Join IAAM for a creative interdisciplinary talk and conversation with Artist & Astrologer Ben Jeans Houghton that dynamically interweaves astrological magic, gnosticism, and cinema.
“This presentation is an introduction to and exploration of the relationships between Gnosticism, Astrology, Animism and AI. With reference to the speculative worlding evident in the histories of film and animation, I will propose their function as the prophetic warnings of our collective subconscious, that dramatise the outcomes of our exponential trajectory towards the possibility of apocalypse.
“In the first half I will propose a developmental chronology that maps the evolution of a living cosmos, exploring how its essential structures echo into incarnation and the architecture of a Gnostic astrology, with reference to Planetary Archons as agents of control from both pessimistic and optimistic perspectives. I will continue to speculate on the existence of three states of being, whereby our immersion in the theatre of incarnation, provides us with transformative opportunities for materiality, spirituality and magic.
“I will continue by illustrating a möbius loop in space time, centred on the solar wound of atomic warfare, that echoes back into Gnostic histories and forward into Artificially Intelligent futures. Establishing a foundation from which to speculate on the macrocosmic and microcosmic function of the nuclear wound; as an evolutionary initiation within the architecture of a Gnostic astrology.
“In the second half I will then deepen these perspectives by way of reference to the history of cinema, providing examples that look back to the origins of our understandings and forward to our wording of futures yet to arrive, in hopes of illuminating the dreamlike function of a living cosmos.”
website: benjeanshoughton.co.uk
insta: @benjeanshoughton & @arkastrology
Gnostic Animist, Artist and Astrologer Ben Jeans Houghton’s multidisciplinary practice spans votive-sculpture, architectural-installation, oneiric film-essay, liquid-crystal painting, self-reflexive writing, ritual costume, improvised performance, mantric-glossolalia and esoteric lectures. The work explores and expresses magic; the art of transformation and its methodologies, technologies, agencies, and implications, through art-praxis, as-gnosis, informed by astrological, philosophical, and metaphysical perspectives. Situating creativity as a generative site for a timely remembrance of occulted metaphysics and methodologies by challenging and dismantling the monopoly of the materialist paradigm, towards the reinvigoration of contemporary creative tools, for the forming of honest futures based on mutual flourishing in right-relation with a more-than-human cosmos.
Ben has delivered exhibitions, screenings, presentations, performances and publications internationally in Germany, Greece, Africa, Japan, South Korea, and America and nationally across the UK with CCA, Gymnasium Gallery, Bloc Projects, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Generator Projects, Whitstable Biennale, BFI and Channel Four amongst others. Ben has also previously presented esoteric lectures for the Trans States; Esoteric Arts Conference and AstroMagia; Art of Astral Magic Conference and will be performing and presenting at the Occulture Conference in Berlin this year.