On Sunday 7th March 2010, British artistic duo Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard will present their elaborate performance piece, Silent Sound, live at Middlesbrough Town Hall. From the artists’ statement:
“In 2006 we conceived and presented a project called Silent Sound. It was commissioned by A Foundation and was presented as a live performance in St. George’s Hall during the Liverpool Biennial and a 3 month long exhibition at Greenland Street. The work features an original score by J. Spaceman (from the band Spiritualized) and was introduced on the night by Dr. Ciaran O’Keeffe from Living TV’s ‘Most Haunted’
Silent Sound is conceived as an otherworldly experiment using controversial mind control technology to transmit a subliminal message during a live music performance. The new composition for the project by J. Spaceman is designed to carry the subliminal message. Silent Sound sets out to warp your perception and stage a remarkable experience loaded with potential which intensifies your experience of being in the here-and-now. Drawing on the powerful psychological set-up of 19th century Spiritualist public performances and inspired by Victorian entertainers The Davenport Brothers who were famed for attempting to contact the souls of the dead using their ‘spirit cabinet’, we will perform inside our own specially created soundproof cabinet. From the stage inside this cabinet we will repeatedly broadcast a spoken ‘message’, this signal is fed into our custom-made Silent Sound machine, which subliminally embeds the message within the music and transmits it throughout the entire duration of the performance.”
“Part classical concert and part public séance” as the AV Festival website says, the score for this, as you can tell from the video below, is absolutely gorgeous. Jason Pierce from Spiritualized will be playing live with the orchestra at the event.
Kenneth Anger will also be appearing at the AV Festival.
Today’s Texas Tribune published a University of Texas survey of that state’s inhabitants which reveals that nearly a third of them believe humans and dinosaurs “roamed the earth at the same time,” and that more than half of them dismiss the notion that mankind evolved from an earlier, ape-like species:
The differences in beliefs about evolution and the length of time that living things have existed on earth are reflected in the political and religious preference of our respondents, who were asked four questions about biological history and God:
• 38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process and another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process. Another 38 percent agreed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.”
• Asked about the origin and development of life on earth without injecting humans into the discussion, and 53 percent said it evolved over time, “with a guiding hand from God.” They were joined by 15 percent who agreed on the evolution part, but “with no guidance from God.” About a fifth—22 percent—said life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.
• Most of the Texans in the survey—51 percent—disagree with the statement, “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” Thirty-five percent agreed with that statement, and 15 percent said they don’t know.
• Did humans live at the same time as the dinosaurs? Three in ten Texas voters agree with that statement; 41 percent disagree, and 30 percent don’t know.
As a chaser of sorts to the Texas survey, you might want to read about Vice’s amusing, albeit ultimately unsatisfying, visit to Kentucky’s Creation Museum (top photo). A commercial for the museum follows below:
(via RawStory)
“My understanding—I’m not a theologian—but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times. Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”
The “mark” that Virginia Delegate Mark Cole is referencing there is, of course, the Antichrist’s “mark of the beast.” Fortunately, Cole, along with his fellow House Delegates, passed a bill today that forbids companies from forcibly implanting tracking devices in their employees. Cole, though, is not the only one equating silicon with apocalypse:
Evangelical Outreach, a Web site run by pastor Dan Corner, states that “[w]ith modern technology, it is very possible that this mark may be directly linked with a computer chip.”
“Radio frequency identification (RFID) implants are currently the prime candidate for this beastly technology,” says the Riding the Beast blog.
David Neff, editor of Christianity Today, says that “this is part of a larger attempt to constantly read current history in the light of the symbolic language of the Book of Revelation,” according to the Post.
Opponents of Cole’s measure argue that it’s “a solution in search of a problem,” the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reports. Virginia Democratic delegate Bob Brink said: “As I went door to door, there were a number of issues that never came up. I didn’t hear anything about the danger of an asteroid striking the earth or about the menace of forced implantation of microchips in humans.”
But Cole says it was his constituents who brought the issue to his attention. He says people are concerned that chip implants will replace employee ID badges in offices. If passed by the full legislature, Virginia will become the fourth state in the US to have such a law. California, Missouri and Georgia have all passed a similar measure, or are working to pass one.
Momentum behind microchip implants has been building for years. Perhaps most significantly, Florida-based VeriChip introduced an implant in 2001 that can store medical data. The FDA approved the technology for use in humans in 2004.
Human Microchips Seen By Some In Virginia House As Device Of Antichrist
(via TRS)
Dangerous Minds readers in New York who bare a more or less passing resemblance to Jesus, have we got a job for you!
My daughters sweet sixteen is in 5 weeks from friday, she is a huge film buff. Her favorite movie of all time is Passion of the Christ and I want to surprise her with someone dressed as Christ to dance with her after she does her sixteen candles. We are holding the party at a well known club in New York City. Please get back to me ASAP with 4-5 sentences on why this is for you and a picture of you dressed as Jesus Christ
And for those of you applicants wondering what this day of Sweet-Sixteen dress-up might entail, please consult the video below:
Craigslist link here
(via BIOTV)
Via Unurthed:
Head of Buddha from Daianji Temple, Japan, Tempyo period, 8th century, p110. “Even in its ruinous condition this head possesses the classic serenity of expression and feeling for sculptured mass that characterized the great masterpieces of Tempyo sculptures” (p142).
“Many Japanese Buddha images… are informed with a feeling of expansive volume described by the Japanese term ryo, which approximates the suggestion of the presence of an inner breath or pneumatic force…” (p31).
(Unurthed: The Suggestion of the Presence of an Inner Breath)
He’s slept with bandits in Mongolia, and he’s hunted with pygmies in the Philippines! New to YouTube, and new to these eyes, here’s what purports to be Foghorn Leghorn‘s the Bare Faced Messiah‘s only filmed interview. Hypnotic. Boring. Creepy. These are just a few of the many adjectives watching it might trigger. And questions…
Is the father of Scientology‘s face made of wax? Is someone—or something—else controlling his lips? What’s with his Peter Cook-resembling acolyte interrogator? Discuss! Part I follows, with, below it, links to the entire interview (In Part IV, Hubbard claims turning Scientologist can boost your IQ).
Do space aliens “tag” us with implants the same way we microchip our beloved pets? Are we their pets?
The jury’s still out on that front, but if you are an Angeleno and suspect you’ve got an alien implant, then next weekend, at the Pickwick Gardens in Burbank, Dr. Roger Leir, M.D., a SoCal-based podiatrist, well-known to UFOlogists, George Noory fans and Fortean-types will be on hand to help.
Leir no longer feels the need to debate the existence of UFOs; it’s the implants he’s more concerned about, considering them proof positive of the alien reality. What Leir’s research wants to get to the bottom of is, what are their motives? What are their plans for us? And how the heck did those otherworldly implants get there in the first place?
Also appearing at the event is conspiracy theorist Jordan Maxwell, a fellow who describes himself as “a preeminent researcher and speaker in the fields of secret societies, occult philosophies, and UFOlogy since 1959.” Maxwell is scheduled to lecture about “The Hidden Dimensions in World Affairs.”
The tinfoil-hat brigade should be out in force at the event, which will be hosted by Noory himself. A lil’ zany? Perhaps, but something tells us that the people-watching will be very interesting.
The Hidden Dimensions in World Affairs event, Feb. 7, 2 to 9 p.m. (doors open at noon), Pickwick Gardens, 1001 Riverside Drive, Burbank. $50
Just when you think there are no new surprises coming out of the underground, something like the Taqwacore movement arrives, a fictional Islamic punk rock subculture that has become a REAL Islamic punk rock movement. Melissa Henderson writes at Brand X:
Originally imagined as a fictional world of living on the edge, Muslim punk rockers in Michael Muhammad Knight’s 2003 novel, “The Taqwacores”, Taqwacore has since evolved into an honest-to-goodness, real-life, fight-the-power scene, replete with young and charismatic activists, artists and Punk the only appropriate soundtrack to any decent rebellion.
Groups like the Chicago doom-crust band Al-Thawra and Boston-based ska-punkers the Kominas are rapidly gaining attention, as evidenced by August’s Los Angeles Times feature. Omar Majeed’s documentary about the subculture, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, made Spin magazine’s Best Music Documentary list of 2009, and “The Taqwacores”, Eyad Zahra’s feature film adaptation of the novel, premiered this week as an official competitor at the Sundance Film Festival. (For more on that, check out the post at the LA Times 24 Frames blog).
Knight, a Rochester, N.Y., native who converted to Islam in his teens and then struggled with an inability to reconcile his faith with his inner Punk, coined the book’s title from the Arabic word “Taqwa,” which means piety or God-fearing, and hardcore, a subgenre of late-70s punk rock. The novel, which he handed out for free in parking lots before finding a publisher in 2004, resonated so strongly with young Muslims dissatisfied with traditionalists in their own communities and cliches foisted on them by outsiders that it became something of a manifesto.
READ MORE: The rise of Taqwacore: from parking lots to Park City (Brand X)
