Part 12 Scrying ‘Meditation upon death does not teach one how to die’, wrote Marguerite Yourcenar in Memoirs of Hadrian, ‘it does not make the departure more easy, but ease is not what I seek.’ I think of this often. The room was hazy yellow with dreary sunlight. Rays of summer drifted lazily through the air. I’d been contemplating the window through which this light came through … Continue reading Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 13)
This is an edited transcript of a talk given at Norwich Castle on Tuesday the 27th of August 2019. My thanks to Dr Nick Warr and Philippa Comber for their help. Considering the wealth of photography on the walls of the Line of Sight exhibition housed next door (an exhibition detailing many photographs taken by the author for his novels), it is unsurprising to find the work … Continue reading Echoes & Imprints: Towards A Sebaldian Cinema
“What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.” – Roland Barthes Marcel Proust turns away. His head is straight but not quite obscured. It could be considered a picture in profile if not for the angle of his body, crumpled and creating the illusion of multiple positions. His hand weakly grips his lapel, … Continue reading Marcel Proust Turns Away
Time is Maya Deren’s raw material. Though it could be argued that temporality is the material of all filmmakers to some extent, there’s something about Deren’s short work that captures a very earnest questioning of time passing and even as an unseen character of sorts. Like Andrei Tarkovsky, Deren used time to map the questioning of her of films; creating imagery that highlighted the temporal … Continue reading Shadow-Time in Ritual In Transfigured Time (1946, Maya Deren)
There exist volumes of academic research and work surrounding the role of repetition in religious and cultural practices. Repeated actions of any type, creating an easily recognisable mimesis, seems almost an aesthetic by-word for a normalised analytical framework of cultural activities, especially musically. From prayer to mantra, the idea of repetition is stretched to form (or conform) belief patterns, as if deliberately signposting theological culture … Continue reading Repetition And Occultism Of Invocation Of My Demon Brother (1969) – Kenneth Anger.
Celluloid Wicker Man 