10/15/20 -- Update: Articles, Awesome Friends, and an Event!
Queer Forty
I'm proud to announce that I have a series of articles coming out at Queer Forty, part of the Gray Jones Media Group. Each article examines a specific relationship between queerness and horror films. So far, two articles have come out: the first on the legacy of Leopold and Loeb in the horror film tradition; the second on John Wayne Gacy and the origin of the killer clown. More articles and interviews will follow through October. All my Queer Forty articles are aggregated here. Screenshots below.
Event: Kudzu Crossroads
A Panel on Queer Southern Identity and Art
On October 28th, Kintsugi Books will host its first event! BGSQD has been kind enough to act as our digital venue. See the full story here. Tickets are free and can be reserved here. Each author is a contributor to the Kintsugi Books anthology, We Make Our Own Light.
Do You Like Scary Stories?
For the first time, I will be participating in 13 Stories Til Halloween! I don't want to say too much. Elysabeth and Jordan made me take a blood oath. I don't know when my story will appear, so we all better check each day to see what ghoulies might be waiting. Starts October 19th!
Digital Video Installation for Queerport:
WATERSHED with Chrissy Taylor
Queerport, a queer southern arts organization in Louisiana, commissioned me to make a video piece for their annual shin-dig. I can't share the video yet, as I want you to attend the opening festivities (and the other FOUR WHOLE DAYS of fun they have planned). Below is the itinerary, some screenshots previews of the film, and the blurb.
Inspired by ongoing discussions about metronormativity, Aldo Leopold's reading of the Wisconsin Round River folktale, and his own connection to "the river" in his native Georgia and now in New York City. Bevins raises the question, "Is it possible to leave home in circular river?"
"Watershed" snakes lazily along a visual river constructed of his friends videos and phots of water; he wanted it to feel like "tubing the Coosawattee River on a summer evening, images floating like natural debris both with and by you: sometimes swirling in an eddy, sometimes even appearing to float upstream." The waters in the video span the United States, with some appearances from Northern Ireland, Australia, and Canada.
Bevins continues his magpie approach of pooling the "waters" of the world together in the text and the audio. The music is entirely water-based, consisting of warped samples from waterphone, images of water ran through the melobytes.com image to music algorithm, and two water-based sound installations: the Wave Harp of San Francisco and the Sea Harp of Zadar, Croatia -- the music is literally the sound of water. Voices in the film hail from New York, California, and Venezuela and mix English, French, and Spanish into the music.
Even the poem within the film, "Tributaries," pulls from many mythologies whose cosmology sees either the Earth of the Milky Way as a river; in conjuring up these mythologies, Bevins is inviting them into the one river - the one watershed - of our lives (what Wade Davis calls the ethnosphere). Interspersing Bevins' poem, Chrissy Taylor beautifully interprets another related poem into song. Taylor sings, screams, mumbles, and playfully chants creating a sense of movement down the river, as if passing over rapids in the shallows or lingering in the deep still passes.
In the end, Bevins leaves us floating in that circular river, because it is the only river that exists to him.
For more on Chrissy visit: http://chrissytaylor.info
Speaking of Videos: Mycelial Titan!
Aleatoricism is a concept that applies broadly to art created as a result of chance-determined processes. As such, the Aleatoricism project is made of chances: The music is composed first by selecting random electronic instruments in advance; music is written on each and then arranged into a song; video text is pulled from Dudgrick Bevins' most recent journal entries; imagery is pulled from Bevins' archive at random and then deleted; and titles are created with an online title generator. Nothing is planned in advanced, but each thing shapes the next in a self-editing process
Friends: Sci-Fi Explosion's Spooptatcular
From Sci-Fi Explosion: Join host Chris Cummins for 12, count ‘em, 12 hours of Halloween hilarity and science fiction weirdness in a marathon of strange clips, cartoons, music videos, original comedy segments, interviews, surprise feature films and so much more. Prizes will be awarded to those who stay up all night when everybody’s favorite cosmic cabaret of craziness explores its spooky side in the most maniacal marathon you can possibly experience this Halloween. Tune in to twitch.tv/scifiexplosion...if you dare. Muhahahahahahaha! It’s fun and free!
I'm not supposed to say but... I might make an appearance. And... again... between us... I might have a spooky treat in the show for you as well! Look for my interview with Chris in Queer Forty, coming soon. While you wait, check out Sci-Fi Explosion every Friday night on Twitch!
Friends: luke kurtis
A&U: America's AIDS Magazine recently published an article on a new book from my publisher covering the artwork of Donald Tarantino, the late printmaker and visual artist. The book, the article, and the publisher are all wonderful. Check them out.
Friends: Molten Poetry
Check out "My Angry Sea," by friend of and contributor to Kintsugi Books, Molten. Look here.