A few months back, I visited the retrospective of Vanessa Bell’s paintings at Dulwich Picture Gallery. The exhibition is still ongoing and an essential visit for anyone with a passion for those strange groups of English rebels that seemed to flourish in the arts around the Fin de siècle. It confirmed for me Bell’s position as one of the most underrated artists from that period, … Continue reading Responses: Virginia Woolf (1912) – Vanessa Bell
At the time of writing this, my book on Folk Horror is a few weeks away from being printed. By the time you read this, however, it should be available to buy. I’ve written about the detail of the book earlier when it was due to be published late last year. However, I wanted to get a few words down again now that it is … Continue reading Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange
It came with a great sense of relief that, on the 29th of March, I had a plane to catch. This plane that I was to catch on the afternoon of the 29th was heading to Strasbourg; a visit to ma chérie and an escape from the 29th of March or what the 29th of March now represented which was everything contrary to reason. Exactly … Continue reading Wanders: Goethe Dies (Strasbourg)
If asked to choose a particular sound that defined London in cinema, it would not be the bustling noise of traffic or an iconic piece of soundtrack music. It would, in fact, be the very simple but endlessly mysterious sound of the wind rustling through the trees in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup (1966). Having visited all of the locations of the film last summer for the British Film … Continue reading The Breeze in the Trees
Having recently finished all of the remaining episodes of the early 1970s BBC series, Doomwatch, I had the strange feeling that I had slipped into a parallel world; one where the BBC had worked closely with the writer, J.G. Ballard, to make a series that addressed his themes. Though the series largely resembles Ballard’s earlier novels with their constant post-civilisation eco-disasters similar to The Drowned World … Continue reading Doomwatch, J.G. Ballard and High-Rise
Late last year, I became obsessed with visiting a certain item in the British Museum. Deliberately choosing to work in or near Bloomsbury, I would often wander into the building in between working, making my way straight to one of the room’s (on the right of the building) with a confidence and determination that clearly unnerved my various tourist companions. I would stride into the … Continue reading Responses: John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror
Having walked down the Lea Valley late last year with Gary Budden, we endeavoured to continue on from our point of departure in Planet Stratford and to follow the river right the way down to Leamouth where it finally pours into the Thames. Though on paper the walk was effectively a south-following meander, mapped largely (or at least so we thought) by potentially walking along … Continue reading Wanders: Leamouth Labyrinth
I remember before I first watched Ben Rivers’ Two Years At Sea (2011) that a certain review quote about the film caught my eye. It was suggested by a Time Out reviewer that Rivers’ film was “A rare thing in cinema: a vision of true happiness”. At the time, this idea framed my viewing of Rivers’ film as it rang true; not only was the … Continue reading Contentment and Chris Marker’s Chat écoutant la musique (1988)
One of Derek Jarman’s first short super-8 film was the haunting A Journey to Avebury. Early evidence that Jarman was interested in the genii loci of English landscapes, his walk through the Wiltshire landscape, after the intense stint of work on the sets for Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), had a larger influence upon him than the singular short film belies. The ancient landscape generated a whole range minimalist paintings … Continue reading Responses: Derek Jarman’s Avebury
“Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.” – Kurt Vonnegut. Rather like J.G. Ballard, Nigel Kneale had a certain knack of preempting future social, technological and cultural trends. Kneale’s work is perhaps less appreciated than Ballard’s because the medium he predominantly worked in, television, is far and … Continue reading Nigel Kneale and Fascism
Celluloid Wicker Man 