Photographic Hauntings: The poetic images of Francesca Woodman   Stasis in darkness…   1976   …Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else   Hauls me through air – Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels.   White Godiva, I unpeel – Dead hands, dead stringencies.   And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child’s cry   Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow,   The dew that flies Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red… (Sylvia Plath, From Ariel)   From A

BBC Three Series

By Dr Andrew J. Sneddon

In a technocracy, tools play a central role in the thought-world of the culture. Everything must give way, in some degree, to their development. … Tools are not integrated into the culture; they attack culture. They bid to become culture. Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender to Technology (1992) I recently found myself watching the box-set of Battlestar Galactica (2004-present) and I was struck by the cultural relevance and indeed prophetic qualities of this re-envisioning of the iconic 1970s series, in particular in view of recent events in the Middle East and the attacks on Gaz

28-29 July 2009

I Put a Spell on You: From Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Gothabilly  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=orNpH6iyokI A black man enters the stage inside a coffin that is in flames. He is dressed in a leopard skin suit, Victorian shirt (sometimes he appears dressed as a vampire), has a bone in his nose, a rubber snake around his neck, and holds a smoking skull. He moans and groans, utters incomprehensible words, primitive growls. He sits at the piano while holding Henry (a skull with a cigarette in its mouth) and breaks into a deep, howling melody: I Put a Spell on You… This is rock an

Kirsty MacDonald on Scottish Gothic

The restoration of Strawberry Hill has begun!