Dark Profile(s)

The fine gentlemen at Progress Report share a profile of His Darkness from last year.  The studio visit was a precursor to the exhibition Ritual Aesthetics which they organized at Tompkins Projects in Brooklyn, NY.

Both halves of PR, Kris Chatterson and Vince Contarino, have an astute eye when it comes to the work of their contemporaries.  While exploring much more than just the Black, they share an insight and a deep investment into the vibrant artistic community of NYC.  They share a commitment to contemporary painting and contemporary abstraction that is readily apparent in both of their own practices and the work that they explore through Progress Report. Last year they organized a project for the Bronx River Arts Center called The Working Title which showcased the work of 32 contemporary abstract artists.

The Order has much respect for the investment of time and energy into their exploration.  Just as we are called into communion with the Void and the sacred knowledge of Darkness, we can always learn from the unwavering discipline of others.

Seasons and celebrations

We trust everyone had a moving experience on this Saturnalia, and are working up to a memorable Sol Invictus.

As we prepare ourselves for celebrating the Bringer of Light and Life it is also a good time to reflect on the eventual dwindling of that Light when it is called back into the Void of Existence.  Our lives are the blackened marks upon this temporal realm and we reflect the truth of the Void in both word and deed.  Within the darkness of Void, all things are possible. Within the darkness of Void, all is.

Et sic in infinitum.

Tune In, Turn on, Curse out.

As promised in my summary/non-summary of the Symposium, here is the complete text which was presented in Dublin on November 20, 2011.

 

The artwork/imagery I’ve provided to promote and adorn this, the third Black Metal Theory Symposium, is from a series of 23 works based on ancient Defixiones, or Curse Tablets, which apply an invocation – for good or ill – toward another party most often with whom you are either besotted, or who has wronged you in some matter of business or personal relation.  In speaking about the works in this Hexe series, we will summarize the traditional role of the curse tablet and how these particular works are constructed in order to achieve similar results through a structural analysis and an exploration of their material properties as they relate to Hermetic traditions.  This will then allow us to move beyond the physical object of power and discuss intention and the psychology of belief as an entity in its own right, which leads directly into the overarching theme of PEST.  One’s complicity with the complex and layered structure that is belief is such that when encountering the intentions of another, it ultimately challenges the insular domain of their very being; destroying the barrier of the self, and forcing an engagement with the realm of an other.  This, then, turns virtually all human interaction into a psychic attack being perpetrated by and upon everyone at all times.  Existence, as we will come to understand, is a relentless barrage of intentions, ideas and the surplus of decaying belief systems being recycled from the beginning of time to the present.  This perpetual assault goes predominantly unnoticed until it is tapped into and channeled by an object, person, or collective group, at which point the focused intention may cut through the omnipresent universal static to fulfill its purpose, to cause affect upon a receiver.

With this in mind: What do you want, and how are you going to get it?  Seemingly simple, this very basic question provides a window into the true genius and true brutality that comprises our psychology; the ability to channel our desires into a defined trajectory, either directly toward an individual or more covertly through the use of something else.  Curse tablets have long embodied that something else.  These objects become a physical manifestation of your desire, a device of storage and amplification for your craving and a conduit to carry the message from one consciousness to another.  Existing in the space between the desirous and the desired, to channel the wanton energies of an individual and translate these intentions through a corporeal form into the spiritual is where it all comes to fruition.  That spiritual form is then granted the capacity to move through the physical world in a way the aspiring body cannot. Tapping in to the unseen undercurrents of our visible reality and harnessing the elusive powers of another space/time.

As objects of power, straddling multiple realms, these curse tablets have been used as far back as the 5th century BCE, creating opportunities for the peoples of the ancient world to affect their surroundings and status.  Many of these objects were inscribed upon lead, which is held in high regard by Alchemists for being both extremely malleable and resistant to corrosion, often rolled/folded and bound; they would then be punctured and then nailed on to or buried at the door of the person to which you were hoping to affect.  The series of Hexe drawings, while taking their name from the Germanic root for “Witch”, in order to make reference to the art object as either the originator or amplifier of affect, are meant to evoke the same resonance of influence upon the inhabitants of the world, room, or gallery, in which they are placed.  Consistent with their predecessors, they have each been inscribed with their own invocation in graphite, which is chemically understood as a subsidiary of carbon along with diamond and coal.  Graphite, a mineral, was also called blacklead and could be confused with the actual metal element lead.  This transposition of the mineral with the properties of Lead, leads to the interchangeable referencing of the lead pencil which we continue to bastardize today.  Lead is a ruler of the dark and lusterless Prima Materia and therefore these invocations are both directly connected to the very origin of the universe, and are also highly resilient in order to withstand the ravages of time and space so they may carry out their function.  The particular inscriptions imbedded within these Hexe works have each been hidden/obscured/shrouded behind carbon paper.  Used in this case as an amplifier of purpose, given that carbon is both one of the most abundant elements in the universe as well as the foundation for all known life forms, this allows the invocation to be channeled through a shared physical property.  This shield of obfuscation is punctured so as to allow the intention(s) placed therein to freely flow through the object of power and into the same space occupied by the viewer, thus creating affect upon them through their surroundings.

With this as the material composition of these objects/drawings, and their relation to numinous powers, we need to explore the veritable mine-field of intent and belief.  The curse trade was quite lucrative to many an ancient psychopomp able to tap into the mystical reservoir of power and archetypal myths lying in repose, bridging the realm of one party’s objective and another’s worldview.  This intention is meant to infest the deepest realms of one’s belief-structure.  To dig in to another’s psyche and physically project your desire within their being is ostensibly the function of these objects.  They weave through the stratified collective unconscious and access a primal area of individuality.  One’s very personhood, their understanding of who and what they are, become fundamentally challenged by this placing of another’s intent within the sphere of one’s own-selfhood.  This action, likened to a psychic attack upon the other, is so much more than just a function of these curse tablets, and is in fact, the very nature of virtually all human interaction, where the insular domain of one’s subjective consciousness is threatened by the interlocution of another perspective on realities both internal and external.

Consider that in order to exist in this world, amidst other objects, beings and ideas, one must learn to tune out certain “background noise” while tuning in to the things upon which their focus has been attenuated.  If that weren’t the case places like Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, or Las Vegas couldn’t exist in this same world.  Our simple minds would be overrun with sensory input and shut down or be driven to abject madness.  Unfortunately, as humans, we are subject to a complete and utter lack of objectivity.  Our very individual consciousness prevents us from approaching any and every object, person, or idea wholly, without being informed by each of our own individual pasts.  While there are certainly shared and overlapping experiences, and cultural legacies, there is still so damn much input driven through our individual sense organs that any real collective experience is still heavily biased at best. Your listening/reading of this very presentation is being informed by your own personal baggage.  You.  Sitting right there. In this audience, streaming from home, or reading as a text.  This is what I’m talking about. This is fundamentally an attack upon the private domain that comprises your independent comprehension of the world and everything in it and that makes me the Pest presenting before you right now, subjecting you all to my fucking will.

Functioning in much the same way, the existential realm of Black Metal is another form of perfect vehicle used to relay the same type of influence upon the listener.  Black Metal develops an intention of affect by conveying its message through the physical vibrations of sound which are then unconcerned with an overall clarity of distinction and in fact can go to great length at times to keep its musicality obscured or enshrouded by a veil of under-production.  In this way the collective force of a Black Metal band serves a similar function as the curse tablet or Hexe drawing by amplifying an intention and infusing that into the listener through the object of song-craft and albumization, making present in the mind of the receiver these incantations of the Void, the absence of existence, hope, or purpose for the physical body thus divining a separation of one’s mind/consciousness and the physical form of ourselves and our known world.  Black Metal, more so than any other sub-genre of extreme music, lends itself to this psychic attack so well due to both its inherent physical structure and its existential themes.  Like the early rejection of Christian dogma and its inverted binary mirroring in the Norwegian genesis, Black Metal pulls from one subconscious place to infuse its sound, which is then unleashed upon the psyche of the listener.  Black Metal, with its occult roots, conjures its own manifest destiny of ideological warfare upon the existent baggage of your most intimate self-ness pulling you into an interaction with it, regardless of whether that engagement ends up with both parties in agreement.

So these psyche’s we’ve each grown so damn fond of, that hidden architecture we can’t find a tangible presence for in the physical organ of the brain, become the repository of our memories, past influence and histories.  Deep in the psyche of the Norwegians who were to become church burning black metal fiends, resides a past; a past which pre-dated Christian enslavement and included a whole other set of gods and beliefs.  This ancient repository is the black, decaying corpse of their shared past and shared belief.  This miasma is part of a collective pool into which the Black Metal plunges its desire, transforming it into an intentionality which is then directed through their songs and into your being.  Just as the curse tablets and Hexe drawings pull from the same sub-psychic space and cultural legacy, they are then tuned in to the background radiation of the universe.  This river of Dark Matter buried in all of our collective minds, flowing with the shared mythologies being experienced by mankind since the beginning of time, is just waiting for one of these objects to be switched on and focused toward an individual consciousness in order to subject it to its blissful command.

It is through the power of these external objects: the curse tablet, the Hexe drawing the Black Metal, compounded with everything else we may come into contact with, that we draw back the curtain revealing the frailty and savagery of this human existence.  Through our engagement of something other-than we discover our true identities, not in national or cultural regard, but in our proper human form.  To engage, subject and infest is the grand function of humanity. It is through a complicit acceptance of our human limitations, both physical and mental, that we are able to then allow for this dominion over ourselves, or consequently, to dominate another through the crushing oppression of belief.

The Aesthetic of the Ritual

Dark Benediction, 2010

There is an inherent biological structure guiding humankind’s existence.  (For the most part,) We sleep at night, work during the day, consume our sustenance in three intervals throughout that day in order to fuel our physical exertions.  This is a ritual encoded deep within our DNA.  It is the Ritual of Human Existence. That which we strive to maintain and which we embellish to enjoy.  In and of itself, ritual does not imply a religious structure, but it can certainly be sacred.

As an artist, my studio practice is sacred to me.  It is something I look forward to engaging with, and something which I need to maintain for my own well being, even when the project hits a frustrating period that needs to be worked through.  The studio practice is like eating or breathing.  It is a necessity buried within my DNA.  The objects I share with the outside world become aesthetic representations of the ritual which created them.  Infused with a patina, an invocation, a symbol of its own mythology.  I’m very pleased to be sharing my practice with four other artists who approach ritual in their own ways in Ritual Aesthetics, organized by Progress Report for Tompkins Projects.  Stop by and behold.

Not Belief, Not-not Belief

Having just recently returned from the third Black Metal Theory Symposium held in Dublin, I felt a number of interesting intersections which manifest themselves.  I want to take just a moment and connect a few of these dots, while also summarizing parts of the paper I delivered during the symposium.  The paper, itself, I will post separately. There is an archived video of the proceedings thanks to Radical Matters, who were generous enough to facilitate it, and all of the works will be published through Helvete the Black Metal Theory Journal.  Make sure to check them both out as the work will then all be in context and you may very well run across something else of interest by one of the other presenters.

The paper I delivered began as a discussion of this series of Hexe Drawings, based on ancient Curse Tablets.  The work talks about the mimetic physical structures of each and how they relate to material properties in early Hermetic traditions, not unlike the ones which would eventually spawn the Order itself.  The focal point is then a discussion of belief, desire and the imperfect subjectivity of human consciousness.  So to borrow from the now famous statement by Nicola Masciandaro regarding Black Metal Theory as: Not black metal. Not theory. Not not black metal. Not not theory. Black metal theory. Theoretical blackening of metal. Metallic blackening of theory. Mutual blackening. Nigredo in the intoxological crucible of symposia, we can then apply that same dictum to the precept of Belief, wherein a belief in or resonance with nihilism is not Belief, but also not-not belief.  So in being a Nihilist, and being a spiritual guide for other Nihilists, I thought it might be a good platform in which to elucidate upon the idea of belief within the construct of a nihilist spiritual organization.

Belief vs. Nothing, or Belief IN Nothing.

In order to buy into the concept of an endless nothingness to which our individual and collective corporeal realities will eventually succumb, we still must believe.   I’ve actually found in the time I’ve been with the Order, it’s harder for most people to conceive of the idea of belief IN nothing than it is to conceive OF Nothing itself.  Perhaps it has something to do with the ways in which the East and West separated their triumvirates of religion, science and politic, I can’t really say, but there is a marked difference when I meet with new members from either location.  Those raised on the Eastern Philosophies tend to be able to better understand Nothing or Void as an entity.  An entity of the absent, absent of any external containment beyond our own conscious realization.  Relentlessly spreading beyond our comprehension.  Terror and Sublime made (w)hole through void.  Yes, belief, as subjective as it is, is still a powerful force to reckon with.  Much like the Curse Tablets and Hexe Drawings, its intrinsic power is generated by the realities of the conscious parties involved.  It is WE who both intend and allow this force of belief into our persons.  Making manifest the reality of its power. Making manifest the realities of power.

Believe. Or not.

Interview

I did an interview with Bite Magazine for their second issue . We discuss Black, Objects and interacting with them, and talk a bit about the Order and my relationship to it.

The Void Where Prohibited:

There are no inherent prohibitions within the Void.  The Void is all.  It swallows ideology and condemns the history and future of human iteration to the short bus of the universe.  “Do What Thou Wilt” as a wise man once said, for truly, there will be no repercussion.  No relevance whatsoever between one’s actions and the whole of the Void.  When one speaks of Ethics, there is often a fear we (the Nihilists and so forth) are misanthropic, anarchic, rabble-rousing ne’er do wells with an agenda that defies the status quo.  The Status Quo however, is a fallacious concept derived out of the human desire to conform and make others conform.  Within said desire are the myriad offshoots from the main body of desire.  The independent, or inter-depenent, depending on how you choose to view the situation, who generate their own collective symmetry. The punks, bankers, soccer moms, etc. who all believe “The others” to be an oppositional force to their individuality.  Their individuality as a herd, mind you, not as individuals in and of themselves.  So, if we consider that within these sub-groupings of humanity there exists a basic structure of collective agreement, which in turn, provides a moral compass to which these members are willing to conform/defend/exploit, the natural question that arises is: To what end?

The Order of the Black Mark cannot answer that for you.  It is our belief that humanity is but a minor plague running its course and therefore, will do as it has all along since the beginning of time.  Through force of will, hatred, ignorance and lust, humanity will make of this temporal realm what it sees fit, regardless of the consequences to any other.  The void will be here when you are ready to accept your position.  We will guide you into the unknown darkness of all there is.  We will empty you of being and help you with the transition into Nothingness.

Some Thoughts on Process:

While the Order is devoted to a rather classical nihilistic agenda as far as our outlook on the greater course of the world is involved (i.e. we’re all irrelevant), we do accept that before mankind disappears into the void we must exist in this time and space.  As such, there are some interesting ideas floating around the collective consciousness which are divining stratagems for observing, considering and analyzing this time and space in which we are stuck…for now.  In particular, Mr. Ben Woodard of the Naught Thought has been really digging into the divide between Object Oriented Ontology and Process Philosophy.  Particularly the ambiguity or “twilight” of becoming, which we must agree is an interesting area of speculation and adds a necessary angle to comprehension in our analysis of the interactions of the “outside world”.  Which, in this instance, is being used to refer to anything external from one’s own consciousness.  Mr. Woodard is calling for a formalizing within this area of consideration, which outwardly seems anathema to it’s inherent vagaries, but is in actuality a necessity to understanding the flow of objects, thought, and anything else manifest in or out of the reality we must suffer through until we become one with the void.

We might even go so far as to suggest that the fuzziness is itself a quality of the becoming.  Others might refer to it as the “Object of Becoming”, such that it is itself a realized whole, or element of process.  Not so much that its actuality is like a back door escape hatch for thought, or a crutch for the unexplainable, as it can often be used, but such that it is a force of affect, most commonly seen by way of subjective interpretation filtered through human consciousness.  The unfortunate involvement of the human mind is what makes this process fuzzy in the first place.  It already knows what it is, we just don’t necessarily have the correct decoder ring for it to make sense to us.  The Order is very familiar with this territory, and follows a path of acceptance of the Void, or the fuzziness of Process, as much more than it may outwardly appear.

Now this may/not be a stretch for some, but it seems that more and more there is a very direct relation or mirroring to the overall appearance/function of Quantum Mechanics and Speculative Realism.  Under this umbrella heading of “Speculative Realism” we are including the lot of OOO/P, SR, Transcendental Nihilism, and Vitalism, and basically the lump sum of post-continental philosophies, as truly the whole of contemporary philosophical output, whether in agreement with one another or not, is entangled in this “thing” and analogous to the multifaceted elements which likewise comprise the whole of Quantum Mechanics.  So Quantum Mechanics is to Classical Physics as Speculative Realism is to Classical Philosophy.  We can equate the ambiguous realm of the Process or Becoming as the Quantum Superposition (or perhaps Speculative Superposition).  An area of time/space that given the set of concerns contained therein, is a temporary manifestation of all possible combinations of outcomes at once, merely contingent upon its eventuality.  It simply applies the same conception to thought (in its construction and function) as quantum mechanics does to matter.

But back to the “Process”…

The Process, as firmament between results, would benefit from being explored itself, rather than being the thing of ambiguity.  Speculative or not, it serves a larger purpose than we may realize.  Latour discusses the chaos of things and their inherent relations in the beginning of We Have Never Been Modern pulling out of “The Process” these objects of relation as connected entities even though science, politics, religion etc, want to keep the elements fragmented to better suit their own narrow scheme, when in fact they are better utilized informing a much bigger picture.  Similarly, George Kubler posits in The Shape of Time a reassessment of how art and artifacts are viewed through the lens of history as a whole continuum of human and aesthetic development, as if in continuous conversation rather than individual movements.  While the process of becoming may indeed be fraught with complexity, it is that very complexity that needs addressing if we are to engage anything that falls in or out of it.

Object/Objective

Manifest physical existence of that which cannot be grasped…

 

How do we relate and interact with the Void? How do we accept the unknowable? These questions have plagued mankind for centuries. Some have taken to manipulation of others in order to feed their personal desire and maintain a knowledge of such things.  The Order does not.  The Order accepts the unknown as potentially known.  We haven’t a need to impose our objective upon the Void for truly, the Void will swallow us in our entirety.  In accepting the Void as whole, complete and perfect we can satisfy ourselves with the knowledge that we will one day be a part of this Void.  We won’t have to know, because we will be.  Agendas are for those who fight against inevitability.

Daily Affirmation

If you go out in search of the Void, failure is most certain. For it is within you, the empty husks of Humankind.

To be None with the void you must learn to empty of your self. You must create a nourishing space within and cultivate the emptiness. Pushing further until you are nothing but a paper thin veil between the inner void of self and the exterior reality.