HEXEN 2039 (2006) & HEXEN 2.0 (2009-11) by SUZANNE TREISTER, Black Dog Publishing

SUZANNE TREISTER (b.1958 London, UK) studied at St Martin’s School of Art, London (1978-1981) and Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (1981-1982) based in London having lived in Australia, New York and Berlin.

Initially recognized in the 1980s as a painter, she became a pioneer in the digital/new media/web based field from the beginning of the 1990s, making work about emerging technologies, developing fictional worlds and international collaborative organisations. Utilizing various media, including video, the internet, interactive technologies, photography, drawing and watercolour, TREISTER has evolved a large body of work which engages with eccentric narratives and unconventional bodies of research to reveal structures that bind power, identity and knowledge.

Often spanning several years, her projects comprise fantastic reinterpretations of given taxonomies and histories that examine the existence of covert, unseen forces at work in the world, whether corporate, military or paranormal.

HEXEN 2039

By SUZANNE TREISTER
2006

In 1995 SUZANNE TREISTER created the fictional alter ego Rosalind Brodsky, a delusional time traveller who believes herself to be working at the Institute of Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality (IMATI) in the twenty-first century. IMATI is an independent research institute with government and corporate clients, based in South London.

Consisting of drawings, interventions, a film, a website, a book and an event, HEXEN2039 charts Brodsky’s para-scientific research towards the development of new mind control technologies for the British Military.

The information in HEXEN 2039 is based primarily on actual events, scientific research and military histories.

HEXEN 2039 reveals links between conspiracy theories, occult groups, Chernobyl, witchcraft, the US film industry, British Intelligence agencies, Soviet brainwashing, behaviour control experiments of the US Army and recent practices of its Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (PSYOP), in light of alarming new research in contemporary neuroscience.

The results of HEXEN 2039 were utilized between 2040 and 2045 in the development of a range of non-lethal weapons for remote alteration of belief patterns in the subject.

HEXEN 2.0 

By SUZANNE TREISTER
2009-2011

HEXEN 2.0 looks into histories of scientific research behind government programmes of mass control, investigating parallel histories of countercultural and grass roots movements. HEXEN 2.0 charts, within a framework of post-WWII U.S. governmental and military imperatives, the coming together of scientific and social sciences through the development of cybernetics, the history of the internet, the rise of Web 2.0 and increased intelligence gathering, and implications for the future of new systems of societal manipulation towards a control society.

HEXEN 2.0 specifically investigates the participants of the seminal Macy Conferences (1946-1953), whose primary goal was to set the foundations for a general science of the workings of the human mind. The project simultaneously looks at diverse philosophical, literary and political responses to advances in technology including the claims of Anarcho-Primitivism and Post Leftism, Theodore Kaczynski/The Unabomber, Technogaianism and Transhumanism, and traces precursory ideas such as those of Thoreau, Warren, Heidegger and Adorno in relation to visions of utopic and dystopic futures from science-fiction literature and film.

Based on actual events, people, histories and scientific projections of the future, and consisting of alchemical diagrams, a Tarot deck, photo-text works, pencil drawings, a video and a website, HEXEN 2.0 offers a space where one may use the works as a tool to envision possible alternative futures.

HEXEN 2.0 is the sequel to HEXEN 2039 which imagined new technologies for psychological warfare through investigating links between the occult and the military in relation to histories of witchcraft, the US film industry, British Intelligence agencies, Soviet brainwashing and behaviour control experiments of the U.S. Army.

Merci JLFRNR

L’invention d’une minorité
les Anglo-Québécois

Josée Legault
1992

J’ai pris la peine de retranscrire la couverture arrière à la main :

Depuis les années 60, plus particulièrement depuis l’adoption des premières législations linguistiques, une nouvelle voix s’est élevée au Québec, celle des anglophones.

Ses principaux ténors se nomment JULIUS GREY, REED SCOWEN, WILLIAM JOHNSON, The Gazette, Alliance Québec, le Parti Égalité, MORDECAI RICHLER… Ils sont unanimes à dénoncer une majorité francophone intolérante qui opprimerait la minorité anglophone. Ce discours, qui jouit d’une vaste audience chez les autres anglophones de l’Amérique du Nord et donne un portrait mensonger des francophones, propage une désinformation coûteuse pour tous les Québécois.

Il est certain qu’un tel discours trahit la compréhensible frustration d’une ancienne minorité dominante qui voit sa suprématie remise en question. Mais il s’agit d’abord et avant tout – et cet essai le fait sortir de brillante façon – d’une arme politique.

JOSÉE LEGAULT se livre à une analyse minutieuse du discours anglo-québécois et montre comment celui-ci, sous le couvert de la défense des droits individuels, cherche au contraire à promouvoir les droits et intérêts collectifs de la communauté dont il émane. Elle montre ensuite comment les Anglo-Québécois se servent de cette arme dans leur quête de l’égalité linguistique et dans leur refus du statut de minorité.

Un livre démystificateur qui bousculera nombre d’idées reçues.

***

J’ai ensuite eu envie de le mettre en relation avec ça :

Q and A: Jay Baruchel talks about why he’s high on Hogtown

Brendan Kelly, Montreal Gazette, May 29, 2015

(…) The longtime Montrealer now admits that part of the reason behind his move to Toronto is that « Quebec’s politics did my head in.« 

‘Here he talks about what prompted him to do what so many anglo Montrealers have done in the past four decades and make the move down the 401.’

(…)

‘JB: (… ) It’s just a bit of an easier place to live than back home. The last election was very traumatic in a way.

MG: Why?

JB: I was faced with a truth: I either will just swallow it and make peace with it, like I always have, that this is part and parcel of what it is to live in Montreal, the political climate as it is. It was either shut up or move. It was untenable. It was my fault if I keep living someplace that keeps giving me a headache.

MG: Well, obviously the Liberals won that provincial election. So what I take from that is that separation, the referendum, was one of the big issues in that election, and it’ll be a big issue in the next provincial campaign, and you can’t deal with that anymore.

JB: And it always will be. Aside from that silly stuff, which I wish would just go away but it won’t, it was less that than the kind of poisonous ethnic dialogue, which really, really left a sour taste in my mouth. It didn’t feel like the place that Mom wanted me to live in. She wanted me to grow up in someplace multicultural and to see every complexion of the world on the street, and to hear all the languages, and for that not to be a defeat or a sacrifice, but a good thing and a strength. You come here and it really is a pretty diverse place. Just some of the issues, some of the editorial subject matter in Quebec — it’s from 100 years in the past, man. I wake up here and I’m just a dude in a city. And when I go outside and speak English, it’s not a loaded or political deed of any kind. I’m just living. There’s just way less headaches here. Everything is a bit easier here.

(…)

JB: (…) That’s the other thing I realized: I don’t have a particular (passion) for the province of Quebec. I have a great deal of love for Montreal, but really, more than anything, it’s just my neighbourhood — it’s just N.D.G. So I miss that, but it happens to be located in a pretty difficult part of the world.’ (ouin?) …

***

Identité culturelle, sept septembre MMXII, St-Henri, Montréal p.Q. (September 7, 2012)

***

Les relations ANGLO-FRANCO dans
le cinéma québécois :

Reaction: A Portrait of a Society in Crisis (1973) by ROBIN SPRY (May 1, 2015)
Le journal de madame Wollock (1979) de GILLES BLAIS (January 15, 2015)
Le sort de l’Amérique (1996) de JACQUES GODBOUT (January 16, 2015)
Speak White (1980) & Le temps des bouffons (1985) de PIERRE FALARDEAU et JULIEN POULIN (January 20, 2015)
Le mouton noir (1992) & Les héritiers du mouton noir (2003) de JACQUES GODBOUT (January 22, 2015)
Le confort et l’indifférence (1981) de DENYS ARCAND (January 26, 2015)
Le chat dans le sac (1964) de GILLES GROULX (April 7, 2014, à la toute fin de l’entrevue)
Québec Soft (1985) de JACQUES GODBOUT (June 24, 2011)
Mon oncle Antoine (1971) de CLAUDE JUTRA (December 24, 2010)
Les événements d’octobre 1970 (1974) de ROBIN SPRY (October 6, 2010)

***

Entrevue avec JEAN-FRANÇOIS AUBÉ, auteur des ‘yeux de la Nation’ (2014) (April 7, 2014)
De quoi le québec a-t-il besoin? (2011) de JEAN BARBE et MARIE-FRANCE BAZZO
(November 29, 2011)

Nous en avions brièvement discuté lors de l’équinoxe d’automne dernier :

Spectacular Optical Announces Upcoming Second Book:

SATANIC PANIC: POP-CULTURAL
PARANOIA IN THE 1980s

In the 1980s, it seemed impossible to escape Satan’s supposed influence. Everywhere you turned, there were warnings about a widespread evil conspiracy to indoctrinate the vulnerable through the media they consumed. This percolating cultural hysteria, now known as the “Satanic Panic,” not only sought to convince us of devils lurking behind the dials of our TVs and radios and the hellfire that awaited on book and video store shelves, it also created its own fascinating cultural legacy of Satan-battling VHS tapes, audio cassettes and literature. The second book by Canadian micro-publisher Spectacular Optical, Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s, offers an unprecedented and in-depth exploration of how a controversial culture war played out during the decade, from the publication of the memoir Michelle Remembers in 1980 to the end of the McMartin “Satanic Ritual Abuse” Trial in 1990. This new anthology, expected to be released in summer 2015, follows on the success of KID POWER!, Spectacular Optical’s inaugural book about cool, tough and sassy kids in cult film and television.

Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s features 20 new essays and interviews addressing the ways the widespread fear of a Satanic conspiracy was both illuminated and propagated through almost every pop culture pathway in the 1980s, from heavy metal music to Dungeons & Dragons role playing games, Christian comics, direct-to-VHS scare films, pulp paperbacks, Saturday morning cartoons, TV talk shows and even home computers. The book also features case studies on McMartin, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth and Long Island “acid king” killer Ricky Kasso. From con artists to pranksters and moralists to martyrs, the book aims to capture the untold story of the how the Satanic Panic was fought on the pop culture frontlines and the serious consequences it had for many involved.

Satanic Panic’s roster of contributing authors and media critics includes GAVIN BADDELEY (Lucifer Rising: Sin, Devil Worship and Rock n’ Roll), LIISA LADOUCEUR (Encyclopedia Gothica), DAVID FLINT (Sheer Filth), ALEXANDRA HELLER-NICHOLAS (Rape Revenge Films: A Critical Study), ADRIAN MACK (The Georgia Straight), FORREST JACKSON (Cosmic Suicide: The Tragedy and Transcendence of Heaven’s Gate), ALISON NASTASI (Flavorwire), LESLIE HATTON (Popshifter), DAVID CANFIELD (Twitch), DAVID BERTRAND (Fangoria; Spectacular Optical), ALISON LANG (Rue Morgue), KEVIN L. FERGUSON (Queens College/CUNY), WM CONLEY (Deathwound), KURT HALFARD (Twitch), SAMM DEIGHAN (Satanic Pandemonium), STACEY RUSNAK (The Postnational Fantasy: Essays on Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction), RALPH ELAWANI (C’est complet au royaume des morts) and JOSHUA GRAHAM, alongside co-editors KIER-LA JANISSE (House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films) and PAUL CORUPE (Canuxploitation). The book will also feature comic art by RICK TREMBLES (Motion Picture Purgatory) and original illustrations by Toronto artist MIKE McDONNELL.

The book’s launch in summer 2015 will be accompanied by screenings and panel events in multiple cities. Stay tuned for more developments on that front, as well as a full table of contents list to be announced later this spring. Please see attached for cover art, which will be printed with metallic silver ink on black matte.

spectacularoptical.ca

http://esse.ca/fr/religions :

Le retour en force de la religion dans les débats sociopolitiques et philosophiques actuels est un phénomène sur lequel la revue esse s’est penché pour tenter d’en saisir les échos dans le champ des arts visuels. Dans la foulée des discussions qui ont cours depuis quelques années sur la place de la religion dans l’art contemporain, ce dossier interroge la manière dont les artistes réagissent face à cette problématique.

Ainsi, que ce soit par la création d’œuvres de fiction à caractère critique ou humoristique, par l’emprunt, la subversion ou l’amalgame des codes religieux, par des références directes ou symboliques, ou encore par la reproduction de certains rituels, les œuvres mises en valeur dans ce numéro abordent le thème des religions par l’entremise de problématiques qui révèlent le caractère actuel de sa prégnance.

Détails

Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll

This epic cultural and historical odyssey unearths the full influence of occult traditions on rock and roll—from the Beatles to Black Sabbath—and shows how the marriage between mysticism and music changed our world.

From the hoodoo-inspired sounds of Elvis Presley to the Eastern odysseys of George Harrison, from the dark dalliances of Led Zeppelin to the Masonic imagery of today’s hip-hop scene, the occult has long breathed life into rock and hip-hop and, indeed, esoteric and supernatural traditions are a key ingredient behind the emergence and development of rock and roll.

With vivid storytelling and laser-sharp analysis, writer and critic PETER BEBERGAL illuminates this web of influences to produce the definitive work on how the occult shaped—and saved—popular music.

As BEBERGAL explains, occult and mystical ideals gave rock and roll its heart and purpose, making rock into more than just backbeat music, but into a cultural revolution of political, spiritual, sexual, and social liberation.

mysterytheater.blogspot.ca