A Tribe Called Red

MicroFilm: A Tribe CalledRed
Last month, Guillaume Decouflet made his way to the Electric Pow Wow in Ottowa and sat down with A Tribe Called Red to talk party music, urban indigineity, and upending racist stereotypes through multimedia artwork. Cluster Mag is proud to host Decouflet’s account of the experience; a short film-documentary assembled from his interview, a little bit of party footage, and the audio-video work of Bear Witness, one of ATCR’s three members. Decouflet’s native language is French, so to reach out to the States, Canada, and beyond, we thought we’d include a French original, and our own English translation. Enjoy.

(Source: theclustermag.com)

A tribe Called Red; Native Puppy Love

Robert Desnos

Desnos2 by FabienO

Susan Griffin relates a story that exemplifies Desnos' surrealist spirit: "One day Desnos and others were taken away from their barracks. The prisoners rode on the back of a flatbed truck; they knew the truck was going to the gas chamber; no one spoke. Soon they arrived and the guards ordered them off the truck. When they began to move toward the gas chamber, suddenly Desnos jumped out of line and grabbed the hand of the woman in front of him. He was animated and he began to read her palm. The forecast was good: a long life, many grandchildren, abundant joy. A person nearby offered his palm to Desnos. Here, too, Desnos foresaw a long life filled with happiness and success. The other prisoners came to life, eagerly thrusting their palms toward Desnos and, in each case, he foresaw long and joyous lives.

The guards became visibly disoriented. Minutes before they were on a routine mission the outcome of which seemed inevitable, but now they became tentative in their movements. Desnos was so effective in creating a new reality that the guards were unable to go through with the executions. They ordered the prisoners back onto the truck and took them back to the barracks. Desnos never was executed. Through the power of imagination, he saved his own life and the lives of others."

Storm Boy (1976)

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8

Storm Boy is a 1976 Australian film based on a children's book, by Colin Thiele, about a boy and his pelican.

Storm Boy (Greg Rowe) likes to wander alone along the fierce deserted coast of South Australia's Coorong. He and his father live a reclusive life among the dunes that face out into the Southern Ocean. After a pelican mother is shot, Storm Boy rescues three chicks; he names them Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival, and nurses them back to health. His father, known to some as 'Hideaway Tom,' forces Storm Boy to release the birds, but Mr Percival returns. Mr Percival and storm boy grow a special bond together. Mr Percival dies from shooters hunting for birds. The story then concentrates on the conflict between Storm Boy's lifestyle and the externally imposed requirement for him to attend school, and the fate of the pelican.

Storm Boy's real name in the film is Mike—the moniker "Storm Boy" was given to him by Fingerbone Bill (David Gulpilil), an aboriginal man who becomes his friend.

In 2009 the pelican Mr Percival died at Royal Adelaide Zoo. He was 33 years old.

Boredoms ATP Tokyo 27th Feb 2011

Part One


Part Two


Part Three


Part Four


Part Five

In February 2011, Boredoms premièred new material at the All Tomorrows Parties "I'll Be Your Mirror" Festival in Tokyo. Six drummers were arranged in a circle around Eye, who used motion sensors to trigger ambient drone soundscapes created by Shinji Masuko that corresponded to each drummer. The music featured highly repetitive motorik rhythms that grew in complexity over the course of the hour long set.

Leonora Carrington is Dead

Leonora Carrington (April 6, 1917 – May 25, 2011) was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.

"I was an androgyne, the Moon, the Holy Ghost, a gypsy, an acrobat, Leonora Carrington, and a woman." Leonora Carrington.

Lubricated Goat Live

Live circa. 1988


Live NYC 2003

Its been a long hard road out of hell for The Goat. I believe it staggers on with Stu at the reins. Always quality as far as the sonics are concerned. The men who ride The Goat are not the sort you would bring home to mother.

Things Artaud tries to Teach

Antonin Artaud by MELMOTH

Imagination, to Artaud, was reality; he considered dreams, thoughts and delusions as no less real than the "outside" world. To him, reality appeared to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.

Artaud saw suffering as essential to existence and thus rejected all utopias as inevitable dystopia. He denounced the degradation of civilization, yearned for cosmic purification, and called for an ecstatic loss of the self. Hence Jane Goodall considers Artaud to be a modern Gnostic while Ulli Seegers stresses the Hermetic elements in his works.

"Artaud sought to remove aesthetic distance, bringing the audience into direct contact with the dangers of life. By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them." – Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007, p.23

Artaud was the surgeon of the real.

Slavoj Zizek: Catastrophic But Not Serious

Slavoj Zizek: Catastrophic But Not Serious from The Graduate Center, CUNY on FORA.tv

Slavoj Zizek: Catastrophic But Not Serious

The Committee on Globalization and Social Change will launch with a special lecture by philosopher and critic Slavoj Zizek who will speak on “The Situation Is Catastrophic, but Not Serious.” This alleged message of the Austrian military headquarters during WWI renders perfectly our attitude towards the ongoing crisis: we are aware of the looming (ecological, social) catastrophes, but we somehow don’t take them seriously. What ideology sustains such an attitude?

The Committee on Globalization and Social Change (CGSC) is an interdisciplinary working group composed of a core group of CUNY faculty interested in reflecting on globalization as an analytic category for understanding social change.
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700
Location: New York, NY, Prohansky Auditorium, CUNY

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan Debating 1968

"It's psychedelic. When you step up the environment to those speeds you create the psychedelic thrill. The whole world becomes kaleidoscopic, and you go inward by the way. Its an inner trip not an outer trip." Marshall McLuhan (1968)

"There is a way to pluck." Norman Mailer (1968)

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan expound on violence, alienation, art and the electronic envelope. The clash of two great minds. (1968) www.cbc.ca

As an association to some of what is discussed in this video see Thomas De Quincey's essay online The English-Mail Coach. The idea of travel as work is described in De Quincey's essay.

Keith Richards at New York Public Library

Stones Guitarist Keith Richards Talks About 'Life'
The New York Public Library

Sufi Soul: Seeking the Beloved Within

Sufism, an intellectual and enquiring offshoot of Islam, is deeply rooted in Islamic cultures across the globe -- the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian subcontinent particularly -- and in each region it takes on local characteristic. The famous whirling dervishes of Turkey are Sufis, the yearning qawwali sound of Pakistan as performed by Ali Khan is a different manifestation of the same thought.
While anti-modernist Islamists would ban singing, dance and musical instruments as diversions from the true path of devotion and subservience to Allah, Sufi cultures are rich in these traditions -- and that is the subject of this doco by the noted English travel writer, historian and longtime resident of New Delhi, William Dalrymple.
A scholar who is knowledgeable about the great religious, philosophical and cultural aspects of Islam, Dalrymple makes a journey through half a dozen countries to explore the peaceful and pluralistic nature of Sufism -- and uses music as the framework. The subtitle of this doco is “the mystical music of Islam”.
The result is a fascinating travelogue punctuated by extraordinary voices, from the trip-hop clubland Sufi sound of Mercan Dede to powerful presences such as Adiba Parveen.
There is an exoticism here too: the nature of dances in which believers enter trance states; the colours of marketplaces and the decorative beauty of temples, homes and clothing.
At its core Islam has a common origins with Christianity, and the nature of this documentary allows for the benign and peaceful middle ground of Sufism to be revealed at a time when rather too many would set up the great faiths as polar and violent opposites.
Directed by Simon Broughton -- long a commentator on world music and editor of Songlines magazine out of the UK -- this fascinating 45 minute film (with an additional 35 minutes of separate music performances) is an adventure, a journey and a discussion.

Caravaggio (1986)

Caravaggio (1986) by BFIfilms

Caravaggio (1986) is a British film directed by Derek Jarman. The film is a fictionalized re-telling of the life of Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

Jarman's film is involved with the love triangle of Caravaggio (Nigel Terry), Lena (Tilda Swinton) and Ranuccio (Sean Bean) and dwells upon Caravaggio's use of street people, drunks and prostitutes as models for his intense, usually religious paintings (see the article on the painter for examples). As with Caravaggio's use of contemporary dress for his Biblical figures, Jarman depicts his Caravaggio in a bar lit with electric lights or another character using an electronic calculator.

Caravaggio was the first time that Jarman worked with Tilda Swinton and was her first film role. The film also features Robbie Coltrane, Dexter Fletcher, Spencer Leigh, Michael Gough and Nigel Davenport. The cook Jennifer Paterson was an extra. The production designer was Christopher Hobbs who was also responsible for the copies of Caravaggio paintings seen in the film. The film was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement

Wonderwall 1968

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8


Part 9


Part 10

"Well, I just saw a restored print of this at the Screening room. It is a marvellous piece, light and yet moving, filled with wonderful visuals, a great performance by Jack McGowran and a marvelous (and unfortunately out-of-print) score by everyone's favorite Beatle, George. The synopsis above just doesn't do justice to the film. Yes, it's about a daffy old guy who peers in on a lovely young woman living next door, but there's nothing creepy or pathetic about it. In fact, he's actually quite a bit a of a dashing and romantic figure in his own detached, weird way. One of the most notable things about the film is the art direction, done by the band/art collective The Fool. The famous Dutch art collective made the most of what was most likely a thin budget by pouring every ounce of energy into creating two amazing sets for the adjacent apartments of the old man and the young model. They are, without a doubt, two of the coolest looking places to live I have ever seen in a movie (I would give my eye-teeth to live in either one of those flats) and they form as much of a part of the main characters as the portrayal by the actors themselves. The old scientist lives in Celtic-Medieval warren, inspired by Pre-Raphaelite design, and the young model lives in a mod Sixties psychedelic/glam environment suffused with overtones of 20's/30's nostalgia. Both apartments then are filled with a yearning for the past and so, the old man becomes no more of a romanticist than the girl, despite his age. He is actually quite dashing in his cape and tuxedo when engaging in some of his later escapades, like some bandit out of a Fantomas picture. No, this movie isn't about a pathetic old guy lusting after a lithe young thing. It's about a few other things more interesting and perhaps more touching, but you'll have to find out for yourself. In any case it's a nice little treat worth finding, if you can." From IMDb