All posts by Fest23

Puppet Alan Watts & the Future Zen Variety Show

Artists and Installations, Performers, Theatre
Alan Watts

Puppet Alan Watts is the first in the Future Zen Variety Show, an explosion of fabric cosmic thinkers, which include Tim Leary, William Burroughs and Diane Di Prima.

“A guru or teacher who wants to get this across to somebody, because he knows it himself, and when you know it, you know, you want others to see it too. So what he does is, he gets you into being ridiculous, harder and more assiduously than usual. In other words, if you are in a contest with the universe he’s going to stir up that contest until it becomes ridiculous.”

Co-created by Megan Louise Clifton and Myra Stuart, he’s surprised and made audiences laugh out loud giving talks across the last year, including at Supernormal Festival.

He now has a growing Youtube channel and is working with his co-creators on the next ridiculous steps for his interactions with audiences.

“The real you is not a puppet, which life pushes around. The real deep down you is the whole universe.”

http://puppetalanwatts.wix.com/puppetalanwatts
Puppet Alan Watts Youtube channel

Adam Baker

Co-Conspirators

Adam Baker is an artist, mental health nurse, film maker, photographer/digital manipulator, occasional actor and former roller derby bench coach.

Currently working as a rehabilitation clinician in NSW, Australia, Adam has also worked in several acute inpatient settings both in the UK and Australia. At present Adam runs several art and music based groups in the Mental Health Rehabilitation Unit he works in and also runs a popular ‘Spirituality’ (soon to be renamed ‘Ideaspace’) group with the clients. This has become a space for free flowing ideas and discussion to emerge and the clients enjoy discussing and learning about a wide range of topics from Quantum Physics to Philosophy and so on.

Adam has also completed a BA Fine Art degree at the School of Art, Margaret St, Birmingham back in 2002. Alongside his work as a mental health nurse, Adam also creates videos for his Youtube channel with one video fast approaching a million views involving the catching of a Huntsman spider with the use of a Toblerone. Photoshop is another of Adams interests, having recently photoshopped ‘Putin fighting a kangaroo’ as explained in John Higgs’ latest book. This particular photoshop enabled Adam to meet John Higgs as well as the organisers of Festival 23 at a recent BLOOMING BUZZING CONFUSION event (with Alan Moore, Robin Ince, John Higgs and Grace Petrie).

Much of Adam’s work had magical undertones even before he realised that was what he was actually doing. It was only after studying the work of Alan Moore and Robert Anton Wilson, amongst others, that he realised this and the power art and magic can have when practiced thoughtfully and with intention.

As an artist, Adam has been involved in several collaborations which have included spending 12 hours in a lift dressed as a Pookah alongside several other ‘Pookahs’ for a performance with art collective AAS. He has played the part of an astronaut in a film about the doomed Columbia mission and impersonated art critic Matthew Collings in a strange performance held at a curry house in East London. Adam also exhibited artwork alongside Bob and Roberta Smith at this show.

Happy to let life take him in whatever direction seems best at the time, Adam also became the first roller derby bench coach for Coffs Coast Derby Dolls having also designed their team logo and come up with their team name ‘Daughters of Mayhem’.

After attending the finale of the Cosmic Trigger Play in London, Adam has since been spiralling down the rabbit hole of various synchronicities associated with having been to that show. This basically explains how he has ended up ‘finding the others’ here at Festival 23!

Adam’s YouTube channel
https://twitter.com/AdamBakerOZ
Bello Moon Tribe

Pete Woosh

DJs, Performers
Pete Woosh

Pete Woosh started playing records in the late 1980s, always an avid collector of a wide range of music, from soundtracks to jazz, roots to dance. His records were “a route out of what could have ended up a dreary existence in a small Northern town”. In 1990 he moved to Nottingham joining the then fledgling DiY Sound System and, after meeting a bunch of travellers at Glastonbury ’90, the Free Parties began in earnest.

DiY was one of Britain’s first house sound systems, the group divided their activities “between free parties and legal club nights, acting as a bridge between counter-culture and the mainstream”. They became a ‘fuck you’ to the pay parties that offered much and gave little. DiY’s parties were about moments under the stars, with no security and no door charge. They invited participants to “bring what you can to the party, but be sure to make it count!” This inclusive attitude led to the formation of a cohesive collective, a political front against the prevailing anti-rave legislation which was coming into force at the time. DiY’s name was firmly placed in free party / counter culture history when the collective played a key role in holding the UK’s largest ever illegal rave at the Castlemorton Common Festival.

Always cultivating a spirit of cross pollination, with efforts somewhere between club culture, free parties, situationism and launching numerous record labels; Strictly 4 Groovers / DiY Discs and DiY Diversions, somehow a quarter of a century of righteous partying passed by. August 2014 saw DiY celebrate its silver anniversary, in the way they love best, a free party in a field in the Midlands, with a big sound system and lots of flashing lights.

Pete still plays records for DiY and was recently invited to play at Banksy’s Dismaland. He currently records and curates for the Spirit Wrestlers label; named after the Russian Doukhabors who were persecuted and excommunicated from 19th century Russia for their beliefs. The Spirit Wrestlers moniker is also used for a series of Interventions, of what some may call an art based nature!

www.vice.com/en_uk/read/diy-25th-anniversary-scott-oliver-125
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bUgtdAgClU
www.facebook.com/Spirit-Wrestlers-1420148774916051/timeline/

Pope Absinthe Codeina

Co-Conspirators

Young Mother Hagbard / Pope Absinthe Codeina / Little Pope Peep / Anwen Fryer has always been a daughter of Eris, before she knew it even.

Her talents and resume have been maverick, dynamic and varied. “A” level art, head waitress, managing a pub, working in a Stampmakers, Project 2000 Nursing, being part of Sheffield based Curfew Sound System running their bar and cafe van in the 90s, social & green activism. All these things led to her founding her shop, Airy Fairy, 16 years ago: a fair trade, local art & new age gift shop and veggie cafe in Sheffield.

Her friend, playmate and colleague at the time, the Buddhist Punk, passed her Illuminatus. First being hit up with RAW’s work in 2002 led to a look sidewards at each other, they said “Is the Principia real?”. From that moment on, Discordianism has played a monumental part in her life. Choosing her blend of hodge and podge, she calls herself a Discowiccan or Wiccacordian depending on her mood. She likes life to be full, light hearted and deep, full of humour, magic and creativity all at the same time!

A bit like marmite with glitter in, you will come to love her or hate her. Either way, you can’t stop her twinkling.

http://www.airyfairy.org
popeabsinthecodeina@festival23.org.uk

Nick Margerrison

Co-Conspirators, Performers, Talks and Playshops

Who is Nick Margerrison? In short he’s a TV presenter, writer and an award winning radio presenter. In long, he’s worked on LBC, Kerrang Radio, Hallam FM and The Bay. And other places, for a bit. The TV show he presented was called “Esoteria” and ran for two series on Controversial TV (Sky channel 200).

Nick currently writes for the Disinformation website and presents the fantastical Cult Of Nick podcasts. The Cult Of Nick is more than just a podcast … it’s a podcast with a silly name. Highlights include astronaut Edgar Mitchell, uber conspiracy theorist David Icke, and former MI5 spook David Shayler – all in the archive – along with interviews from many of our co-conspirators including Daisy Campbell, John Higgs, CJ Stone and The Buddhist Punk. New uploads every Tuesday. You can join “the internet’s least sinister cult” by listening to all of them.

www.thecultofnick.co.uk

Seani Love

Co-Conspirators, Performers, Talks and Playshops
Seani Love

The Good Doctor Reverend Doctor Foolish Doctor Seani Love is believed to be the world’s first professional Discordian Sex Magician. Combining the arts of Chaos Magic, Broomstick riding, Conscious Kink, and Tantric love moves in the dark, Seani Love hosts rituals, workshops, dinner parties, naked runs along the beach, weddings and private sessions where all the joys of chaos and sexuality can be awakened and explored in safe and conscious ways.

A long-term devotee to Eris, his one and only book Children Of The Apple was written as a dedication to Robert Anton Wilson.

http://seanilove.com

Daisy Eris Campbell

Performers, Talks and Playshops

Daisy worked alongside her father, Ken Campbell for many years, helping to create Pidgin Macbeth, (an attempt to teach the world a lingua franca via the medium of Shakespeare in Pidgin English) and The Tilly Matthews Academy of Bizarre and Adventurous Education (for performers in the business of becoming “extraordinary”) amongst many other capers.

She directed the revival production of The Warp, the world’s longest play, staged in London Bridge arches amidst a festival of Seekers; co-conceived and ran The Questival, a successful festival of future consciousness; wrote and directed a collection of short plays, including The Girl with the Global Brain, and The Big Q; and has an MA in Production and an MSc in Transpersonal Psychology.

Her anarchic children’s play, School Journey to the Centre of the Earth was performed as part of the National Theatre Connections programme twice, as well as being performed around the world. She compiled and co-directed, along with Richard Eyre, Beyond Our Ken, also performed at the NT.

Daisy wrote and directed a stage adaptation of Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘Cosmic Trigger’, which was shown in Liverpool and London in 2014. She also starred in the play as her mother Prunella.

http://www.cosmictriggerplay.com

Laura Fives

Co-Conspirators, DJs, Performers

Laura Fives / (Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of) The Law

Disco fledgling – wet behind the ears but learning fast. Repurposing her torchlight of reason as a lightsaber. Expert planner, organiser and bean counter revelling in the richness of the tension between hodge and podge when trying to organise chaos.. or, as Lord Fnord so beautifully put it, trying to herd Schroedinger’s cats. Lover of philosophical debate, loud music and dancing until the sun comes up. Also been known to DJ once in a while.

Say hi… law@festival23.org.uk

The Buddhist Punk aka Lord Fnord XXIII

Co-Conspirators, Spoken word
Buddhist Punk

Tim Holmes is a walking talking contradiction; my goddess can he talk. He’s also a poet, for the last seventeen years he’s travelled in the guise of the Buddhist Punk. Having produced a one man show: The Sub Verse Meditations of a Buddhist Punk, performed at literary & music festivals (Off the Shelf, Ledbury, Shambala, Wychwood) and opened for artists such as American polit punks Anti Flag and the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra, his preferred approach is now guerrilla performance; unsolicited renditions to unsuspecting audiences, outside the party, ideally by the fireside.

lordfnordxxiii@festival23.org.uk

Newton’s First Law of Poetry

As gravity takes hold once more
And every action reacts with its equal and opposite number
I awake from my slumber and type
That which is captive attempts to break free
That which is free I attempt to capture on the page
From then to now. The why? The how?
And every thing has an equal and opposite everything
A body will remain still unless acted upon by an external force
Or of course, an internal force
My art beats
I ‘m moved from within
I’ve destroyed a blank page
And created a work of heart.