yesterday was the fourth of july. i have never been super into this holiday, what with the terrible history of the united states, but i can’t lie and say i don’t enjoy a summer bbq and fireworks with friends. this year though, things feel extra doomy. watching the lights of drone cameras swarm and buzz among the pyrotechnics, surrounded by what i would describe as a bizarre patriotic-burner-facebook-rave atmosphere, was unreal, almost psychedelic. and that actually felt appropriate.
sometimes the urge to retreat into an alternate reality is really strong. instead of denying it, lately i have been interested in looking at how artists and writers are engaging with things like magic, science fiction, and the occult/paranormal. i’m curious to understand how these lines of thinking can be used not in order to escape from reality or abandon our responsibility to each other, but to recharge our senses of radical imagination and break out of oppressive structures of thinking to find new strategies for changing the world. it’s ok to not know what comes next, it just means we’ll have to get creative in how we figure it out.
in case turning to superstition and make-believe sounds like a questionable approach to serious things, consider how they are already baked into the culture of our own government and military. trevor paglen’s book i could tell you but then you would have to be destroyed by me documents the silly-but-not-exactly-harmless badges created by the pentagon for black-ops teams. these insignias seem to draw on the traditions of elite patriarchal “secret societies,” comics, and sci-fi/fantasy culture, making light of the seriousness and violence inherent in their wearers’ lines of work. check out this slightly busted but totally free pdf version here.
i can’t remember exactly how i found this article, titled “unlimited hangout, the ufo story,” but it’s a really interesting (although fairly long) read about the political uses and radical potential of ufo culture. author jak ritger was inspired in part by paglen’s 2023 exhibition and talk “you’ve just been fucked by PSYOPS,” and takes it as a jumping off point for a discussion about how “the unexplainable, spiritual or paranormal take on a decidedly political dimension… (becoming) powerful tools for institutions to harness and use towards political goals.” it made me think of two dated cultural products i have been revisiting lately: adam curtis’ documentary investigations into the history of perception management, as well as classic tv series the x-files, which brought dramatized versions of these ideas and tactics to a general audience.
i would venture to say that the majority of humans on earth have at least a little curiosity about extraterrestrial life and unexplained cosmic phenomena. how could you not?? these ideas have inspired creative people for centuries. for a beautiful visual sampling of artistic interpretations of the paranormal and supernatural across the decades, check out the “visitors from other worlds catalog” from my good friend eldritch oculum antiquarian.
of course, our fantasies about other worlds reflect our own. i recently played the classic early film “a trip to the moon” in class at my students’ request, and we were all horrified to realize that the plot entails a bunch of humans going up to the moon and assaulting the native population, then returning to earth and describing their achievements to great fanfare. it’s visually lovely, but a reminder that we bring ourselves and our culture wherever we go, even and especially into the realm of imagination.
as a segue from outer space to chaos magic, check out this lecture, titled “sigil seance against space billionaires” given by lucile olympe haute and david benqué at the radical futures conference. the paper describes why and how we can use death hexes to curse ultra-wealthy tech tyrants like elon musk and jeff bezos. using a phone keypad as a cipher, the team “started experimenting with sigils back in 2021 with the first generator to encode the phrase: ‘Bind billionaires who fly to the upper sky from coming back to Earth’”(pictured above). i am fully in support of this plan, can’t wait to start cursing from my flip phone!
there is plenty of precedent for artists and scholars using magic as a tool for political activism. one notorious example is the feminist collective w.i.t.c.h., an acronym for “women’s international terrorist conspiracy from hell.” this article from teen vogue gives a pretty thorough overview of the group’s history, which includes releasing mice into madison square garden and attempting to levitate the pentagon. i first heard about the group through portland artist ellen lesperance’s artwork based on her research into them, which perhaps not surprisingly also attracted some critique. it’s like people don’t like witches or something!
art collective hilma’s ghost don’t describe themselves as witches, although they do cast spells and use magical symbols. their name is a reference to the early 20th-century swedish painter hilma af klint, who became widely known after the guggenheim museum presented a major retrospective of her work in 2018. it’s interesting to me to see this era of spiritualism become popular again, especially in light of the history of this movement. if you’re interested, you can listen to the interview they did with bad at sports. what do you all think of the revival of Spiritualism?
mass moca’s current exhibition “like magic” presents a more diverse and contemporary view of artistic practices informed by the supernatural. artists like tourmaline and raven chacon explore historical fantasy and non-western spiritual music, and make explicit space for the expression of queer, black, and brown magic of all kinds. in the words of the curators, “technologies of magic are ways of believing despite—and even because of—questions and uncertainties.” i wish i could see the show in person, but the generous gallery guide and video teaser almost make up for it.
this email is getting way too long! i’m going to have to do a part 2, because i have so much more to share on this topic. in the meantime, i’ll end with a plug for the next show at grapefruits, HARK, featuring work by artist and writer jaydra johnson. jaydra’s work fits right into the theme of this issue, as it deals with the tension between a personal need for something to believe in, a “higher power;” and a deep dissatisfaction with the flaws and inequities inherent in the systems of belief we have been given. jaydra’s work takes the somewhat precious concept of the guardian angel and remakes it into a radical figure with the potential to deliver the kind of salvation we really need.
please come to the opening reception next friday, july 12, from 5-8pm in the rare book room at mother foucault’s bookshop. or email me to set up a viewing appointment, the show will run through september.
thank you all for reading! i will be back next week with part 2 of this issue, which gets into sci-fi, cyberpunk, and afrofuturism.