenet, or 'internet of drones'. Combine this with the advances in 3D printing, and crowdfunding platform,s like Kickstarter and IndieGogo, things are going to get interesting pretty fast.

Strange Factories

FoolishPeople is proud to announce the production of their first feature film Strange Factories, a psychological thriller written by John Harrigan and directed by Richard Webb and John Harrigan.

In an unnamed country, a storyteller possessed by an idea for a new fable searches for four lost friends, all refugee performers of a theatre destroyed in a mysterious fire. Sam, who is obsessed with dangerous stage effects, Jessica, a glamorous femme fatale, Hettie, a clown who hides a secret and Rose, who has sacrificed her life to art.

Victor believes their unique skills will help him complete work on a story he fears is fast becoming a paradox.

He finds his friends in a remote, pagan village founded by Stronheim; the owner of a Strange Factory hidden deep in the local countryside, infamous for the frequencies of sound it emits. Inadvertently, Victor enters into a dangerous pact when Stronheim makes a proposition to build a new theatre for the performers, if Victor reaches the heart of his story in time for it to be performed at the village festival.

The key to the group’s success lies in unravelling the truth of a mysterious fiction and learning how it relates to the customs of the villagers: bizzare rites practiced under influence of a hallucinogenic effluence siphoned out of the Strange Factory and served at the local pub.

Emotional geography and psychologically fractured history merge in a landscape haunted with dreams and nightmares of kidnapped actors, hideous monsters, invisible escape artists and ghosts of audiences past, present and future.

All milestones lead to Strange Factories.



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

Dead Language Now For Sale

Foolish People have released DEAD LANGUAGE through their new imprint, Weaponized. Check it out. (And... check out my foreword.)

Terra Extremitas: Light to Darkness Darkness To Light

As promised, following the release of the 2nd "Fear & Loathing On The Internet" installment, here is the full res (.wav) version of the installment of the audio installation I prepared for Foolish People's Terra Extremitas' event in Amsterdam. 

This is an acoustic journey into the Bardo, linking the narratives of my 2nd, mythically inspired novel, Fallen Nation Babylon Burning, and the upcoming film, Y. 

" First played with accompanying theatrics at the Foolish People's Terra Extremitasevent in Amsterdam, August 08. Includes original music by Scott Landes (Collide, Mankind is Obsolete), Jon Siren (Mankind is Obsolete, Hate Dept), James Curcio (Babalon, subQtaneous), andPeter Emerson Williams (Choronzon, Veil of Thorns)."

Listen or download now

Light to Darkness / Darkness to Light at Terra Extremitas

This is a sneak peek at the soundtrack that will be used in a performance at Terra Extremitas, put on by the Foolish People. The script and soundtrack are based on some of the eschatological themes in Fallen Nation, and will serve as a bridge between that and a future project with the Foolish People, and many other creatives you may or may not have heard of...

The voices you will hear in this soundtrack will be the voices inside the actor's head. The rest you will just have to imagine- or better yet, get your ass to the event.

Also, after the Terra Extremitas event in Amsterdam, we will be providing you with a version of this soundtrack with the actors lines added- which may or may not have video, depending on how the filming at the event goes. Enjoy!

Soundtrack Credits:

Writing: James Curcio, Jason Stackhouse.

Production & Art Direction: James Curcio.

Music: P. Emerson Williams (Choronzon, Veil of Thorns), James Curcio, Scott Landes (Collide, Mankind is Obsolete), Jon Siren (Mankind is Obsolete, Hate Dept).

http://www.mythosmedia.net/blog/post/45-light-to-darkness-darkness-to-light-at-terra-extremitas
(Built in player should stream the mp3, it is also available for download on this page.)

Auguring The Technocalypse

FP announced my upcoming participation in their Terra:Extremitas event in Amsterdam in August. Guess I'd better get to work on that script...

About 'Terra:Extremitas':
"In many ways the United States are inhospitable to artists. This isn't to say that the case is otherwise elsewhere, but most of my life experience comes from living here. At the extreme, I think there is an underlying, subconscious belief in many people that true commitment to art and creativity is a cultural crime. In my opinion, 'Terra: Extremitas' brings that belief to the forefront, it embodies it as a form of revolt on our part, and mixes it with the now ubiquitous myth of the apocalypse. In a fit of incoherent caffeination I said that my last novel (Fallen Nation) was a cultural apocalypse. Now I know what the hell I was talking about- and can thank the FoolishPeople for it."

Reality is being devoured by a surreal nightmare.

The Fiction has arrived.

Immerse yourself in the immense, interconnected story manifested by FoolishPeople and over 30 visionaries and artists working together
from across the world within the unique landscape of Amsterdam's NDSM-werf.

Follow living characters, absorb live transmissions from the other side of the planet, and discover the secrets, which each hold a fragment of the Terra: Extremitas myth.

The surreal and beautiful experience of exploring humanity’s last day on earth.

TERRA EXTREMITAS.
---------------------------------
My Bio: (to go up w/ TE event.)

Ever since an acid trip in 1995 that James Curcio arguably never quite returned from, he has been dedicated (some might say obsessed) with the production of modern myths. These have taken the form of collaborative novels (Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning in 2007, Join My Cult! in 2004), essays on myth and culture (The Immanence of Myth, presently in development, “Living The Myth,” Generation Hex 2004, “Hillbilly Tantra” in Magic On The Edge in 2005, and “Dying Gods” in Lemon Puppy, in 2003), Internet "round-table" musical albums,(subQtaneous: Some Still Despair In A Prozac Nation in 2005, Babalon's Descent in 2001 and posthumous Dreams And Reflections in 2005), and various unorthodox podcast and audiobook series. He has co-founded quite a few independent artist groups and recording studios, and is presently a co-founder of Mythos Media, and editor of Alterati.com. Curcio will present an unwholesome multi-media mindfuck at Terra Extremitas which will leave his audience forever changed- or dizzy, nauseous and psychologically broken, if the “Program” does not take.

About what he does:

“I really don't know how to provide a top-down or general summary of 'what I do.' It isn't simple evasiveness, but rather because it is a relative unknown. All I know is that when you begin practicing an instrument, or painting, or doing virtually anything, you are conscious of every action, of every misstep. As you continue to work, and the years pass, you become less and less conscious of each of those discrete actions. This is why so many teachers stress the fundamentals, because those building blocks, or personal cliches, slip out of your conscious sphere and become increasingly difficult to re-configure. By the time you reach the point that the work becomes what you are, and you serve as a conduit for it, you are completely in the dark about the truly relevant actions you take to bring it about. What is my process? Do what you do, and put everything you possibly can into it. Sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed, and don't hesitate to cannibalize your most private experiences in the process. Cast it into the world as if you were throwing it into the trash can. And start over again, because chances are, you can do better.”

About Terra Extremitas:

“In many ways the United States are inhospitable to artists. This isn't to say that the case is otherwise elsewhere, but most of my life experience comes from living here. At the extreme, I think there is an underlying, subconscious belief in many people that true commitment to art and creativity is a cultural crime. In my opinion, Terra Extremitas brings that belief to the forefront, it embodies it as a form of revolt on our part, and mixes it with the now ubiquitous myth of the apocalypse. In a fit of incoherent caffeination I said that my last novel (Fallen Nation) was a cultural apocalypse. Now I know what the hell I was talking about- and can thank the Foolish People for it.”