Maledicta Electronica
Maledicta Electronica is a mesmerising journey into a video world of performance, S&M, politics and poetry. Maybury mixes exquisite image-making with an acutely urbane politic that never lets the viewer drift too long in pleasure fields.
John Maybury
Director
Also Directed by John Maybury
A short non-narrative film made to commemorate the visit of Burroughs and Gysin to the UK. The film consists of multiple short vignettes: Witches Song (1979), Broken English (1979), Ballad Of Lucy Jordan (1979), Pirate Tape (Derek Jarman, 1983) and T.G.: Psychic Rally In Heaven (Derek Jarman, 1981).
Another cutting-edge visual experiment from British artist John Maybury, Premonitions Of Absurd Perversion In Sexual Personae, Part 1 serves up a video tribute to the male body, a steamy Kenneth Anger for the video age. Pieced together from a ten year stockpile of evocative, personal images, Maybury’s tape uses multi-form mixing techniques in a typically freeform exploration of the polymorphous field of desire and sexuality.
The Union Jacking Up is an ode to friends, including Trojan and Leigh Bowery who feature in the film among others, as well as a collage of news footage of 80s Britain. The film’s haunting soundtrack is composed similarly to the video and 16mm footage that fades and dissolves on screen, often montaging two sources to create abstract combinations and juxtapositions. - ICA
A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.
A woman pretends to be her dead husband in Nazi Germany in order to survive.
A model poses in bright primary colours alongside a number of oblique words. Images of a woman rotating wearing long flowing dresses are overlain and played at different speeds.
Remembrance of Things Fast represents the culmination of Maybury's work in video, which has developed alongside the technology itself. Starring Tilda Swinton and Rupert Everett in lead roles, the tape confronts the conventions of world television and satellite broadcast, drawing on the fragmentary nature of the medium and the clich_s of the three minute attention span. At the same time, it replaces bland mainstream images with darker, more satirical observations and studies. The environment is surreal, a virtual reality television land of landscapes and imaginary cities, enhanced by Marvin Black's dark, dense soundtrack. It is a cyberspace where the impossible is all too possible. Within this parallel world, a series of archetypes act, observe and comment, informed by a strong sexual sensibility. '..a mesmerising, sometimes hysterically funny, cinematic bricolage with a strong sexual and mostly gay sensibility'. - Cordelia Swann
Maybury's significant contribution to experimental film and video becomes apparent through a complex reworking of his own archive footage. "The film's attempt to re-create an acid trip is showcased in this creature's dance: whenever she moves, a rainbow of colors and shapes appear, as if her appendages are the artist's brushes". (Gary Morris)
When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his flirtatious wife Caitlin sweep into war-torn London, the last thing they expect is to bump into Dylan's childhood sweetheart Vera. Despite her joy at seeing Dylan after so many years, Vera is swept off her feet by a dashing officer, William Killick, and finds herself torn between the open adoration of her new found beau and the wily charms of the exotic Welshman.
The concert was recorded live at the Dominion Theatre in London, on June 3, 1988. TracklistHide Credits 1 Jackie 2 Just Like You Said It Would Be 3 Mandinka 4 Just Call Me Joe 5 Never Get Old 6 Jerusalem 7 Troy 8 I Am Stretched On Your Grave
