Devils, Elleves, Firadrakes and Occult Geographies

Earlier this week I presented at the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers International Conference, participating in a session called Occult Geographies: (im)Material Agents and the Geographical Imagination. I’ll reflect on the other papers in my next post – until then you may like to take a look at my paper Devils, Elleves or Firadrakes: Genius Loci, Magical Technologies and the Occult Philosophy of Landscape. Full text and slides can be found over at academia.edu.

Entity relationship diagram depicting the digital artist as magician.

The paper as presented is actually a synopsis of a far more detailed, 10,000-word article, which I hope to prepare for publication shortly. It’s perhaps a peculiar collision of ideas: occult, creative and technological, but I think it’s a fairly good reflection of my multiphrenic identity! One thing it was a shame I couldn’t deal with fully in the conference paper was the further implications of John French’s translation of Agrippa’s Classical terms into folkloric parallels: however, this is discussed in detail in the full paper, tracing the roots of the Agrippa’s calling of the ‘good spirits’ to medieval folkloric practices, which came full-circle in the work of 17th century magical compiler Dr. Rudd.

The Vale of Soul-Making

A brief summary of recent goings-on!

It’s been a very busy three weeks, working on my paper for Devils, Ellves or Firadrakes for the Occult Geographies session at next week’s Royal Geographical Society conference (abstract here). The paper has ended up as a 10,000-word draft, which now needs to be reduced to a 20-minute presentation by this time next week!

While I was in a word-processing mood, I took the time to edit and upload my artist talk Music, Magic, Metaxy: Sounding Psychepoietic Landscapes, which was delivered at the Uncanny Landscapes conference organised by Royal Holloway University and the Centre for Creative Collaboration in March. You can read the text here, and view the slides here.

From Music, Magic, Metaxy: Sounding Psychepoietic Landscapes

Last year, Tom Carter of Charalambides was hospitalised with pneumonia while on tour in Europe. Gavin Prior of United Bible Studies has put together a vast compilation to raise money to help out with the costs he incurred as a result. 99 tracks from nearly everyone (including XETB!) in the last 15 or 20 years of underground of drone/free folk/experimental music for 7.50 Euros. Download here.

I recently got some copies of the compilation 70 Years of Sunshine, on Monotype records, curated by Kim Cascone. I was pleased to see some positive words about my contribution in Daniel Spicer’s review in the latest issue of The Wire, and he also played it on the latest episode of his radio show, The Mystery Lesson (the Wadada Leo Smith & TUMO track which he plays after is incredible!).

That’s it for now! Something more substantial to come in September, once presentations have been made and prior to the madness of beginning a new academic year…