Dangerous Minds pal artist/filmmaker/musician Brian Butler will be premiering an ambitious live performance art piece this Saturday, January 21 in Los Angeles at the Ruskin Theatre in Santa Monica. His muse, Annakim Violette (daughter of rockstar Tom Petty) will be at the center of this black magic occult ritual.

From the press release:

Union of Opposites is an experiment in ritual magick, combining the use of sound and light with the intent of creating a collective out-of-body experience. A film screening will transform into a live performance in which the artist and his team execute an occult rite inspired by Aleister Crowley’s mysterious Ritual of the Mark of the Beast. In this incantation, Butler explores ideas of reversal and the use of geometric figures as channels of occult power. The work will feature a spontaneously improvised soundtrack that experiments with the effects of sound frequencies and rhythmic chanting on our chakras and mental state.

Butler’s interest in expanded cinema will fold the performance space into the work. He views the film, performance and musical accompaniment as a singular entity, where the performers will “expand from two dimensional screen to three dimensional existence” as themes of astral projection and projective geometry interplay with the auditory and visual stimuli.

Butler—who has communed and consulted with occultists and magicians from Europe to South America—explains that “magick is an art unto itself. In a sense, is the art of living in a creative and free way.” Influenced by the work of British arch-occultist Aleister Crowley, Butler believes that magick is conducive to and “complements” all manner of creativity, helping practitioners access different parts of the mind as well as spiritual realms. Butler explains: “The occult is defined as the hidden levels of the mind or the hidden information about how things work…A really intense performance is like hypnosis. You go to a certain state of mind and your presence brings those around you to the same place.”

A part of Art Los Angeles Contemporary, in the Ruskin Theatre at the Santa Monica Airport, 3000 Airport Ave, 5pm. Produced in conjunction with Annie Wharton Los Angeles.

Below, Butler’s 42-second film “Night of Pan” from the OneDreamRush collective show, featuring Kenneth Anger, Vincent Gallo and Twiggy Ramirez.
 

 
Thank you Susan von Seggern!

 
A reminder about the Kenneth Anger opening party (which is confusingly being held a week after the exhibit actually opened to the public) tomorrow night at MOCA. Featured will be a live musical interlude via Anger and Brian Butler’s Technicolor Skull project.

Technicolor Skull performs their first West Coast appearance at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles on November 19, 2011, as part of the opening reception for Kenneth Anger: ICONS. This exhibition will showcase the films, books, and artwork of one of the most original and enigmatic filmmakers of post-war American cinema. This coincides with the release of Technicolor Skull’s self-titled recorded debut, a one-sided, bloodred 180 gram 12” vinyl LP limited to 666 copies.

Technicolor Skull is an experiment in light and sound, exploring the psychic impact of a magick ritual in the context of an improvised performance. With Brian Butler on guitar and electronic instruments, and Kenneth Anger on theremin, their collaboration is a performance contained inside a ritual of unknown origin, tapping into occult stories that extend musical language into initiation. Hidden messages escape through gesture and light, manifesting as a one-time-only event.

The record will be available directly from www.technicolorskull.com and at the MOCA store.
 

 
Yet another reason why I love the City of… Angels(!) so very, very much…

MOCA presents Kenneth Anger: ICONS, a showcase of the films, archives, and vision of one of the most original filmmakers of American cinema, on view at MOCA Grand Avenue from November 13, 2011, through February 27, 2012. A defining presence of underground art and culture and a major influence on generations of filmmakers, musicians, and artists, Anger’s films evoke the power of spells or incantations, combining experimental technique with popular song, rich color, and subject matter drawn equally from personal obsession, myth, and the occult.

MOCA’s exhibition centers on Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle of films—Fireworks (1947), Puce Moment (1949), Rabbit’s Moon (1950/1979), Eaux d’artifice (1953), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954/66), Scorpio Rising (1963), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), and Lucifer Rising (1970-81)—presenting the work across multiple projections in a unique gallery installation of red vinyl, designed in close consultation with Anger.

Complementing the films is an archive of photographs, scrapbooks, and memorabilia from Anger’s personal collection that illustrates the filmmaker’s unique vision of Hollywood’s golden era. The inspiration and source material for the filmmaker’s infamous celebrity “gossip” books Hollywood Babylon, (1975) and Hollywood Babylon II (1984), the collection centers on stars such as Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo, as well as now lesser-known icons like silent-film actress Billie Dove. Anger grew up in Hollywood. His grandmother was a costume mistress, and he is claimed to have appeared as a child actor in the Warner Brothers production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). The world of the classic studios and the mystique of its major figures radiates throughout the photographs, press clippings, letters, and memorabilia on display, which Anger has gathered across many decades.

Technicolor Skull, a multimedia collaboration featuring Kenneth Anger on Theremin and Los Angeles artist Brian Butler on guitar and electronic instruments, will perform for the first time in Los Angeles at the exhibition opening on November 19. Technicolor Skull is a magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance. The project premiered at Donaufestival in Austria, in April 2008, and has subsequently toured throughout Europe, performing at the National Museum of Art, Copenhagen, and the Serralves Museum, Portugal, and recently at the Hiro Ballroom, New York, for the Anthology Film Archives benefit.

Opening: Saturday, November 19, 7–10pm, Technicolor Skull will perform at 8pm.
 

 

 
Weirdo Atlanta GA-based “flower punk” group, Black Lips have claimed the inspiration for their insane live shows from the like of Viennese Actionists and death rocker G.G. Allin. If this doesn’t sound like your cup of vomit… or urine, then it’s probably best to stay clear of the front rows.

For their latest single, “Modern Art,” Black Lips tapped Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler (we posted about his “Night of Pan” film with Kenneth Anger and Vincent Gallo here) to direct this quirky, off-kilter hoodoo clip. Co-starring “a human skull, a rooster, a bomb blast, and more fun than you can manage.”
 

 
Rather astonishing news from the fashion and film world. Dangerous Minds’ fave filmmaker Kenneth Anger has released a two-and-a-half-minute film dealing with the fall/winter collection of the Varese-based house of Missoni, produced by filmmaker/Anger manager/Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler and scored by French composer Koudlam.

Vogue Italia‘s Mariuccia Casadio provides some details:

A man of few words, this fascinating former actor who still takes care of his appearance first filmed the settings for his film “Missoni”: mostly locations near bodies of water in the Sumirago countryside and part of Rosita and Ottavio’s garden. For the indoor sequences, he built a set in the Council Room of the Sumirago Town Hall, a basement room with a vaulted ceiling. The mood of the film and the poses and movements of Margherita, Jennifer, Angela, Rosita, Ottavio, Ottavio Jr. and all other [Missoni] family members are reminiscent of Sergei Parajanov’s “The Color of Pomegranates”, a 1968 film that inspired Anger to create his Chinese box-style storyboard.

Do yourself a favor and go full-screen with this one. And if you’re unfortunate enough to not be familiar with Anger, do yourself another favor and click one or both of the links below. You’ll be glad you did.
 

 
Get: The Films of Kenneth Anger Vol. 1 [DVD]
 
Get: The Films of Kenneth Anger Vol. 2 [DVD]
 
Thanks to Ian Raikow for the heads-up!

 
Attention New Yorkers, don’t miss Return to the Pleasure Dome, a benefit concert event for Anthology Film Archives with a Life Achievement Honor for Kenneth Anger.

Featuring Technicolor Skull (Kenneth Anger and Brian Butler), Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, The Virgins, Moby & other special guests.

Wednesday, May 19, 8:30p.m at the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, $99 via Ticketweb
 

Video: Kenneth Anger’s 42-second long film, Death. Part of the OneDreamRush project.

 
Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler has a new short film that’s part of a film festival coming up in Los Angeles soon. Brian was a producer on the Disinformation series with me a while back, helming two of the show’s more memorable segments: the feuding Satanists and Rocketboy, the real life superhero/half cat. He also introduced me to Uncle Goddamn. Brian also contributed the great essay on Marjorie Cameron, Cameron: The Wormwood Star to my Book of Lies anthology. For these reasons and more, I shall be forever grateful. The video clip below is a shorter version of Night of Pan that was made for a Beijing arts festival, the full version will be shown at the Projections festival. It’s pretty striking, I think you’ll agree!

From the press release:

Brian Butler’s Night of Pan Premiers in LA at Projections Festival, January 16 at Roberts & Tilton

Los Angeles, CA: Noted filmmaker, artist and musician Brian Butler (http://www.brianbutler.com) will premier his short film, “Night of Pan” in Los Angeles on January 16 at 7:30pm at the opening of Projections, a festival of rare and hard to see films including other directors such as Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Jean-Luc Goddard, and Miranda July . Projections was curated by Aaron Rose an artist, film director, writer, musician, and independent curator most noted as the co-curator of the successful museum exhibition and book Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art & Street Culture which toured the world through 2008.

Projections takes place at the Roberts & Tilton Gallery, 5801 Washington Boulevard, between La Cienega Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, in Culver City, California from January 16 to February 20, 2010. In addition to screening on January 16, “Night of Pan” will also be screened in a loop at the gallery on February 18, 2010.

“Night of Pan” is a seven and a half minute film featuring film auteur Kenneth Anger and actor Vincent Gallo. The film has been screened in various versions internationally in Beijing, Lisbon, Cannes, Athens, Rome, Berlin and elsewhere, but never in Butler’s base, Los Angeles.

In the film, Anger, Gallo, and Butler depict an occult ritual that symbolizes the stage of ego death in the process of spiritual attainment.

Brian Butler is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works around dark magical themes. He had worked extensively as a producer on director Kenneth Anger’s recent work. Additionally he has written for Dazed & Confused and performs along with Anger in the band Technicolor Skull.