The Church of the Late Night Sinners presents
HOMOCCULT & OTHER ESOTEROTICA
MIX Festival, New York City. Saturday 17th November. 8pm
A collection of artists & filmmakers which have an affiliation to the “Generation Hex” era, blending old school and new school: many of these participants are connected and collaborate with each other. This program/line-up deals with the occult and esoteric each individual has his/her own unique interpretation of this theme. Jason Louv, in his introduction to Generation Hex (2006), states that the book is a snapshot of those “who are not only delving into this art [of magick] and science of the future, but who are coming to magical consciousness at a time when it has never been easier to find and link up with people of like minds and experience.” This is a video survey of such people. As Scott Treleaven, in the final issue of This is the Salivation Army (1999), said: “We are the new circus. And we are the envy of the fucking World.” — Daniel McKernan & Richie Rennt, curators
Venue: 72 Greene St. (between Spring & Broome) New York, NY 10012
Re-Visions of Excess - Closing Party for Fierce Festival 2007. Sunday 3rd June. 7pm - 1am
Fierce! Festival’s tenth anniversary celebrations reached their climax with Revisions Of Excess. A reappraisal of the acclaimed Visions Of Excess event in 2003 Revisions Of Excess was co-curated by Ron Athey and myself. Taking place at the Pink Flamingo lap dancing club, Revisions Of Excess took the form of a series of works from a selecton of international artists inspired by the nihilistic writings of Jean Genet and George Bataille. Hosted by the inimitable David Hoyle, the line up of performers included, Kira O’Reilly, Veenus Vortex, Empress Stah, Valentina Violette of The Velvet Hammer Burlesque, Dominic Johnson, Ashley Ryder, Lazlo Pearlaman, Mouse & many more. Music by David TG (Torture Garden) & Kaos DJ’s Dr Mu & Bradley Kaos plus visuals from Black Sun Productions, Suka Off & VJ Oskur.
THIS EVENT HAS NOW SOLD OUT
Encounters My recent collaboration with Photographer Manuel Vason and Empress Stah is included in the book Encounters published by Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol on Saturday 8th June. This new collection has emerged from a series of collaborations between Vason and a range of international artists working in performance; either a re-staging or unique performance for his camera. His vividly constructed images explore the physical body in its diversity, in the physical environment and the relationship between the live event and the captured image
Other featured artists include Ron Athey, Stuart Brisley, Guillermo Gomez Pena, Steven Cohen and Franko B amongst many others
Other featured artists include Ron Athey, Stuart Brisley, Guillermo Gomez Pena, Steven Cohen and Franko B amongst many others
Initiation at Body Probe. Friday 18th May 2007. 11.30pm - 12.15am THIS EVENT HAS NOW SOLD OUT
I was joined by the legendary father of the Modern Primitives Fakir Musafer on stage for Initiation - a ritual suspension performance also featuring Cleo Dubois, TJ Burleigh, Elwood, Justin Allen and Kamelyan
Initiation has never before been performed in the UK. It was presented as part of Fakir’s UK tour. Body Probe was part of the Torture Garden Birthday Weekend and also featured performances by Suka Off, Uniform and Satomi + screenings by Channel 83 and visuals by Espira
In Advance of a Broken Arm at Festival Cinemarges, Bordeaux. Monday 30th April 2007. 10.15pm My short film In Advance of a Broken Arm was screened as part of the Corpus Queer programme of the Soiree de Cloture, part of the Festival Cinemarges, 27th - 30th April
Tickets: 5 euros
Venue: Espace 29. 29 rue Fernand Marin, Bordeaux
For more information please visit: www.cinemarges.net
In Advance of a Broken Arm at the 2nd Festival de Cinema Queer, Paris. Tuesday 20th March 2007
(part of the ‘Freaks' double-bill with Ulrike Ottinger's 'Freak Orlando' at 6pm)
The Festival which runs from 16th - 23rd March also featured seminal works by Leigh Bowery, Charles Atlas, Hans Scheirl, Del LaGrace Volcano, Oreet Ashery and Steven Cohen
Cinema l'Entrepot
7/9 rue Francis de Pressense
75014 Paris
Metro Pernety - ligne 13
Tarifs: 5€ / seance ou 40€ Pass Festival
The full programme is available as a pdf from:
Western European Stages Dominic Johnson has reviewed my performance installation The Language of Flowers and Ron Athey’s Solar Anus as part of a journal article on current performance art practices in the UK. The article also features performances by David Hoyle, Marisa Carnesky and Hancock & Kelly Live
Individual copies can be ordered from:
Western European Stages
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10019 USA
Undercover Surrealism - Picasso, Miró, Masson and the vision of Georges Bataille
The live art event The Monster in the Night of the Labyrinth at the Hayward Gallery, that I curated with Ron Athey, has been reviewed by Kate Random Love for the Total Theatre Magazine. to subscribe please visit www.totaltheatre.org.uk alternatively you can buy copies at the following bookstores in London:
Offstage Theatre and Film Bookshop
34 Tavistock Street
Covent Garden
WC2E 7PB
Phone 020 7240 3883
Samuel French, Ltd
52 Fitzroy Street
W1T 5JR
Phone 0207 387-9373
The DVD will be available for sale in spring 2007
The Live Art Development Agency have recently added documentation from Iconostasis, The Mark of Cain and Porca Miseria to their Study Room DVD archive
Documentation from the Bindu Point collaboration with digital media artist Martin Franklin, performed last year at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast has been published in Volume 05 of the Body, Space, Technology Journal
current projects + recent news
My latest solo performance The Sacred Conspiracy was devised at Miracle Manor in Desert Hot Springs, California during the summer of 2008 as part of Praxis; a 10 day intensive artists bootcamp organised by Ron Athey and Julie Tolentino.
It was first performed in an abandoned airstream trailer in the middle of the Mohave desert. The performance begins with an escape into flight - I cut myself free with a razor blade from a chair I have been bound to, then I release a ball-gag from my mouth before symbolically decapitating myself in a metaphysical 'becoming' of the image of the Acephale (headless man).
Documentation from this performance can be seen on The Sacred Conspiracy page of this website. Photographs courtesy of Manuel Vason and Tracy Mostovoy. Many thanks to Peter Christopherson for permission to use the track I Don’t Get It from the COIL album The Ape of Naples.
This performance was subsequently restaged at SHUNT Vaults in London as part of Visions of Excess commissioned by SPILL Festival 2009, It later formed part of Ron Athey’s A History of Ecstasy a large-scale collaboration with Vaginal Davis, Julie Tolentino, Pigpen, Mouse, Othon Mataragas and Ernesto Tomasini Commissioned by the Museo Madre and Napoli Teatro Festival in June 2009. it will shortly be performed again as part of the International Performance Art Festival hosted by Warehouse 9 in Copenhagen.in October 2009.
Ordeal by Roses has recently been touring internationally as part of the Homoccult and other Esoterotica video art programme curated by Daniel Mckernan and Richie Rennt. Screenings include Collective Unconscious, NYC, YBCA, San Francisco, the Platinum section of OUTFEST Los Angeles, The Horse Hospital London and Cineteca Nacional, Mexico City
Photographs from my performance of Bestiary at The Cock, NYC in November 2007 have recently been published in Slava Mogutin’s new monograph NYC Go-Go with an accompanying essay by Bruce Benderson.
The image of the Acephale on the front page is from an ongoing series of collaborations with the photographer Hector de Gregorio. Another de Gregorio collaboration with OTHON, Ernesto Tomasini and the poet Michele Occelli was included in the exhibition Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination at RISE Berlin Gallery:
I was recently invited to collaborate on The SPILL Performance Tarot as part of SPILL 2009. The project brought together an array of maverick artists from around the world in order to create a new deck of tarot cards.
Working with photographer Manuel Vason, each artist was invited to restage a tarot card from the major arcana . Artists collaborating on this project were Ron Athey, Vaginal Davis, Marissa Carnesky, Franko B, Raimund Hoghe, Robert Pacitti, Lois Keidan, Lee Adams, Carla Esperanza Tommasini, Sheila Ghelani, Oreet Ashery, Rajni Shah, Noblesse Oblige, Grace Ellen Barkey, Harminder Singh Judge, Kira O'Reilly, Helena Hunter, Empress Stah, Dominic Johnson, Julia Bardsley, Manuel Vason and Yann Marussich.
These images are now available to buy as a beautiful limited edition deck of cards, wrapped in black velvet and presented in a specially designed box. For more information or to order a copy of the tarot deck please visit:
Visions of Excess commissioned by Spill Festival 2009 and presented at SHUNT Vaults London on Easter Sunday was a sell-out success. We expect to have video documentation of the event ready by December 2009.
Ron Athey and I teamed up again to curate a 12 hour communion with the ragged spirit of Georges Bataille, exploring the "scatological philosophers” key themes of death, eroticism and the forbidden. Our intention was not merely to programme a multi-media 'Happening', but to lay down the map for an esoterotic journey into the heart of darkness. Our concept for Visions of Excess was never a tidy one, the aim was/is to produce a perfect mess, strategise a series of installation options, stage gestures of defiance, frame out space but leave room for transgressive acts of participation and rampant exhibitionism.
Hosted by David Hoyle and featuring live performances from Franko B, Bruce La Bruce, Julie Tolentino, Mother Flawless Sabrina, Suka Off, Kira O'Reilly, Dominic Johnson, Gio Black Peter, Lazlo Pearlman, Nicole Blackman and Mouse plus video work by Genesis P Orridge, Peter Christopherson, SUPERM and Terence Koh among others Visions of Excess created a swirling, vertiginous “total derangement of the senses” inducing personal transfiguration and the expansion of consciousness.
Easter Sunday 12th April 10pm - 10am. SHUNT Vaults, London Se1
Tickets: £25 THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT
This website has recently been nominated as part of ‘The Live Art Collection - The Live Art Development Agency and the British Library’s UK Web Archiving project.
The Live Art Collection reflects some of the diverse practices and approaches of artists today and the curatorial, cultural and critical frameworks that exist to support, promote and comment upon Live Art and the ephemeral nature of this area of practice.
The collection is free to access and can be viewed by visiting the online portal at:
Tickets are now on sale for Visions of Excess in Copenhagen on Friday 23rd October 2009
Image from A History of Ecstasy commissioned by Museo Madre and the Napoli Teatro Festival, June 2009.
Directed by Ron Athey and also featuring Vaginal Davis, Julie Tolentino, Pigpen, Mouse and Ernesto Tomasini with music by Othon Mataragas.
Tonight, a debt will be repaid to blood dishonoured. An eternal nightmare rises up from the depths of the dark boreal forest, in the shadow of the mountain. It comes to feed on new meat inside an old abattoir...
I will be screening a new two-screen video installation version of Bestiary as part of The Abattoir Pages hosted in a vast, secret subterranean landscape that was once one of London's largest abattoirs.
The Abattoir Pages combines immersive performance and installation to form a labyrinth of mystery and horror, exposing the earliest Gaelic and Pagan rites. Once inside, the audience will be free to explore the abandoned underground chambers, join the secret party or may be caught in the middle of the most terrifying of puzzles.
The Abattoir Pages is curated and produced by Guerrilla Zoo and FoolishPeople.
22 October- 31 October 2009
7.30pm, 8.30pm & 9.30pm entrance times
Entry price £15
Limited edition tickets £20
All tickets are NON-REFUNDABLE
Tuesday 27th Pay what you can- Subject to availability
NOTE: Not suitable for people of a nervous disposition. Limited disabled access.
Location: The Old Abattoir, 187- 211 St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, London. EC1V 4LS
Nearest Stations: Faringdon and Barbican