Alan Moore an Illuminated Showman

Alan Moor is a comic book writer. Amongst his most famous are Watchmen, V for Vendetta and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  I was watching the documentary The Mindscape of Alan Moore and as he spoke I found myself amazed at how similar our thinking was. He truly is an Illuminated Showman. He too believes that what artists (showmen) does originated in the Shaman, he to believe that we can do real magic, he believes... Just read it for yourselves.
The below quote from the movie summarizes so many of my views it is scary. In the doco he talks about how there comes a time when the world is ripe for a new idea. Like when the steam engine was invented several people came up with it within a few weeks. Perhaps this is one of those. Perhaps we read the same books. Perhaps we both struggle with acceptance of art forms that all too easily are dismissed as "mere entertainment." Read on Illuminated friends and fellow travelers of the Way the words below are spoken by a true Master Showman.

You have to be very careful with what you say because if you suddenly declare yourself a magician, without any knowledge of what that entitles, you might wake up and find that is exactly what you are.

There is some confusion as to what Magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if we look at the very earliest descriptions of Magic. Magic, in its earliest form is often referred to as "The Art." I believe this is completely literal. I believe that Magick is art, and the art, whether that is writing, music, sculpture or any other form is literally Magic. Art is, like Magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness.
The very language of Magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as of supernatural events. A Grimoir for example the book of spells is just a fancy way of saying grammar. Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words to change peoples consciousness. I believe this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman.

I believe that all culture must have arisen from cult. Originally all the facets of our culture whether they be in the art or science were the province of the shaman. The fact that in present times this magical power have degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation is a tragedy. At the moment the people who are using shamanism and Magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than to trying to wise people up their shamanism is used as an opiate to tranquielize people. To make people more manipulable. Their magic box of tv and by words and by jingles they can make people all over the world to think the same banal words and thoughts all at exactly the same time.

In all of magic there is an incredibly large linguistic component. The Bardic tradition of magick would place a Bard as being much higher and more fearsome than a magician. A magician might curse you and theat might make you hens lay funny, or you might have a child born with a clump foot. If a bard were to place, not a curse upon, but a satire upon you then that could destroy you. If it was a clever satire it might not just destroy you in the eyes of your associates, it would destroy you in the eyes of your family, it would destroy you in your own eyes. If it was a finely worded and clever satire, that might survive and be remembered for decades, even centuries, then years after you were dead people still might be reading it and laughing at you and your wretchedness and absurdity.

Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated Magic. In latter times I think the artist and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river, they have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment, they are not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being, that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment. Things with which we can fill twenty minutes half an hour while we are waiting to die.

It is not the job of the artists to give the audience what they want. If the audience knew what they needed then they wouldn't be the audience, they would be the artists. It is the job Artists to give the audience what they need.

Alan Moore

In 1993, on his fortieth birthday, Moore openly declared his dedication to being a ceremonial magician, something he saw as "a logical end step to my career as a writer".[40] According to a 2001 interview, his inspiration for doing this came when he was writing From Hell in the early 1990s, a book containing much Freemasonic and occult symbolism: "One word balloon in From Hell completely hijacked my life… A character says something like, 'The one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind'. After I wrote that, I realised I'd accidentally made a true statement, and now I'd have to rearrange my entire life around it. The only thing that seemed to really be appropriate was to become a magician."[58]

Wikipedia

A clip from a BBC interview with this unique voice of magic and Illuminated Showmanship, Alan Moore.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore (the movie link above) is a 2003 feature documentary which chronicles the life and work of Alan Moore, author of several acclaimed graphic novels, including From Hell, Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore is Shadowsnake's first completed feature project, part One of the Shamanautical / 5 Elements series. It is the directorial debut of DeZ Vylenz. It is the only feature film production on which Alan Moore has collaborated, with permission to use his work.

Alan Moore presents the story of his development as an artist, starting with his childhood and working through to his comics career and impact on that medium, and his emerging interest in magic.

Creating Art FOR the Crowd

--> ..."the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous." 

Neil Stephenson, writer and honorary Showman.

{from an online interview (slashdot) with the author Neal Stephenson. It touches on the intersection between art and entertainment, writers as Showmen and about Showman/writer and Crowd. It is about what Stephenson calls Beowulf writers writing not for church or wealthy patrons but directly for the Crowd and masses. He speaks up for Illuminated Showmen everywhere by giving a fiery defense of creating art for the masses. He refuses the word Commercial artist and calls them Beowulf artists...}

[A] while back, I went to a writers' conference. I was making chitchat with another writer, a critically acclaimed literary novelist who taught at a university. She had never heard of me. After we'd exchanged a bit of of small talk, she asked me "And where do you teach?" just as naturally as one Slashdotter would ask another "And which distro do you use?"

I was taken aback. "I don't teach anywhere," I said.

Her turn to be taken aback. "Then what do you do?"

"I'm...a writer," I said. Which admittedly was a stupid thing to say, since she already knew that. 

"Yes, but what do you do?"

I couldn't think of how to answer the question---I'd already answered it!

"You can't make a living out of being a writer, so how do you make money?" she tried.

"From...being a writer," I stammered.

At this point she finally got it, and her whole affect changed. She wasn't snobbish about it. But it was obvious that, in her mind, the sort of writer who actually made a living from it was an entirely different creature from the sort she generally associated with.

And once I got over the excruciating awkwardness of this conversation, I began to think she was right in thinking so. One way to classify artists is by to whom they are accountable.

Dante holding his most famous book.

The great artists of the Italian Renaissance were accountable to wealthy entities who became their patrons or gave them commissions. In many cases there was no other way to arrange it. There is only one Sistine Chapel. Not just anyone could walk in and start daubing paint on the ceiling. Someone had to be the gatekeeper---to hire an artist and give him a set of more or less restrictive limits within which he was allowed to be creative. So the artist was, in the end, accountable to the Church. The Church's goal was to build a magnificent structure that would stand there forever and provide inspiration to the Christians who walked into it, and they had to make sure that Michelangelo would carry out his work accordingly.

Similar arrangements were made by writers. After Dante was banished from Florence he found a patron in the Prince of Verona, for example. And if you look at many old books of the Baroque period you find the opening pages filled with florid expressions of gratitude from the authors to their patrons. It's the same as in a modern book when it says "this work was supported by a grant from the XYZ Foundation."

Nowadays we have different ways of supporting artists. Some painters, for example, make a living selling their work to wealthy collectors. In other cases, musicians or artists will find appointments at universities or other cultural institutions. But in both such cases there is a kind of accountability at work.

A wealthy art collector who pays a lot of money for a painting does not like to see his money evaporate. He wants to feel some confidence that if he or an heir decides to sell the painting later, they'll be able to get an amount of money that is at least in the same ballpark. But that price is going to be set by the market---it depends on the perceived value of the painting in the art world. And that in turn is a function of how the artist is esteemed by critics and by other collectors. So art criticism does two things at once: it's culture, but it's also economics.

There is also a kind of accountability in the case of, say, a composer who has a faculty job at a university. The trustees of the university have got a fiduciary responsibility not to throw away money. It's not the same as hiring a laborer in factory, whose output can be easily reduced to dollars and cents. Rather, the trustees have to justify the composer's salary by pointing to intangibles. And one of those intangibles is the degree of respect accorded that composer by critics, musicians, and other experts in the field: how often his works are performed by symphony orchestras, for example.

Beowulf

Accountability in the writing profession has been bifurcated for many centuries. I already mentioned that Dante and other writers were supported by patrons at least as far back as the Renaissance. But I doubt that Beowulf was written on commission. Probably there was a collection of legends and tales that had been passed along in an oral tradition---which is just a fancy way of saying that lots of people liked those stories and wanted to hear them told. And at some point perhaps there was an especially well-liked storyteller who pulled a few such tales together and fashioned them into the what we now know as Beowulf. Maybe there was a king or other wealthy patron who then caused the tale to be written down by a scribe. But I doubt it was created at the behest of a king. It was created at the behest of lots and lots of intoxicated Frisians sitting around the fire wanting to hear a yarn. And there was no grand purpose behind its creation, as there was with the painting of the Sistine Chapel.

The novel is a very new form of art. It was unthinkable until the invention of printing and impractical until a significant fraction of the population became literate. But when the conditions were right, it suddenly became huge. The great serialized novelists of the 19th Century were like rock stars or movie stars. The printing press and the apparatus of publishing had given these creators a means to bypass traditional arbiters and gatekeepers of culture and connect directly to a mass audience. And the economics worked out such that they didn't need to land a commission or find a patron in order to put bread on the table. The creators of those novels were therefore able to have a connection with a mass audience and a livelihood fundamentally different from other types of artists.

Nowadays, rock stars and movie stars are making all the money. But the publishing industry still works for some lucky novelists who find a way to establish a connection with a readership sufficiently large to put bread on their tables. It's conventional to refer to these as "commercial" novelists, but I hate that term, so I'm going to call them Beowulf writers.

But this is not true for a great many other writers who are every bit as talented and worthy of finding readers. And so, in addition, we have got an alternate system that makes it possible for those writers to pursue their careers and make their voices heard. Just as Renaissance princes supported writers like Dante because they felt it was the right thing to do, there are many affluent persons in modern society who, by making donations to cultural institutions like universities, support all sorts of artists, including writers. Usually they are called "literary" as opposed to "commercial" but I hate that term too, so I'm going to call them Dante writers. And this is what I mean when I speak of a bifurcated system.

Like all tricks for dividing people into two groups, this is simplistic, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But there is a cultural difference between these two types of writers, rooted in to whom they are accountable, and it explains what MosesJones is complaining about. Beowulf writers and Dante writers appear to have the same job, but in fact there is a quite radical difference between them---hence the odd conversation that I had with my fellow author at the writer's conference. Because she'd never heard of me, she made the quite reasonable assumption that I was a Dante writer---one so new or obscure that she'd never seen me mentioned in a journal of literary criticism, and never bumped into me at a conference. Therefore, I couldn't be making any money at it. Therefore, I was most likely teaching somewhere. All perfectly logical. In order to set her straight, I had to let her know that the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous.

All of this places someone like me in critical limbo. As everyone knows, there are literary critics, and journals that publish their work, and I imagine they have the same dual role as art critics. That is, they are engaging in intellectual discourse for its own sake. But they are also performing an economic function by making judgments. These judgments, taken collectively, eventually determine who's deemed worthy of receiving fellowships, teaching appointments, etc.

The relationship between that critical apparatus and Beowulf writers is famously awkward and leads to all sorts of peculiar misunderstandings. Occasionally I'll take a hit from a critic for being somehow arrogant or egomaniacal, which is difficult to understand from my point of view sitting here and just trying to write about whatever I find interesting. To begin with, it's not clear why they think I'm any more arrogant than anyone else who writes a book and actually expects that someone's going to read it. Secondly, I don't understand why they think that this is relevant enough to rate mention in a review. After all, if I'm going to eat at a restaurant, I don't care about the chef's personality flaws---I just want to eat good food. I was slagged for entitling my latest book "The System of the World" by one critic who found that title arrogant. That criticism is simply wrong; the critic has completely misunderstood why I chose that title. Why on earth would anyone think it was arrogant? Well, on the Dante side of the bifurcation it's implicit that authority comes from the top down, and you need to get in the habit of deferring to people who are older and grander than you. In that world, apparently one must never select a grand-sounding title for one's book until one has reached Nobel Prize status. But on my side, if I'm trying to write a book about a bunch of historical figures who were consciously trying to understand and invent the System of the World, then this is an obvious choice for the title of the book. The same argument, I believe, explains why the accusation of having a big ego is considered relevant for inclusion in a book review. Considering the economic function of these reviews (explained above) it is worth pointing out which writers are and are not suited for participating in the somewhat hierarchical and political community of Dante writers. Egomaniacs would only create trouble.

Mind you, much of the authority and seniority in that world is benevolent, or at least well-intentioned. If you are trying to become a writer by taking expensive classes in that subject, you want your teacher to know more about it than you and to behave like a teacher. And so you might hear advice along the lines of "I don't think you're ready to tackle Y yet, you need to spend a few more years honing your skills with X" and the like. All perfectly reasonable. But people on the Beowulf side may never have taken a writing class in their life. They just tend to lunge at whatever looks interesting to them, write whatever they please, and let the chips fall where they may. So we may seem not merely arrogant, but completely unhinged. It reminds me somewhat of the split between Christians and Faeries depicted in Susannah Clarke's wonderful book "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell." The faeries do whatever they want and strike the Christians (humans) as ludicrously irresponsible and "barely sane." They don't seem to deserve or appreciate their freedom.

...

Later at the writer's conference, I introduced myself to someone who was responsible for organizing it, and she looked at me keenly and said, "Ah, yes, you're the one who's going to bring in our males 18-32." And sure enough, when we got to the venue, there were the males 18-32, looking quite out of place compared to the baseline lit-festival crowd. They stood at long lines at the microphones and asked me one question after another while ignoring the Dante writers sitting at the table with me. Some of the males 18-32 were so out of place that they seemed to have warped in from the Land of Faerie, and had the organizers wondering whether they should summon the police. But in the end they were more or less reasonable people who just wanted to talk about books and were as mystified by the literary people as the literary people were by them. "

  It is well worth clicking over to Slashdot and read the full interview.

Freak Cards

These gorgeous trading cards of famous freaks are the creations of symbolist painter Gail Potocki. Most posters and cards made of freaks seem to only use them for their sensationalist value, these paintings on the other hand transcends their physical uniqueness.
The printing of the cards was done by the Century Guild and I believe there still are copies available. Click over and check them out here.
Gail Potocki also has a book out called The Union of Hope and Sadness which is worth checking out.

{via coilhouse.net}

Clowns without borders

By spanish cartoonist Manel Fontdevila (2006)

Why we do what we do, why it matters, and why there will be use for good showmen even after the apocalypse.

Tolstoy on Art

Leo Tolstoy, in his essay “What Is Art?”:

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

The One Who Faces The Other Way

The faithful readers of this web publication will know that lately I have been taking an interest in who the showman is? Our role; what is it, and where did it come from? Not an unreasonable question for those of us who have made the showman's Craft our Vocation. Without a firm foundation even the acrobats fall down.
In this article I will take a deeper look at - The One Who Faces the Other Way - (Described in our manifesto.)

Sociality

Picasso: Circus Family, 1905.

We are a social species, we need others to thrive, both for our well-being and our survival. Because this is so important, nature guides us towards it with rewards of good feelings. We feel good in others' company. Song and dance rouse our emotions, like nothing else, the production of opiates to bring about states of elation and euphoria.
Our biology guides us with pleasure. Sex feels real good because it is so important. Making the important things pleasurable and enjoyable so you will want to do it is nature's guide. It is where we learn whats important. Human rights are based on human need. The rewarding feelings we have when we share each other's company is your body telling you it's good for you, and therefor an important subject for attention.

Attention
An important part of what makes us human and what helped forge our social bonds is our ability to direct attention. Sharing attention by giving and taking mental focus is key to the social process. We crave getting and giving attention. It is as important as oxygen and nutrition for us. In this process we humans far surpass any other animal in our desire and ability to maintain focused attention for very long periods of time. By sharing attention we transmit meaning, tell story, laugh, and fall in love, all our most human aspects. 

When we share attention we face each other. We direct our gaze towards those we engage with.
Face to face. One sharing thoughts, ideas and emotions with the other. From each other's faces we can easily read and unconsciously interpret so much subtle information.

Harlequin’s Family With an Ape (1905)

Directing attention can be done in many ways, with hand gestures or simply with the eyes. The ability to use our eyes has been so important that evolution has shaped the way our eyes look to make them better suited to the task. The iris and pupil being dark against the white of our eyes makes it very easy to spot exactly what the person is looking at. This kind of adaption is to be expected since we are such a visually oriented species. Apes are also social but the fact that our eyes changed since we split off on our journey towards becoming a separate species, gives us a clue to the further importance sociability had for us.
We are the species with the most complex and advanced sociality. Other species like bees, ants, sheep, chimpanzees and praerie dogs all show different aspects of social behavior, but none are as varied and, most importantly, as adaptable as us. Some biologists calls us an "ultrasocial species".

Primatologist Michael Chance recognized that subordinates pay disproportionate attention to dominants, glancing at them far more than the dominants at the subordinates, and proposed that the social organization of attention has been a crucial factor in human evolution. He observed that hierarchy establishes itself rapidly among children, whose status can be ranked accurately according to the frequency with which they are looked at by three other children simultaneously.

A chimpanzee uncertain that it can gain rank through force or threat can often improve its status by other attention-getting devices - doing tricks and 'showing off.' Children do the same thing, often accompanied by cries of 'look at me.' But children also soon learn about others' emotional resistance to the undeserved usurpation of attention, and our consequent dislike of showoffs or bores.

From Brian Boyd's excellent book Origin of Stories.

Within the preceding paragraphs I believe we see the very process that drove the development of our Craft. People want attention, but people only willingly give it if you deserve to get it and keep it. Our ancestors would learn how to get attention but also needed to learn and develop how to be worthy of keeping it. They explored human nature and psychology as they investigated what was worthy of attention and how to present those things in the most interesting way.

Showman
From the word Showman we get all the information we need in regards to who he is and what his role and purpose is.
First I would like to propose that the term 'man' in Showman is to be understood as the 'man' in human. Not a gender specific ending. With this the term changes meaning from one man to Mankind. It describes a particular kind of person, not in terms of sex but of vocation.
The vocation or calling of the Showman is to show things to others in an interesting and joyful way. Like musicians shape and refine sounds, we have refined the process of 'sharing by showing'.
For me the best way to describe what our fundamental role is: "One Who Faces The Other Way."

A Showman is One Who Faces the Other Way.
One that has walked with the crowd
then turned around to face the others.
He cries for attention
and has something to Show
when he gets it.
(an Illuminated Showman's Manifesto)

One who get other's attention and knows how to make it worthwhile. One who has understood the power which lies in this and the importance of the Material being worth sharing.
A good Showman will pay attention to his Crowd's reaction and shape his presentation to suit them. Tuning and teasing a biological system of reward meant to guide us to what's important for our existence and well being.
One interpretation of the term would be: one which is pleasurable or interesting to watch. This seems simple but because of its primacy the feeling of shared attention is very fundamental and deeply rewarding. By getting and holding attention and skillfully directing it, the Showman engages and gives his Crowd a good time. This is a very meaningful and joyful social interaction. Something which strengthens the Showman's position in the group.

When one person faces the others to tell a thrilling tale of today's hunt, and tells it in a way that transports the Crowd right into in the midst of hooves kicking and blood running, a Crowd experiences great pleasure.

Our Tradition
We modern Showmen are the latest in a tradition of shapers of the special relationship that exists between people, ie sociability. This trait might well have been the fundamental characteristic setting us on our path to become human. The Shamen and story tellers of the cavemen and early hunter gatherer tribes all grasped and practiced the things we do. Their repertoire, routines and material were different, but the tool of showmanship, our illustrious Craft, was the same.

From tomb 15 in Beni Hassan, - 4000 years old.

Whenever someone belittles your Craft as 'just entertainment,' maybe as opposed to art, know that your vocation has a deeper and richer history than the written plays and theatrical productions of the rich and powerful. We Showmen were engaging, educating and healing Crowds tens of thousands of years before the invention of writing. The Art they speak of is a Johnny-come-lately to the unique powers of Those Who Faces The Other Way. Their Art is but a particular aspect of our Craft.
Whilst the rich and intelligent gathered in theaters and operas, our kind were on every street corner and wherever people gathered. We are from the people, for the people.
What we do, in circuses, pubs and cabarets, we do because people like it. Like how the sexual preference of the pea hen shaped and created the peacock's formidable and encumbering tail, Crowds have shaped the Showman's material. What we find in carnivals is the sum of what thrills, pleases, and fascinates humankind.

The Crowd and their attention is what gives purpose to the showman's vocation. He is a bringer of joy and insight to others. This is his responsibility, to leave the Crowd Illuminated through sheer joy, arousal or through intellect. The Showman enjoys getting the attention and because of his skill in holding and shaping it the Crowds loves giving it. It is a win win situation.

Charles Bukowski - Genius of the Crowd

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."

Bukowski was a writer. He wrote it all. Poems, short stories, novels, screenplays. He wrote it all just as he saw it. Once a long time ago at about five to eight in the morning on my way to do street shows in Coven Garden, London, I was asked why I liked Bukowski. I said - because he writes it like it is. Then we got to the pitch and all the street performers began pulling numbers out of a hat to decide who plays first. It was a summer day in july. I spotted a fellow performer which I knew also read Bukowski and asked him why he read the words of the dirty old man. He writes it like it is he said. I smiled.

Here are some thoughts on the dark side of the Crowd - of the Average people. For the Illuminated Showman must remember that the Crowd is a Beast. Given the oppertunity it will eat you. It can be tamed but is will always be wild. Like the snake in the Little Prince, it could bite at any time. Such is its nature.

There is a part of the poem missing out of this video excerpt from Born Into This. So here the poem is in full. A warning to budding Showmen, and a reminder to those who have experienced


The Genius of the Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach love do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

x

(Hemlock was the poison used to execute Socrates for inciting youth and not following the state's gods. The Genius of the Crowd chose to kill him rather than answering his questions.)

I mentioned the poem was an excerpt so here is the documentary Born Into This in full too. (For some reason it blogger wont link to it on my page...)

Finally here is my favorite poem. The more you have read, the more you have seen, the more you know the dirty old man the weightier this poem gets.





Bluebird

Magritte's Therapist. The birds inside.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Near the Egress

Gorgeous and mesmerizing circus art film.  

Antonio Martinez created this video to serve as a desired childhood memory of the circus, but through the mind of an adult.
Over 800 modern dryplate tintypes, (a photograph taken as a positive on a thin tin plate,) were made from b&w film to produce this experimental stop-motion video of a circus.
The project began in 2005 and was fully completed in early 2010 with the help of sound designer, Ramah (Malebranche) Jihan, and assistant, Sarah (Lathrop) Midkiff. The video has been successfully exhibited in over 23 video art and film festivals.

Near the Egress from antonio martinez on Vimeo.

Mark Ryden's Magic Circus

The Magic Circus, Oil on Canvas, 2001. Painting Size: 40" x 60" Framed Size: 57" x 74"

A preparatory sketch.

A little detail expanded.

Inspiration. Joan Miro's Harlequin's Carnival. 1924-25.

Naive, but somehow reminds me of the same theme.

More Ryden Circus.

The Ringmaster. Oil on Canvas, 2001. Painting Size: 20" x 28" Framed Size: 32" x 31"

An enlarged detail.

the master himself

Mark Ryden in his studio.

More on Mark Ryden's possible inspirations for his Patron Saint of Clowns.

Marc Chagall and the Circus

 

"For me, a circus is a magical spectacle, a passing and dissolving like a little world. There is a disquieting circus, a circus of hidden depths. These clowns, riders, acrobats are imprinted on my sight. Why? Why am I moved by their make-up and their grimaces? With them I travel on toward other horizons. Their colors and their painted masks draw me toward other, strange, psychic forms which I long to paint.

 
Circus! A magical word, a centuries old entertainment parading before us, in which a tear, a smile, a gesture of arm or leg takes on the quality of great art.

 And what do circus people receive in return? A crust of bread. Night brings them solitude and sadness stretching on to the following day until evening, amid a blaze of electric light, heralds a renewal of the old life. For me, the circus is the most tragic of all dramatic performances.

 
Throughout the centuries, its voice has been the most shrill heard in the quest for the amusement and joy of man. Often it takes on a high poetic form. I seem to see a Don Quixote tilting at windmills, like the inspired clown who has known tears and dreams of human love.

 
My circus pitches its Big Top in the sky.
 
It performs among the clouds, 
among the chairs,
 or in the moon-reflecting windows.
 
In the streets a man goes by.
 
He puts out the lights and lamps of the town.
 
The show is over."


Marc Chagall, Circus (1967)

"Chagall saw circus folk as the perfect example of artists who desire to be loved and achieve their dreams. He identified himself with these people and the representations he made of them can be seen as self-portraits."

Chagall’s son, David MacNeil.
 

  "For him, clowns and acrobats always resembled figures in religious paintings... The evolution of the circus works... reflects a gradual clouding of his worldview, and the circus performers now gave way to the prophet or sage in his work—- a figure into whom Chagall poured his anxiety as Europe darkened, and he could no longer rely on the lumiére-liberté of France for inspiration."

Jackie Wullschlager

A Child’s dream – The art of the Circus poster

“The circus of the present day is judged by the quality of its paper."

W C Coups promotional Carny Cash

"I believe I ordered the first three-​sheet lithograph ever made… This was considered a piece of foolishness; but when I ordered a hundred-​sheet bill and first used it in Brooklyn it was considered such a curiosity that show people visited the City of Churches for the express purpose of looking at this advertising marvel. How things have changed!”

W C Coup –

Sawdust and spangles, stories and secrets of the circus (1901)

“One of the most beautiful and artful of the posters is “The Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth:  a Child’s Dream,” 

an 1896 lithograph that depicts a child in bed surrounded by a Bosch-like wreath of circus performers.  The poster dances toward nightmare, with clowns riding ostriches, bears with clown collars standing on one another’s shoulders, a monkey riding a harlequin in a makeshift rodeo, all printed in the rich, fermented colors of a Max Ernst painting.  Collage couldn’t do this:  there’s something both innocently disturbing and disturbingly innocent here, with a text banner at the bottom reading:   

  

“This smiling face is multiplied a million times a year.  Whereas the children’s friend this wondrous show appears:  with sunny gleams of fairyland, with scenes of merriest glee, with cute and cunning animals for either side of the sea.”

"The language is arcane, the imagery antique, but there’s a mysteriousness that transcends purpose, and gives this poster a nostalgic fervor “fine art” doesn’t usually muster.  It’s serendipity:  you the gallery-goer stumbling upon an accidental connection between circus and Surrealism, Barnum & Bailey and contemporary art (the “street art” of Banksey or Shepherd Fairey for instance) that tries to use the forms of advertising (text, printing, hyperbole) but can only come up with thematic irony at best, self-aggrandizement at worst."

"Shadow boxes become poetic theaters or settings wherein are metamorphosed the element of a childhood pastime.”  Joseph Cornell.

 "The sincerity involved in trying to sell the dream to the child gives this poster its enigmatic power, and somehow allows this simple, humble poster a way out of kitsch and into dream.  

It’s the same alchemy Joseph Cornell employed when building his shadow-box paeans to lonely glamorous hotels:  what is publically fashioned as luxury and thrill becomes a secret you keep in order to return to a paradise that really isn’t there, on Earth at least.  Cornell’s shadow-boxes, like many of the posters in “The Amazing American Circus Poster,” depict life as transient and full of moments you can only capture through fantasy, an encyclopedia of cotton-candy mysticism, seediness transcending into longing, and longing melting into trance."

"These posters still mirror desires and excitements that become renditions of what we often forget we need:   

spectacle, absurdity, delight.”

Keith Banner - The American Circus Poster

Nepals Lost Circus Children + Mary Ellen Mark...

An investigation into the trafficking of Nepalese children to work in Indian circuses. A darker side of circus is exposed and explored by film maker Sky Neal. It follows the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation as they rescue children from circuses they have been sold to and taken to a refuge run by a woman called Shailaja CM. They are doing some great work to rid circuses of this archaic and abominable method of recruitment.

See the 25 minute documentary right here.

This is of course not the only side to Indian circus. My first exposure to Indian circus was through Photographer Mary Ellen Marks book 1989 called Indian Circus. I am lucky enough to have a copy I bought from Reg Bolton at a circus festival in Tasmania one year.

Mary Ellen Mark, ‘Twin Brothers Tulsi and Basant’ 

Beauty is all about patterns

In a very interesting article for wired magazine, Jonah Lehrer suggests that our feelings of beauty are:

“A particularly potent and intense form of curiosity. It’s a learning signal urging us to keep on paying attention, an emotional reminder that there’s something here worth figuring out.”

Salvador Dali, the persistence of time.

He then thinks this peculiar variant of curiosity is hijacked by art. Experiencing beautiful art we get sucked in to the undulating tones of a Beethoven symphony or into Mona Lisa's smile. Great works seems to always imply something, to set up information in patterns that then keeps us waiting for their conclusion. The final line of a Bukowski poem becomes immensely beautiful since it has been so cleverly built up. The feeling of beauty tells us there is a pattern here, and that we have a chance of figuring it out.

“Put another way,” Lehrer says, “beauty is a motivational force that helps modulate conscious awareness. The problem beauty solves is the problem of trying to figure out which sensations are worth making sense of and which ones can be easily ignored.

Great art seems to contain promises of great patterns. The beginning of a symphony sets up a pattern and then the rest, more or less, is a tantalizing “flirtation with – but not submission to – our expectations of order.” 

He quotes some interesting studies that suggests a particular area of the brain, specifically in the medial orbital-frontal cortex involved in our experience of beauty, regardless of whether its source is music, painting, weaving, reading or otherwise.

This  is one of the least understood parts of the brain. But what we do know is that it’s instrumental in sensory integration, it regulates how powerful our emotional responses are to stimuli, its also key in decision-making and expectation. In particular, the mOFC is thought to regulate planning behavior associated with sensitivity to reward and punishment. I guess it is then not so unexpected that our experience of beauty resides in this area already known as an important part of our pleasure spectrum.

Auguste Rodin, the Kiss.

“…That brain area has consistently been implicated in the recognition of delightful things, from the taste of an expensive wine to the luxurious touch of cashmere,” explains Lehrer.

As we begin to discover how our experience of beauty originates in the brain we can perhaps answer the philosophical question of what the common quality of Bach, Rodin, Dali, and ancient cave paintings all have in common.

The scientist behind the experiment which localized the beauty responses in the mOFC, “Ishizu and Zeki think that the “peculiar quality” lies not in works of art themselves (pieces of music included), but in the brains of their beholders.”

The objects of art are not so much beautiful in themselves as suggestive of patterns and emotions that stimulates a particular part of the brain. The work of art can in this sense be seen as a trigger for feelings of beauty. And a skilled artist might be said to have an understanding of how to form an object, music or perhaps any type of performance into an experience which triggers beauty trough setting up a pattern and holding off on its completion. Something a little mysterious that cries out to be understood and also gives off the hopeful feeling that you will be able to grasp it.

From the Chauvet caves in France, artist unknown...

In exploring aspects of life as diverse as hallucinatory drugs, meditation, dancing to repetitive music, partaking of religious ceremonies, and studying evolution many of us have had the sense that life and everything is riddled with patterns. I certainly have. Life itself, its origin and development is about order and patterns in seeming chaos. Most early Origin myths are about order from chaos. In fact our minds were made to create meaning from chaos. It is part of what makes us human.

So if beauty is akin to curiosity what exactly is curiosity?

“The first thing the scientists discovered is that curiosity obeys an inverted U-shaped curve, so that we’re most curious when we know a little about a subject (our curiosity has been piqued) but not too much (we’re still uncertain about the answer).”

When there is a gap between what we know and what we want to know we get something like a mental itch and desire to seek knowledge to bridge this gap. This seems to be a fundamental aspect of curiosity.

“The lesson is that our desire for more information – the cause of curiosity – begins as a dopaminergic craving, rooted in the same primal pathway that responds to sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

So the thing that keeps us interested is incompleteness, rather than perfection. A stray hair on a Japanese Zen painting, a gold tooth in a carny’s crooked smile makes something beautiful and interesting.

Researchers in Montreal discovered, through the use of fMRI machines and PET scans that our experience of beauty whilst listening to music is highest fifteen seconds before the climax. As themes, and threads are coming together and the promise of completion looms our experience of beauty is the strongest. We peak emotionally just before the climax.

“It is the suspenseful tension of music (arising out of our unfulfilled expectations) that is the source of the music’s beauty… ‘For the human mind,’ Meyer writes, ‘such states of doubt and confusion are abhorrent. When confronted with them, the mind attempts to resolve them into clarity and certainty.”

Beauty urges us to pay attention to keep looking. It hints at the mysterious, but also gives us hope that understanding is within grasp. It encourages us with its imperfections to want to know more, we want to know how it ends.

“We know just enough to know that we want to know more; there is something here, we just don’t know what. That’s why we call it beautiful.”

x

Perhaps this article can Illuminate aspects of the fundamental structure in our perception of beauty and through it help elevating Showmen’s creation’s as they journey along the Way of the Showman.

The Creatrix

The Creatrix, Mark Ryden.

Whilst working for Circus Oz in 2005 I bought a limited print by the artist Mark Ryden. I had been fascinated with him for quite a few years, but had yet to purchase a proper print. Getting a print would be the only way I could have an “original” Mark Ryden on my wall since his art has long ago became unobtainable for someone on a Circus Oz wage. The print I got was by far my favorite of his works, the Creatrix. I found the lithograph print on e-bay. It was my most extravagant art purchase to date so the pre-arrival excitement was heightened by worries about being ripped off.  It arrived and to my relief it was genuine and in mint condition. I loved it and still today spend significant amounts of time staring at it, taking in the thousand truths and connective wisdoms of the complex picture.

In September 2006 I was in New York with La Clique, (then Absinth now La Soireé.) Nights were spent on the edge of Pier 17 in a Spiegeltent. We did rocking shows and hung out with Uncle Rob, our Soprano security man back stage. But during the days I went to the American Museum of Natural History. I stayed in NY for four weeks and visited the museum 5 times. I loved their dinosaur exhibits, spending hours just staring at these relics from deep time, a concept that still fascinates me just as much today. But the exhibit that I spent the most time on was something they called the wall of biodiversity. Basically it was a wall full of life. Organized and arranged in an explanatory and visually arresting manner. Standing before it everything seemed so beautifully connected. The lighting of the room, the whole atmosphere of the exhibits and the solemnity of the museum had deep impact on me.

Then on my last day hailing a yellow cab to go to the airport I buy an art magazine I had never read before. It was called High Fructose and it had a reproduction of a Mark Ryden print on the cover. I got a cab, got on my flight, opened the magazine to the interview with Ryden and found this:

The Wall of Biodiversity.

“The Creatrix is not about Creationism in the simple-minded Christian sense, but it is about the sublime mystery of life on earth. The painting was inspired by a visit to the Natural History Museum in New York. There is a room there called the Hall of Biodiversity. On a single wall the huge range of life forms on earth is displayed. In the painting, I wanted to capture the monumental feelings and thoughts this exhibition inspires in me.”

Now when I look at her, the Creatrix, hanging in my hallway, everything seems even more beautifully connected.

The Day We Killed Mystery

From an old newspaper review.

The Joseph Rockstacker Illuminated Circus, Carnival and Menagerie have come to Anchor for the coming week’s festivities and I was sent to see the sights.

The spot chosen, as all my readers have probably already observed, is the sports fields by the swimming hall, and never have I seen it looking so splendid. The grand Big Top, the Ferris wheel and the old Steam Carousel were all there. I wandered the Midway and took it all in, and a fine sight it was. I have chosen to use this culture column, not to review its main attraction, the grand Circus, but rather I want to convey what I experienced in a most singular and curious side attraction.

I was drawn to the anomalous little tent because it seemed to promise a different, almost anachronistic kind of Magic. The beautifully ornate woodcarvings on the show-front depicted strange symbolic images of Magicians. Their style was different from the other banners and circus pictures in that they seemed to hold some deeper significance outside of my understanding.

To me it had the air of times past, when Magicians were not just tawdry additions to children’s parties or entertainment on cruise ships or shopping malls. My interest was piqued, so I paid my dollar to enter and found inside the same style of decoration. The canvas walls were covered with painted symbolic depictions. One that caught my attention had a man climbing a freestanding ladder. He was almost at the top and held a key in his outstretched hand. Perched atop the wobbly structure his key pointed towards an eye with a keyhole pupil. The atmospheric imagery was indeed most esoteric and made me think more of secret initiatory fraternities, rather than venues for lighthearted sideshow amusement.

The little stage had deep red velvet curtains, with the letters BIS embroidered on them. They opened and with very little bravado an unassuming, but fiery showman with a big mustache came out. He smiled, seeming genuinely pleased that so many had chosen to join him in the afternoon’s spectacle. He began an oration about himself and his origin as an assistant in his father’s magic show then proceeded to perform a series of funny and baffling routines.

I found him a very amicable Showman, and could not help thinking I would very much like to count this chap amongst my friends. More than being fascinated with his particular tricks, I was captivated by the sense of genuine warmth and deep enthused passion that radiated from this curious prestidigitator. There was no shadow of doubt that this man loved what he did, and so did we. The crowd was all very much engaged, laughing and carrying on.

In one routine the Showman slipped an over-sized dice into a small cabinet with four doors, and promptly claimed it vanished, although it seemed obvious to us that it merely slid back and forth, with the clever conjuror always opening the wrong door to demonstrate the dice’s absence. The comedy of errors and his witty banter made frivolity rise to almost ecstatic heights. The children and more boisterous of us cried out, half chocked with laughter, at the misunderstandings, trying to get the Showman to open this or that door. In the end, when he finally opened all four doors of his dice cabinet, it became apparent he had indeed made the dice disappear and all the misunderstandings and fun that ensued was merely part of this man’s terrific showmanship. With many jubilant members of the audience wiping tears of joy from their cheeks, the lights dimmed. In the stark light from the spotlight, as dust rose from the dirty showground through the beam of light, the Showman proclaimed:

“It is time!” and held up a dead twig and a piece of red paper. In one swift motion he scrunched it up and stuck it on the end of the twig. Then he stepped towards some men in the front row who were drinking beers. With a slight nod he picked and pulled the green labels of their bottles. The men looked mystified by this strange behavior. The Showman then stuck them onto the twig and with this finished a crude imitation of a red flower. To this there was a smattering of goodhearted applause, but it also raised a few eyebrows in wonder of where this was going. The Showman continued with a serious tone:

“What power in us can transform what we see every day into something beautiful?” Of course no one answered this rhetorical question, and he continued to answer it for us.

“Love.” He said. “Love transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. Love lets us see the wonderful in the wonderful, lets us realize the beauty of what we thought ordinary and lets us discover the mystery of life wherever we turn.”

With that the Showman snapped his fingers, and here I must admit I don’t know if the transformation happened just then, or if this was when I noticed it, but the paper, beer label and stick had indeed turned into the most lush and perfectly formed rose. The inanimate had come alive, life from death, the mystery of mysteries. The Showman stepped forward and graciously let the ladies in the front row smell its exquisite fragrance, so strong in fact, even yours truly, could smell it from the midst of the crowd. Then, back in the centre of the stage, the Showman snapped his fingers again and with this the rose ignited and in a flash of instant fire it was gone. A gasp rose from the crowd and a man turned to me with an expression of awe on his face, his mouth moving, but no sound passed his lips.

Here I must interject that this might not sound like the greatest of conjuring effects, but dear reader, you must understand that at this stage in the performance this simple effect somehow struck the deepest and most resonant chord with myself, and dare I say the entire congregation. Perhaps precisely because of its simplicity, we the audience could see the miracle and mystery clearer. The applause was different than for all preceding feats, more quiet, but also more intense and heartfelt. I thought this would be the end, but little did I know.

“Now, we all just witnessed something extraordinary. We saw and together touched the mysterious. And I know you are wondering how it was executed. How can one do such a thing, what is the secret? Where did the rose go?” Murmur spread through the crowded canvas room.

“You all seem like warm and good people so I will let you take the final choice. Would you like me to reveal this secret? Show you where the rose returned to? Just let it all be explained, mundane and deflated? Or would you instead like to end this performance carrying this feeling of beautiful unexplained mystery with you? I will let you decide which feeling to leave with.”

I believe it was one of the guys in the dirty shirts wearing trucker caps that first said it, but regardless, as soon as one had uttered it we all shouted for the secret. The Showman raised his hands, but said nothing. He removed his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt and with his fingernails grabbed his flesh and tore. Before my eyes the Showman ripped open his chest. Blood poured from the rip and as the wound opened I saw the ribs beneath. He pried his fingers between them and broke them apart. An awful sound, somewhere between stepping on a dry stick and cracking a lettuce, made my skin crawl. Ribs wrenched open, he forced his right hand in and after some searching proceeded to pull out his heart. The thick veins and arteries hung long, thick and dripping from the still beating heart. With each beat blood flowed in great abundance out of the torn arteries. The Showman, pale and white as a ghost, again with his nails, tore his heart apart and from its core he revealed the rose. Gently holding its flower he began pulling it out. It’s thorns turned the flesh of the vain it protruded from inside out as he tore it free and held it forth with no strength in his arm. For a few moments he inspected us with a quizzical look upon his ashen face. His chest still open, blood still flowing. No one clapped. No one spoke. Then he fell, and was dead.

Suddenly the lights turned up to full and the sidewalls of the tent rolled up like spring-loaded roller curtains and the crowded midway looked in on us all. The spell was broken and in that instance I understood we had just killed Mystery.