INTERZONE DISPATCHES: Report #4.4

A belated return to this series of posts in which I'm cataloguing artwork based on the filmography of David Cronenberg, film by film, from SHIVERS to MAPS TO THE STARS.

Previous posts:

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE / SHIVERS / RABID / THE BROOD

SCANNERS

VIDEODROME

Today we're going to Walken the shoes of a man cursed with a psychic "gift", in Cronenberg's only Stephen King adaptation, THE DEAD ZONE... and learn the perils of drinking and teleporting (and how to consume your food by vomiting corrosive enzyme all over it) in the master's most commercially successful film to date, THE FLY.

This lovely fan poster by Silver Ferox is the only worthy alt art I could find online for THE DEAD ZONE:

Dan Mumford:

Drew Millward:

Gary Pullin:

Jason Edmiston:

Shane Lewis:

Jonny Dombrowski:

Of Stick and Bone:

Rich Kelly:

Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney:

Aaron Crawford:

And this time the winner is Matt Ryan Tobin, for this truly inspired and beautiful poster (with glow in the dark layer):

Next time: DEAD RINGERS and NAKED LUNCH!

INTERZONE DISPATCHES: Report #2

MAX... I'm so glad you came to me. I've been through it all myself you see.

The hallucinations, the headaches, the uncertainty. It won't go away, but it will get easier if you stop resisting and accept that this is your new reality now. However, you'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world...

Let's take a look at some examples of contemporary art and design that are obviously influenced by the works of David Cronenberg. That the ideas he first postulated in Shivers are still having such an influence on the arts 35 years later is interesting. Is it a testament to the depth and richness of his vision? Or are artists cribbing from Cronenberg for a more superficial reason, namely that the imagery in his films is so fetishistically pleasing? I'll leave that up to you to decide...



CATHODE RAY MISSION


This was a group exhibition of video art held at the Waterside Project Space, a new gallery in East London. It was set up to resemble the interior of the Mission from Videodrome, quite an ingenious gimmick for a video installation. In the gallery's own words:

Cathode Ray Mission creates a fictional environment in which to display artists' video. With its technologically redundant display equipment, ad-hoc office architecture and low-budget aesthetics, the strategy stands in opposition to the mundane, yet readily available, platforms for exhibition.

Website HERE

TECHNOLOGY MADE FLESH

The images of TVs, VHS cassettes, typewriters, gaming consoles etc, transforming into living organisms - complete with veins, umbilical cords and entrails - are some of the most unsettling and memorable in Cronenberg's films:















... and in reverse - Flesh transforms into technology in eXistenZ:



MIO IIZAWA'S MECHANICAL TUMOR

Here we have a computer with a tumorous organ seemingly growing from it, the tumor actually serving a functional purpose (see Videodrome). Japanese artist Mio Iizawa's Mechanical Tumor uses internal motors and pneumatic actuators to graphically react to the demands placed on the computer's CPU. The tumor pulses and grows when more programs and utilities are being run.




BAR-RECTUM


Joep van Lieshout is a dutch designer/artist who creates works (through his Rotterdam based firm Atelier Van Lieshout) that are simultaneously art, design and functional architecture. His description of the fully functional "Arsch Bar" in Vienna, Austria:

BarRectum, Arsch Bar, Asshole Bar, Bar Anus. While the translations sound different, the form is universally recognizable. The bar takes its shape from the human digestive system: starting with the tongue, continuing to the stomach, moving through the small and the large intestines and exiting through the anus. While BarRectum is anatomically correct, the last part of the large intestine has been inflated to a humongous size to hold as many drinking customers at the bar as possible. The anus itself is part of a large door that doubles as an emergency exit.


A browse through AVL's website reveals many more works that are undeniably Cronenbergian in nature, including some giant disembodied heads that are reminiscent of the artist Pierce's work in Scanners (seen in his studio).



INSECT EROTICISM

Another recurrent nightmare in Cronenberg's films is inter-species sex between humans and insects (although most obvious in The Fly & Naked Lunch, see also the insect-like gynecological instruments in Dead Ringers):






These French posters (below) for safe sex and AIDS awareness are reminiscent of the disturbing centipede rape in Naked Lunch as well as the Japanese Lunch poster. Not to mention that when Veronica is having sex with Seth after his trip through the Telepods, she's basically doing it with a giant fly. It's certainly not a stretch to imagine a French advertising company referencing Cronenberg, as he's more popular in France than anywhere else in the world. Just last year he was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, the highest decoration in France.





VIDEODROME

Finally, in April of this year Toronto's Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art used Videodrome for it's inspiration for a large scale audio/visual installation. It's well worth watching, as much of it is striking and provocative (using imagery from horror movies a few times to good effect).

Insect Politician

David Cronenberg is 67 today.

This is an appropriate time to mention my favourite auteur, as I can't think of a better expression of his idea of the New Flesh than the visceral processes of procreation and childbirth (Other examples that spring to mind are the changes wrought upon the body due to cancer, and the increasingly mundane use of body-modification to transform ourselves in ever more bizarre ways).

Birth (and rebirth) is present in so many of Cronenberg's films: Nola Carveth giving life to her inner rage through the miracle of Psychoplasmic therapy. Tom Stall's reemergence as a new man - a hybrid of his two formerly separate identities. Unfortunate Seth Brundle, enduring his agonising journey of death and renewal that could be said to be three distinct rebirths: first as super-human, then as something less than human and finally as something utterly non-human.

The twitchy president of CIVIC-TV and a pair of brilliant twin gynecologists - all of these characters and more have been put through the wringer by Mr. Cronenberg and have come out the other side... changed. They're all here tonight at David's party, looking haunted and traumatised. It's not a very happy gathering, but it is the most fascinating and exciting party in town. So whether your poison is bug powder, Mugwump jism or the black meat; raise your glass and drink:

LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH! LONG LIVE DAVID CRONENBERG!

My Year As Seth Brundle

Well, here I am writing my second post almost a year after the first and on the first day of a new decade. My ambitions for this blog fell by the wayside when I found myself in the midst of my very own Cronenbergian body horror nightmare (aka cancer) and it's various delightful treatments.

Cronenberg has been my most loved director for as long as I can remember, and I've always been fascinated by the physical transformation and metamorphosis in his best films: The Fly and Videodrome. So it was with a perverse sense of satisfaction and familiarity that I watched clumps of my own hair fall out, my nails deform, my mouth ulcerate, my skin burn and blacken. Looking at my hair lying on the bathroom floor would often trigger thoughts of the Brundle Museum Of Natural History and it's various disgusting and mysterious artifacts. Sometimes I'd imagine the hard, lumpy tumours I could feel bulging under my skin bursting violently out of me like the masses of New Flesh exploding through Barry Convex's ruined and rended face.

I'm not officially in remission yet, but my treatment is over for now, and it's time for me to get back to the unfinished horror business of this here neglected blog. So, if you're interested in the cinema of the bizarre & fantastic, but crave a perspective on it that differs from that of the typical mainstream, I'd love to have you along for the ride. LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!