Throughout 2016, I’ve been trying to respond to artwork about landscape in more ways than simply essays. I found that in trying convey work that I liked, there was only so far I could go with conventional journalistic and essay writing. At the tail-end of each response article, I’ve been sneaking in a poem about the work and its themes so thought it would be … Continue reading Responses: Poems On Landscape and Melancholy
Above is the trailer for my final short of the year, a film detailing an event in the life of the poet and writer, Edward Thomas. I’ve had a personal fascination with Thomas for a few years now, properly diving into his work early last year and finding much in common with both his mentality and his style of writing. The film is based loosely … Continue reading Trailer – The Attempt (Edward Thomas)
I first encountered the work of Tessa Farmer during a rainy daydream in Saatchi Gallery a few years back. It was a strange experience as, staring at her Swarm (2004) piece, it took a while to pinpoint exactly what was unnerving about the work. The discovery of a micro-agency controlling the taxidermic happenings in the form of Arthur Machen-like faeries is key to the enjoyment … Continue reading Responses: Tessa Farmer’s La Chasse (2016)
I have been lucky enough to have this year’s Halloween film, No Diggin’ Here – a film about M.R. James, Aldeburgh and A Warning To The Curious – premiered on the BFI’s website. It was a Halloween treat that, until I saw it happen in full, I didn’t quite believe, but I count myself incredibly lucky for such an opportunity. A few weeks back, the … Continue reading Short Film – No Diggin’ Here.
This presentation was originally given at the Folk Horror Revival day at The British Museum (16/02/2016). My thanks to the fellow admins of the Folk Horror Revival, especially Jim Peters and Andy Paciorek. There’s an overt connection between analogue technology and the narratives surrounding paranormal activity in British horror, especially when made during the 1970s. No doubt there are connections between the interest in such … Continue reading The Ghost In The Grain: Analogue Hauntings of the 1970s
There are few writers that figure more prominently in everything I do than the teller of beautiful Edwardian ghost stories, M.R. James. Alongside W.G. Sebald, J.G. Ballard, Alan Garner and Virginia Woolf, his writing holds a great power over me with its familiar yet unfamiliar worlds. His writing preys upon my mind at regular intervals, even outside of the Christmas period from which they were … Continue reading Trailer – No Diggin’ Here.
John Rogers has been one of the most prominent psychogeographical writers and filmmakers of the last decade. Fiercely independent and with a strong DIY sensibility towards his creative responses to London, his work is a vital component and documentation of a city still in a phase of hyper-development and gentrification. Ahead of his adaptation/response to Iain Sinclair’s most recent book, London Overground, I met up … Continue reading Interview: John Rogers on London Overground and Psychogeography.
“I shall have to do research,” Dougal mused, “into their inner lives. Research into the real Peckham. It will be necessary to discover the spiritual well-spring, the glorious history of the place, before I am able to offer some impetus.” To ingratiate myself into newly living in South London, I was keen to find some boundary markers in the area to walk and explore. I had only … Continue reading Muriel Spark’s Ballad Of Peckham Rye
I remember being sat on a bench on Dunwich Heath in September last year and seeing the dome of Sizewell B for the first time as an adult. I had just walked a little way down the coast, after a day of filming further down at Orford Ness, from Dunwich beach through to the heath. I simply was not expecting to be greeted by such … Continue reading Short Film – Heavy Water.
Norman Cohen’s filmic version of Geoffrey Fletcher’s 1967 book, The London Nobody Knows, could hardly be called an adaptation. With the book being a mixture of personal documentary and the historical exploring of London streets, its narrative is one purely of journeys if anything else. Cohen was already used to this blurring of fiction and fact having unaccredited work on Arnold L. Miller’s cult documentary, … Continue reading The London Nobody Knows (1969) – Psychogeographic Fluctuation.
Celluloid Wicker Man 