MauMau Blood Dreams 2025 investigates the origins of story...
For the past few years I have been researching local folktales with surprising discoveries. In Spain, close to where I live in North Portugal, archaeologists recently found rocks covered in neolithic designs. They describe hunts, conflicts and tribe story. The designs became local word-of-mouth folklore in the Bronze Age. They are bloody, savage, surreal stories that make no sense. In the 17th century the tales were re-written for sophisticated audiences becoming stylish, dream-like, magic fairytales with happy endings. I was struck by the archaeologist’s note that none of the designs depicted roles of women, all the designs were of hunter, warrior, leader roles - interesting in that many of the 'fairytale' writers were 17th century women.
The pre-history plots dominate culture to the present day. And where do these stories come from? Why do we keep telling them? “The folktale is the primer of the picture-language of the soul.” Joseph Campbell.
I decided to cut-up old tales, make new stories, reverse roles, mix cultural tropes, outcomes, hoping to explore new narratives through which we might visualise a different world.
FILM
Moon is a Dagger, Die Leere Mitte, Revista Procedimentum
Fever Dream Tales Postcard series of 8. €10. Mailed in photo envelope.
Contact me with your address. PayPal.
Notes on a few cards:
Collage VI. Found photo of XV painting of the XIV Portuguese queen, Leonor Teles. Found photo of Tras-os-Montes contemporary carved mask. Moon photograph. Santiago Cathedral wall carving photograph.
Collage I. Visigoth bird brooch photograph, Madrid museum. Found fashion photograph.
Collage VIII. Found photo of Cléopâtre-Diane de Mérode, Belle Époque dancer, first modern celebrity icon. Neolithic Dolmen of Barossa photograph. Found newspaper photo of Iberian wolf.
Contemplates human relationships with the natural environment. The title is attributed to the legendary Tang era (618–907) Dao-poets Shide and Han Shan. The two hermits living in nature, depicted laughing and pointing at the moon in Asian painting for centuries, poet Gary Snyder’s 1950’s translations of selected Cold Mountain poems, and characterisation of the poet-bums, are realised in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel, The Dharma Bums.
FILM
Cold Mountain Moon at Arteidolia Press NY, Rafael Gonzalez music. 38th Stuttgarter Filmwinter Festival, Stuttgart, Germany, January 15 - 22, 2025
Hunters Heart at Ranger Magazine, Rafael Gonzalez music. Dialogue At The Rivers, LOSDOK, Amsterdam, 2023
Surfers Soul at Ranger Magazine, Hal McGee, Rafael Gonzalez music.
Farmers World, Speech Index music.
...asks, ‘Are we ready?’ What are our notions of space? Can we accept varied life forms, and transformations and challenges to our bodies and minds?
FILM
No One Speaks of Lorette, Vulcan Ironworks music, at Otoliths.
My Bot Dancing 2the End, Diana Magallon music, at Otoliths.
There is Void, Jonathan Minton poem, Diana Magallon music, at Word for /Word.
Time is Untape, Jeff Crouch text, Diana Magallon music. March 2025 at Word for /Word.
Friday Night, Golden Estella and Valentin Narvaez music.
Cornflakes Hullabaloo, Vulcan Ironworks music, at Otoliths.
Hinchinarfer, Vulcan Ironworks music, Jeff Crouch designs, at Otoliths.
Shinzo Co-Star, gif-book, at Otoliths.
Null (result) &Void, gif-book. March 2025 at Word for /Word.
Above, The Dream Collector book.
During the covid pandemic time 2020-2022, I practiced waking in the night and immediately writing down my dreams. This led me to this project and to ask, "How can the dream state guide us?"
In this moment of increasing planetary crisis and cosmic consciousness, radical methods of stewardship are needed for the future of humanity and earth and solar system commons. In dreams the subconscious runs wild. It communicates with us, using images, sometimes words. The subconscious reminds us of past memories, connecting them to the present, always working on problem solving and creativity.
Planet of Dreams proposes alternative dream-based processes: native land tradition, speculative-futures architectural schemes, magic, Shaman-led practice, Jungian dream work, poetry, time-based works, asemic code, and conceptual performance. The project suggests an auspicious perspective of post-capitalist, planetary guardianship to guide spaceship earth.
WORKS:
Above, front cover from The Dream Collector, book of dreams and collage, photography.
Oracle Books. Two books, drawing, personal print stamps, stab binding.
I Have Known Rivers. Series of 3 watercolors.
Shaman Trees. Series of 4 photographs.
FILM
Goose Moon Owl, Cecelia Chapman sound, at Arteidolia Press NY.
Nuclear Forest, Jeff Crouch music, Calamari Press.
Wolf Queen, Jeff Crouch music, at Arteidolia Press NY.
Magic Dream, Diana Magallon and Gabriel Valecillos music, at Arteidolia Press NY.
Nomad Dreams, the Sorceress, the Flying Saucer and the Moon, Jeff Crouch music, at Video Sound Archive.
Last Time Tomorrow, at Otoliths. The One, International Digital Art Biennale, Toru, Poland, 2024. Suszarnia Gallery, Włocławek, Poland, November 22, 2024 - January 25, 2025.
DreamTown USA, Jeff Crouch music, poetry, at Calamari press.
Dream Come True, Cecelia Chapman sound.
SpaceLife Dreams, Jeff Crouch music.
Vacation culture, consciousness and capitalism. The marketing of holiday. The vacation migration is compared to early nomadic tribes led by their shaman on the tracks of game. But now, the game pursued is a state of mind advanced by corporate interests to produce a workers' consciousness tolerant of capitalist slavery.
The selling of adventure absent in workers regulated lives, the colonisation of vacation areas, worker migration, and the use of nostalgia and memory to control workers’ minds are examined. A nomadic shamanic consciousness is proposed, anima mundi, connection to nature, mindfulness of the interconnectedness of all.
Club Paradise: don’t be a tourist @Interalia Magazine.
FILM
Moon on Fire Meditation, Habitat - Nonstop, Amsterdam 2024
Race the Sun Meditation, Jeff Crouch music, at Compostxt.
Cabo Peligro, Rafael Gonzalez music, at Interalia Magazine.
Welcome, Cecelia Chapman sound.
Last Exit, Jeff Crouch music, at Interalia Magazine.
Tears in the Night, Jeff Crouch music, at Tip of the Knife.
Club Paradise, Blaine Reininger music, at Interalia Magazine.
Trouble in Club Paradise. Series of 12 polaroid photographs reimagine notorious vacations on Lake Wequaquet.
Mail collaboration series of 13 postcards: Posted with Rafael Gonzalez at Utsanga. Sent with Jeff Crouch at UnlikelyStories.
Series of 6 photographs of tourist activities: Bone Tree, Adventure Park, Pirates Cove, Skull Island, Float Choices.
Cruise Collection tshirts: Don't Be A Tourist and Memories Are Made Here.
A short film anthology of 11 Chapters by Berlin based American composer Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt. Produced and filmed by Cecelia Chapman. The collaboration explores the interplay between Chapman's video interpretation of Marquardt's subtle drone compositions and titles that address what it is to be human in the age of the drone. Chapman interprets Marquardt’s original titles to question the militarisation and commodification of knowledge, and the friction between technology corporations and local communities on the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley.
FILM
Cotuit Center for the Arts, Chapter 1 and 10, selected film 2007- 2021, 2021
TimeSpecific, Chapter 11, 2021
Acud Macht Neu, Berlin, Drone Drama: Music for the Dead, 2020
Loophole Berlin, Chapter 10, 2018
Primal Uproar III, Hamburg, Germany, Chapter 10, 2018
Interalia Magazine, Chapter 9, 2017
Magmart Video Festival 10, Drone Drama: Music for the Dead, 2017
Traumathek, Cologne, Germany, Drone Drama: Music for the Dead, 2017
UnlikelyStories, Chapter 8, 2016
Red Fez, Chapter 1, 2016
SlowForward, Chapter 10, 2016
DotsWaves TV, London, Chapter 3, 2016
UnlikelyStories, Chapter 6, 2016