Dark Materialism

On January 12th Kingston University held a symposium under the title 'Dark Materialism'. It was a multi-disiplinary affair discussing ideas of darkness within modern philosophy, physics, mysticism, speculative realism and literature. There are audio recordings of the symposium online here..I would highly recommend Eugene Thacker's 'Divine Darkness'.

Woman's Hour

My dear friend Cerys and I are currently doing podcasts, which revel and celebrate lost (and found) ladies in music. There are currently two podcasts which you may download here. We are also holding a Woman's Hour party at the Royal Academy of Arts school's bar on March 11th if you fancy seeing us in person!

Snegurochka and Hedgehog in the Fog

Lovely Russian animation of 'The Snow Maiden'. Last year I bought a compilation of Russian animation for my mamachka for Christmas. This got me in to searching for more and soon I came across this nice example of soviet film with a traditional rendering of a folk story, it was even nicer when I found out my mum did the voice of Snegurochka!

Karpo Godina and The Whitney Brothers

The Believer magazine's film 2010 edition included this excellent DVD of Karpo Godina's short films, a great slice of the Yugoslavian Black Wave. Here's my favourite from the DVD 'The Gratinated Brains of Pupilia Ferkeverk' (1970), featuring the performative troop Pupilia Ferkeverk.

Plus some John Whitney extracts from 1961 in anticipation of the screening at the BFI next Thursday. Unbelievable analogue graphics and precursor to Scanomation.