IdleRich
IdleRich
Our Technicolor Dream: April 21st 2007
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, held in April 1967 at Alexandra Palace, the ICA is proud to present an array of rarely seen 60s films, full-on lightshows, avant-garde theatre, a Q&A session with the leading lights of the 60s underground and a range of bands both old and new.
First cinema screening
Overseen by Ian O’Sullivan (Film library, BFI)
1. MAN ALIVE: WHAT'S A HAPPENING?
BBC 1967 - 30 MINS
Desmond Wilcox takes a small camera crew to report on a night of psychedelic experience at Alexandra Palace (the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream) attended by some 7,000 people. Featuring interviews with counter cultural luminaries such as Suzy Creamcheese, underground hipsters and bemused Alexandra Palace security staff.
2. SAN FRANCISCO
Dir Anthony Stern (1968) - 15 mins
This film examines the characteristics of late sixties American society through the contrasts of San Francisco - home of alternative culture. The film is edited to a unique demo version of Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive.
3. JEFF KEEN TRILOGY
Dir Jeff Keen (1968) - 10 mins
a) Cineblatz
A typical Keen assault on the viewer's perceptual faculties, as the screen is bombarded with images from comic strips, advertising, pulp fiction and pulp movies
b) Marvo Movies 1 and 2
World War II begins as Dr Gaz hunts the spectre of Mighty Mouse. The Catwoman appears and the sea dissolves the end of a street...Created from a lightning montage of kitsch imagery, Keen's Marvo movies are weird, wonderful and offer Pop Art at its most surreally British.
c) White Lite
Keen's short silent movie projected in b&w negative and mixing superimposition and animation, is a hugely entertaining experimental pulp fantasy featuring Anti-Matter Man and Bride of the Atom.
4. MEATDAZE
Dir Jeff Keen, 1968 - 10 mins
Six numbered segments contain a wild and pleasurably eccentric mix of cartoon, newsreel and featurettes. Meatdaze is an anthology of Keen's repertoire of pop art imagery all conducted at the speed of light.
5. POSTAL DELIVERY
Dir John Beech (1971) - 10 mins
Pythonesque comedy. Man tries to post letter, hand gets stuck in box, is abused by an assortment of tramps, skinheads, journalists and dogs. When he starts drawing on the pavement, an advertising exec quickly markets the man as 'Britain's Foremost Pavement Artist'.
6. SOLARFLARES BURN FOR YOU
Dir Arthur Johns, 1973 - 9 mins
Extraordinary essay on colour effects to a hypnotic soundtrack by Robert Wyatt.
Second cinema screening: Weird & Wonderful 60s animation
Overseen by Nag Vladermesrky (Organiser of the annual London Animation Festival)
1. LABYRINTH
Jan Lenica, 1963, 14’00. Poland, 35mm
A tale of a winged lonely man literally devoured by totalitarian rule. Labyrinth is one of the finest political animations ever made.
2. THE FLAT
Jan Svankmajer, 1969, 12 min, Czechoslovakia, 35mm
A man finds himself trapped inside a one-room apartment with sponge-like walls in one of Svankmajer’s most astounding shorts.
3. A QUIET WEEK IN THE HOUSE
Jan Svankmajer, 1969, 13’00, Czechoslovakia, 35mm
A man wearing camouflage fatigues enters a derelict house, makes a hole in the wall and observes inanimate objects of every kind as they come alive.
4. LES JEUX DES ANGES
Walerian Borowczyk, 1964, 13’00. Poland, 16mm
A bizarre, semi-abstract animated film which has been interpreted as an allegory of the concentration camp experience and as a portrait of the industrialisation and collectivisation of the Soviet period.
5. WALKING
1968, Ryan Larkin, 5’00, Canada, Format tbc
The Oscar-nominated “Walking’ is one of the most celebrated animation films ever made. Using a combination of line drawing and colour wash, Larkin observes the movements of a variety of urban characters.
6. STREET MUSIQUE
1972, Ryan Larkin, 8’45, Canada, Format tbc
‘Street Musique’ opens with live-action footage of two street musicians, before changing into a staggeringly animated stream-of-consciousness piece.
7. PERMUTATIONS
1968, John Whitney, 10’00, USA, 16mm
Created while John Whitney was an artist in residence at IBM. This early, influential work in the field of computer graphics was made by programming image sequences on computer, which were shot frame-by-frame onto black and white film, and finally coloured by an optical printer. Permutations charts a rhythmic journey across the time and space of the screen.
Third cinema screening:
Boyle Family films with music by Soft Machine
Mark Boyle and Joan Hills were pioneers of British projections. Their liquid light show of exploding colours and foaming bubbles became a major feature of the psychedelic scene through their residency at UFO and their work with Soft Machine, who played what Boyle described as 'acetylene music'.
Their farewell 'lightshow' films, Beyond Image and Son of Beyond Image were shot for a circular screen environment as part of their 1969 ICA exhibition 'Journey to the Surface of the Earth', will be remixed live by Joan Hills and Sebastian Boyle to a live recording of Soft Machine from the technicolor era.
Q & A session / Round table discussion
There will be talks by Joe Boyd, Miles, John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, John Dunbar, Mick Farren and maybe one or two others, all around the theme of the original 14-Hour Technicolor Dream. This will be followed by a Q & A session.
Joe Boyd was an American record producer living in London in ’67, co-running the legendary UFO Club in Tottenham Court Road and producing, among others, Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention.
Miles was instrumental in setting the UK’s first underground newspaper, International Times, and also ran the Indica bookstore, the hub of much counter-cultural activity during the period.
Hoppy Hopkins helped resurrect the Notting Hill Carnival, along with black activist, Michael X, and the went on to co-run UFO and organise the original 14-Hour Technicolor Dream event.
John Dunbar was once married to Marianne Faithful, was instrumental in bringing Lennon and McCartney into the avant-garde and set up the Indica art gallery.
Mick Farren was a writer for IT, managed the door at UFO and was the frontman for legendary anarcho-psychedelic punk band The Social Deviants.
The bands:
The Amazing World of Arthur Brown
Now performing as part of a stripped-down two-piece, Arthur Brown is perhaps best remembered for his huge hit, ‘Fire’, and for his flaming headgear and incredible stage presence. They were regulars at the UFO club and performed at the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream.
Circulus
Recently described as “Britain's finest neo-medieval psychedelic folk-rock band”, Circulus are a collective of anything from 5 to 11 and have been doing clubs, gigs and festivals both far and wide for the last few years.
The Pretty Things
The original 60s rabble-rousers and the band The Stones could only aspire to be as raw and wild as, The Pretties had a string of hits in the mid-60s with such seminal punk R’n’B songs as Rosalyn, Don’t Bring me Down and Midnight To Six Man, before mutating into an inspired psychedelic band and cutting the first ‘rock-opera’, S. F. Sorrow. Their live shows with The Social Deviants are legendary, as is their longevity. Still gigging today, with a fanatical worldwide following – especially in the States, where they have recently been playing with The Strokes, The New York Dolls and Iggy Pop.
A mystery freak-out band featuring Mick Farren
Against a backdrop of suitably psychedelic freakout, Mick Farren will be reading from his seminal memoir, ‘Give the Anarchist a Cigarette’
The play
The Madcap: A play about Syd Barrett, Psychedelia and the 60s
Written and performed by Malcolm Boyle
The Madcap is a multi-media journey into the psychedelic 60s underground as seen through the distorted mental lens of Syd Barrett. In this critically acclaimed solo show, award-winning performer and musician Malcolm Boyle combines tragic-comic performance, hallucinatory film and slide projections with his own 21st Century interpretations of Barrett’s songs.
The Madcap plays out the story of Syd’s sudden rise from bohemian alternative London to the heights of pop stardom, and his eventual flight from public life against a seismic backdrop of political rebellion, hallucinogenic drugs and psychedelic music.
The show has toured the UK, sold out London’s ICA and been chosen as a highlight of the London Festival of Visual Theatre. Now, following Syd Barrett’s untimely death in Summer 2006, Malcolm Boyle has revised and updated The Madcap as a posthumous tribute to one of British music’s brightest talents.
The light show
Originally set up in 1970, Optinkinetics have established themselves as Britain’s premier purveyors of psychedelic visual experiences and have recently worked with The Orb and Primal Scream. Their lights, strobes and effects were also very popular on the early rave scene of the late 1980s.
The bar
There will be a selection of DJs spinning contemporary sounds in the bar throughout the day, along with various light shows, projections and animation. This will culminate in legendary 60s DJ, Jeff Dexter, doing a set once the bands have finished in the theatre. Dexter was, along with John Peel, at the forefront of the new music scenes in the mid- to late-60s and worked at the Middle Earth club in Covent Garden as well as at UFO.
Exact times coming sooon. Will also let you know once the box office has tickets on sale - should be soon.
http://www.myspace.com/ourtechnicolordream
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, held in April 1967 at Alexandra Palace, the ICA is proud to present an array of rarely seen 60s films, full-on lightshows, avant-garde theatre, a Q&A session with the leading lights of the 60s underground and a range of bands both old and new.
First cinema screening
Overseen by Ian O’Sullivan (Film library, BFI)
1. MAN ALIVE: WHAT'S A HAPPENING?
BBC 1967 - 30 MINS
Desmond Wilcox takes a small camera crew to report on a night of psychedelic experience at Alexandra Palace (the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream) attended by some 7,000 people. Featuring interviews with counter cultural luminaries such as Suzy Creamcheese, underground hipsters and bemused Alexandra Palace security staff.
2. SAN FRANCISCO
Dir Anthony Stern (1968) - 15 mins
This film examines the characteristics of late sixties American society through the contrasts of San Francisco - home of alternative culture. The film is edited to a unique demo version of Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive.
3. JEFF KEEN TRILOGY
Dir Jeff Keen (1968) - 10 mins
a) Cineblatz
A typical Keen assault on the viewer's perceptual faculties, as the screen is bombarded with images from comic strips, advertising, pulp fiction and pulp movies
b) Marvo Movies 1 and 2
World War II begins as Dr Gaz hunts the spectre of Mighty Mouse. The Catwoman appears and the sea dissolves the end of a street...Created from a lightning montage of kitsch imagery, Keen's Marvo movies are weird, wonderful and offer Pop Art at its most surreally British.
c) White Lite
Keen's short silent movie projected in b&w negative and mixing superimposition and animation, is a hugely entertaining experimental pulp fantasy featuring Anti-Matter Man and Bride of the Atom.
4. MEATDAZE
Dir Jeff Keen, 1968 - 10 mins
Six numbered segments contain a wild and pleasurably eccentric mix of cartoon, newsreel and featurettes. Meatdaze is an anthology of Keen's repertoire of pop art imagery all conducted at the speed of light.
5. POSTAL DELIVERY
Dir John Beech (1971) - 10 mins
Pythonesque comedy. Man tries to post letter, hand gets stuck in box, is abused by an assortment of tramps, skinheads, journalists and dogs. When he starts drawing on the pavement, an advertising exec quickly markets the man as 'Britain's Foremost Pavement Artist'.
6. SOLARFLARES BURN FOR YOU
Dir Arthur Johns, 1973 - 9 mins
Extraordinary essay on colour effects to a hypnotic soundtrack by Robert Wyatt.
Second cinema screening: Weird & Wonderful 60s animation
Overseen by Nag Vladermesrky (Organiser of the annual London Animation Festival)
1. LABYRINTH
Jan Lenica, 1963, 14’00. Poland, 35mm
A tale of a winged lonely man literally devoured by totalitarian rule. Labyrinth is one of the finest political animations ever made.
2. THE FLAT
Jan Svankmajer, 1969, 12 min, Czechoslovakia, 35mm
A man finds himself trapped inside a one-room apartment with sponge-like walls in one of Svankmajer’s most astounding shorts.
3. A QUIET WEEK IN THE HOUSE
Jan Svankmajer, 1969, 13’00, Czechoslovakia, 35mm
A man wearing camouflage fatigues enters a derelict house, makes a hole in the wall and observes inanimate objects of every kind as they come alive.
4. LES JEUX DES ANGES
Walerian Borowczyk, 1964, 13’00. Poland, 16mm
A bizarre, semi-abstract animated film which has been interpreted as an allegory of the concentration camp experience and as a portrait of the industrialisation and collectivisation of the Soviet period.
5. WALKING
1968, Ryan Larkin, 5’00, Canada, Format tbc
The Oscar-nominated “Walking’ is one of the most celebrated animation films ever made. Using a combination of line drawing and colour wash, Larkin observes the movements of a variety of urban characters.
6. STREET MUSIQUE
1972, Ryan Larkin, 8’45, Canada, Format tbc
‘Street Musique’ opens with live-action footage of two street musicians, before changing into a staggeringly animated stream-of-consciousness piece.
7. PERMUTATIONS
1968, John Whitney, 10’00, USA, 16mm
Created while John Whitney was an artist in residence at IBM. This early, influential work in the field of computer graphics was made by programming image sequences on computer, which were shot frame-by-frame onto black and white film, and finally coloured by an optical printer. Permutations charts a rhythmic journey across the time and space of the screen.
Third cinema screening:
Boyle Family films with music by Soft Machine
Mark Boyle and Joan Hills were pioneers of British projections. Their liquid light show of exploding colours and foaming bubbles became a major feature of the psychedelic scene through their residency at UFO and their work with Soft Machine, who played what Boyle described as 'acetylene music'.
Their farewell 'lightshow' films, Beyond Image and Son of Beyond Image were shot for a circular screen environment as part of their 1969 ICA exhibition 'Journey to the Surface of the Earth', will be remixed live by Joan Hills and Sebastian Boyle to a live recording of Soft Machine from the technicolor era.
Q & A session / Round table discussion
There will be talks by Joe Boyd, Miles, John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, John Dunbar, Mick Farren and maybe one or two others, all around the theme of the original 14-Hour Technicolor Dream. This will be followed by a Q & A session.
Joe Boyd was an American record producer living in London in ’67, co-running the legendary UFO Club in Tottenham Court Road and producing, among others, Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention.
Miles was instrumental in setting the UK’s first underground newspaper, International Times, and also ran the Indica bookstore, the hub of much counter-cultural activity during the period.
Hoppy Hopkins helped resurrect the Notting Hill Carnival, along with black activist, Michael X, and the went on to co-run UFO and organise the original 14-Hour Technicolor Dream event.
John Dunbar was once married to Marianne Faithful, was instrumental in bringing Lennon and McCartney into the avant-garde and set up the Indica art gallery.
Mick Farren was a writer for IT, managed the door at UFO and was the frontman for legendary anarcho-psychedelic punk band The Social Deviants.
The bands:
The Amazing World of Arthur Brown
Now performing as part of a stripped-down two-piece, Arthur Brown is perhaps best remembered for his huge hit, ‘Fire’, and for his flaming headgear and incredible stage presence. They were regulars at the UFO club and performed at the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream.
Circulus
Recently described as “Britain's finest neo-medieval psychedelic folk-rock band”, Circulus are a collective of anything from 5 to 11 and have been doing clubs, gigs and festivals both far and wide for the last few years.
The Pretty Things
The original 60s rabble-rousers and the band The Stones could only aspire to be as raw and wild as, The Pretties had a string of hits in the mid-60s with such seminal punk R’n’B songs as Rosalyn, Don’t Bring me Down and Midnight To Six Man, before mutating into an inspired psychedelic band and cutting the first ‘rock-opera’, S. F. Sorrow. Their live shows with The Social Deviants are legendary, as is their longevity. Still gigging today, with a fanatical worldwide following – especially in the States, where they have recently been playing with The Strokes, The New York Dolls and Iggy Pop.
A mystery freak-out band featuring Mick Farren
Against a backdrop of suitably psychedelic freakout, Mick Farren will be reading from his seminal memoir, ‘Give the Anarchist a Cigarette’
The play
The Madcap: A play about Syd Barrett, Psychedelia and the 60s
Written and performed by Malcolm Boyle
The Madcap is a multi-media journey into the psychedelic 60s underground as seen through the distorted mental lens of Syd Barrett. In this critically acclaimed solo show, award-winning performer and musician Malcolm Boyle combines tragic-comic performance, hallucinatory film and slide projections with his own 21st Century interpretations of Barrett’s songs.
The Madcap plays out the story of Syd’s sudden rise from bohemian alternative London to the heights of pop stardom, and his eventual flight from public life against a seismic backdrop of political rebellion, hallucinogenic drugs and psychedelic music.
The show has toured the UK, sold out London’s ICA and been chosen as a highlight of the London Festival of Visual Theatre. Now, following Syd Barrett’s untimely death in Summer 2006, Malcolm Boyle has revised and updated The Madcap as a posthumous tribute to one of British music’s brightest talents.
The light show
Originally set up in 1970, Optinkinetics have established themselves as Britain’s premier purveyors of psychedelic visual experiences and have recently worked with The Orb and Primal Scream. Their lights, strobes and effects were also very popular on the early rave scene of the late 1980s.
The bar
There will be a selection of DJs spinning contemporary sounds in the bar throughout the day, along with various light shows, projections and animation. This will culminate in legendary 60s DJ, Jeff Dexter, doing a set once the bands have finished in the theatre. Dexter was, along with John Peel, at the forefront of the new music scenes in the mid- to late-60s and worked at the Middle Earth club in Covent Garden as well as at UFO.
Exact times coming sooon. Will also let you know once the box office has tickets on sale - should be soon.
http://www.myspace.com/ourtechnicolordream
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