We are big fans of Alicenations, one of several blogs of the Lewis Carroll Society of Brazil managed by Adriana Peliano. The site regularly features original and experimental music, video, and illustrations created by Adriana, together with her husband Paulo Beto, and inspired by the Alice books.
Here’s a recent creation which began life as a damaged Disney LP:
Many years ago I found a Disney Alice Record completely warped. I suddenly began to play with its stutter sounds, noises, voices and echoes, creating and recording a musical puzzle. The result is a funny game of words, a collage with dislocated meanings. My actual husband, Paulo Beto, boyfriend at that time, who is an amazing electronic music composer, recreated the material, remixing the jumping sounds.
The video below (a work in progress) makes use of some of the resulting music. Visit Alicenations for further description of the project, and the opportunity to download mp3s.
Thanks to the blog Moving Poems: The Best Video Poetry on the Web for rediscovering this Vimeo video of Hye Yeon Nam‘s installation Dinner Party. I assume the video was taken at the Eyebeam exhibition in New York, 2008, and according to her website, Dinner Partywas last sponsored in July 2010 by the not-at-all-Kafka-esque-sounding Ministry of Knowledge Economy and Korean Institute of Design Promotion. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dinner party provides a space where people meet and interact with Lewis Carroll’s poem, Jabberwocky, inspired creatures hiding in the shadows.
At first glance, the single chair and place set for one, seemingly provides a solitary dinner; rather the interaction offers a communication between oneself and the imaginary creatures. Initially gathered under the shadow cast by the plate, disturbed creatures will nervously scatter attempting to go around any other shadow cast on the table. A period of quiet status will encourage the creatures to reveal themselves.
Collaborate with Zach Lieberman and Jeremy Rotsztain
Developed with support from Eyebeam interactivos 08′
Eight classical tales evoked by a double page with ingenious mechanism, in a magnificent book which associates technical exploit and artistic talent. Find the characters of the most famous tales: Alice, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty , Blue Beard, Peter Pan, The Little Red Riding Hood, Mrs butterfly , Poucette staged by Benjamin Lacombe and in volume by José Pons. At the end of the book, Jean Perrot’s point of view, an expert of the tales and the youth image, will come to light the work.
There will of course be reviews of the new Tim Burton Disney Movie (knocked down by titans, dragons, and Tyler Perry, but still 5 in the box office in its fifth week, and having made already $300 million dollars!) in the forthcoming Knight Letter. Meantime, several LCSNA members have been forwarding this video around, seconding this reviewer’s sage insight:
I think the creepiest clip from an Alice movie I’ve seen recently was unintentionally scary, which Jenny Woolf linked to at her blog, brought to light in re Will Brooker’s book Alice’s Adventure: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture (2005). “He suggested looking into the Alice in Wonderland phenomenon in Japan, (where she is known as Arisu).” That’s where this animated Lego version comes in:
And what Hallowe’en could be complete without a bit of Jan Švankmajer:
“The Texas Radio Theatre Company performed this audio adaptation in November 2008 at the Dallas Public Library. On stage at the time, from left to right: Shannon Atkinson as Alice, David Grant as the DoorMouse [sic], Clark Hackney [who seems to be channeling Ed Wynn] as the Hatter and Reg Platt as the March Hare. Rich Frohlich is adding prerecorded sounds and Ken Raney is performing the live sounds, with the exception of David’s noise maker and Reg’s horn (or tea cup) .“
