Dec.7th/Sunday/6PM
Psychic TV:
A Collective Film Experience
Psychic TV invited 47 artists to create a collective film set to the group's acclaimed second album, Dreams Less Sweet. This is that film!
Sam Zimmerman + [some] Filmmakers present!
Sunday, December 7, 2014 / 6 PM
Psychic TV was founded in 1981 by Genesis P-Orridge following the break-up of the pioneering industrial group, Throbbing Gristle. From the outset, as the band name indicates, the concept for the new group focused heavily on video. In interviews, Genesis proclaimed, "Psychic TV is a video group who does music, unlike a music group which makes music videos."
In Psychic TV's earliest days, they collaborated with Derek Jarman to create films for several of the songs for the first record, which they then mixed into their stage show with stacks of televisions. Also during this period, they initiated the Temple of Psychic Youth, an occultist network in parallel to Psychic TV, for which they produced VHS propaganda. This video material ultimately brought the group into conflict with Scotland Yard, leading to the end of the group in the U.K. in 1991.
So video plays a central role in the first decade of Psychic TV's history, although today awareness of much of this original work has dimmed. Revisiting this agenda, Psychic TV invited 47 artists to create a collective film set to the group's acclaimed second album, Dreams Less Sweet, in a process drawing from the cut-up technique originated by Genesis' friends and mentors Brion Gysin and William Burroughs, as well as the VHS networking practiced by the Temple of Psychic Youth in the 1980s. The resulting work captures the reverberations of the group's original obsessions, the return of the repressed.
Participating filmmakers: Marie Losier, Bryin Dall, Maggie Lee, Max Clarke, Montgomery Knott, Ryan Junell, David Opp, Brock Monroe, Gusti Fink, Edward ODowd, Daniel McKernan & Sophia Lamar, Grant Worth, Stephen Maneri, Theo Angell, Andy Puls, Terence Hannum, Sabrina Ratté, William Rahilly, Bradley Eros, Eric Mast, David Riley, Micki Pellerano, Michelle Handelman, Lara Booth and Evan Johnson, Jennifer Juniper Stratford, Miska Draskoczy, Alexander Lansang, Christina Vantzou, Chris Jordan, Zeljko McMullen, Zahid Jiwa, Jon Turner and Dina Chang, Dora Benderra, Erica Magrey, Jeremy Couillard, Astrid Menze, Theodore Darst, Johnny Woods, Greg Zifcak, Kenny Curwood, Zefrey Throwell, Lew Baldwin, Leigha Mason, Yoshi Sodeoka, Scott Treleaven
About Dreams Less Sweet: Many parts of this album are field recordings from potent locations, such as the caves under Medmenham Abbey used by the Hellfire Club in the 18th century, with instrumentation ranging from traditional shamanic instruments to machine gun fire and fierce dog barking. The song titles and lyrics stake out millennia-spanning occult themes that were early hallmarks of the group. The album was recorded using Zuccarelli Holophonic sound, a binaural recording technique using a mannequin head to create an immersive effect of 3D sound in stereo.
About Psychic TV and Sam Zimmerman: Founded by Genesis P-Orridge and active for over 30 years, Psychic TV have released nearly 100 studio and live albums, performed thousands of concerts worldwide, and evangelized several counter-culture movements, including modern primitivism, acid house, and, most recently, pandrogeny. The current incarnation was formed by Genesis P-Orridge and Edward ODowd in 2003, and from that time has included video design by Sam Zimmerman. Sam's video artwork has been shown at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kunstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Serpentine Gallery (London) and The Warhol (Pittsburgh), and screened in festivals in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin and Amsterdam. From 2005 to 2010, Sam owned Monkey Town, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he curated video art programs.
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