On Some Faraway Planet

On Some Faraway Planet

Funky Space at the Boogie Lounge

Amplify your visuals, get connected, go anywhere.
Hot metal, new leather, fishnet crop tops
Scalp electrodes connect us to fashion dreams
When, after a grey and misty start,
The future merges with yesterday’s news
And mirror ball madness vamps up your eyes
All table dancing, flirting and catfights
At a burlesque cabaret in a downtown cellar
On some far away planet a long way from home
Where raffish grid girls wear suede retro hot pants
And alien entertainers swoop from the chandeliers
Yeah, it’s love, lipgloss and show business
Out here on the Western Fringes, so it’s
Another teen slasher bloodbath from Mr Pink
As Starfleet Command takes all the tables
Calling for posh totty, sentimental songs
And two pianos on wheels of steel,
Like this sex bomb in specs adds some oomph
To her scary cocktail shaker routine
Behind the bar on the seventh floor where
Snap happy space cadets preen in their frocks
Flicking ciggie stubs across the room
At some hick comedienne from The Big Squirm
Too boring darling I hear you say.
Where’s that pause button?
No wet shirt moments here then, just armchair
Radicals, Mr White, some other geezer
And a crystal breeze chilling the action, while
Sporting a smarter class of clobber,
Mohair suits and electric boots,
We truffle shuffle to a plinky dinky soundtrack.
You lucky, lucky people!

Published in Inclement Vol 11 Issue 1 Spring 2011

Illustration: We Always Come Back, 2003

Then Interior

Then Interior

Deranged but lost thinking
Open, this

Earth so near oceans
Green/white
Fleshy petals soft stalk
Spines
Your pain then interior
Words
Diverging patterns away
Blend
Quick still head down
Red/yellow
Clear near water close

Open, this
Awake away, time estranged.

Illustration: Mystic Flower, 1987

A Walk On The Beach

A Walk On The Beach

We’re in remarkable company (festival chic
Luxurious mascara, tight white jeans)
Turn on tune in fall off the edge of the fairground
Summer beauty limited edition lost highway
Variation on a modern classic theme:
Got the looks? Got the moves?
Come for a walk on the beach
With me…

They don’t
– they can’t
– have everything
Your opinions are superfluous
Lose yourself (in one or two takes or
A glass house with resident beautician)
Feel the heat remove unwanted hair
All over the place, kill your pet rat or
Smash a pink ceramic piggy bank;
With oodles of vintage bubbly we
Rehabilitate ‘the sport of fashion’.
Just waiting for a response –
Rollicking in Santa Cruz or somewhere
In London, dream streets away from
All those ghastly types in denim jackets

Turn on tune in fall off the edge of the fairground

Undercover and/or over ground at some arty show
Where they all hang out, finding just the right beat
Discussing the latest debauchery, taking it
All to a new level on a gorgeous isle far from here
Where there are just too many reasons,
Just too many corridors – and far too many stories.

Turn on tune in fall off the edge of the fairground

Waiting in the wings for another new friend
To seduce with something truly precious and

We don’t mind the not-so-distant future…

Suddenly the dining-room doors opened…

Turn on tune in fall off the edge… where
The horizon meets the sea.

Published in Inclement Vol 11 Issue 1 Spring 2011

Illustration: Neutral Enlightenment, 2000

Stray Sunlight

Stray Sunlight

Because of our dreams we like to shine,
In our sparkly suits and velvet silence,

And yet, my friends, this is an understanding
That nothing is deeper than nothing:

Eye-popping skulls, poetry of the absurd,
Stray sunlight gleaming, diffuse halo.

Your true thoughts are so deadly,
I dare not write them here.

Published in Decanto Issue 53 June 2011
Illustration: Psychic Astral,1994

The Atom Smasher Of Dreams

To find the ultimate element of desire a team using Attention Theory and a temperature high enough to mimic conditions when the universe was just microseconds old have found our most recent dreams follow a mathematical vortex pattern.
Quarks loop through these vortices, even though shot pacing isn’t everything – good narrative, strong acting and a fireball about four trillion kelvin at its core, are probably more important. This is just the way you dream about far-away places, old girlfriends and alien cities built by insects. Later this year researchers will separate lower energies, helping to describe the human attention-span when dreaming about the future.
Is life a mathematical trick? That is exactly what the more negatively charged entities would like us to think. They expect the separation to disappear but we have seen signs of such vortices and fields created by gluons that can twist, forming dreamlike structures in the all-pervasive vacuum of space. This is what gives mass and substance to lurid, inhuman fantasies.
Perhaps the key lies in measuring desire with greater precision, although we now think that psychic films are more gripping because they resonate with other movies, not your memories. You may try to copy the style, but the galaxies will collide anyway. Explosions can create a series of waves, transforming the magnitude of ‘pink noise’ at random intersections in the brain – a property that has never been seen before. Others have observed the vortex in music, street fashion and air turbulence. This type of dream field should cause two particles to collide off-centre, smashing gold and copper ions head-on like a slow motion car crash in the Valley of Despair, tracking the eye-movements of dreamers like jets of matter expelled from backward spinning black holes.
Mutations are locked in and several different kinds of fantasy arise, helping to explain all kinds of non-material phenomena.
Always leave space for magnetic fields to build up in your dream life.
Never look back.

Illustration: Transtemporal Parapraxis II, 2002

Space Opera

GENESIS OF THE MECHANOMORPHS
A Space Opera Memoir

Space Opera was written over a period between 1984 and 1985.
The bulk of the sequence was written between April 4 and April 25, 1985. This comprised four of the seven prose poems, in the following order (1) ‘This Report Follows’ (4 April, 1985), (2) ‘The Neon Fly-By’ (5 April, 1985), (3) ‘Discovered This Other Report’ (14 April, 1985) and (4) the title poem, ‘Space Opera’ (25 April, 1985). These four sections comprised the ‘core’ of the Space Opera story. They had been preceded by ‘The First Report From Neogaea’ (Space Opera 1) written in isolation the previous month (26 March, 1985). This ‘First Report’ provided the immediate stimulus for the cycle, which was then crystallised in April. The final poem in the sequence ‘Anathema (We Are All Survivors)’ was written in May 1985. The introductory ‘prelude’ called ‘Gaze of the Medusa’ was written in 1986 for the Serendipity Caper publication of the complete sequence.
However, the ‘First Report’ referred back to an earlier poem with the title ‘Neogaea’ written in 1984 and included in a loose, evolving series of other poems, sketches and drafts with the overall title Ethos Mythos. The semi-Lovecraftian title Ethos Mythos was at that stage a provisional ‘working title’ finally carried over as a catch all label for a group of poems written (or finished) between 1984/5 and 1986. This group of poems was eventually included in the Stride collection Colour of Dust (1999), and has no direct relation to Space Opera. The 1984 poem ‘Neogaea’ with its disintegrating typography provided the initial inspiration for the eventual saga of the planet Neogaea and its weird satellite moon Neon. It was, initially, an exercise in visual typography, inspired by numerous Cubo-Futurist and/or Dada-Surrealist examples and also by the typographic style of e.e. cummings. An early draft of the poem in conventional blank verse quasi-stanza form was given the title ‘A Report From Neogaea (Necrophoresis)’. The term catagenesis in the final stanza refers to both regressive evolution and a process of cracking and organic breakdown in geology. It was probably this imagery that triggered the idea of the visual typographic ‘breakdown’ depicted in subsequent drafts.

Publication
The Stride Publications illustrated booklet Space Opera (1997) was preceded by publication in editions of Stride Magazine. ‘The First Report From Neogaea’ appeared in Stride 21 (Summer 1985). It was printed on green paper and accompanied by some related illustrations. These comprised the drawings ‘Life on Neogaea’ (1985) and ‘Social Symbioses on Neogaea’ also known as ‘Styx Insect III’ (1985), and two sections from the simultaneous collage-poem sequence Contact Zero (1985-1985).
Three edited sections from Space Opera appeared in a double issue of the US magazine Fantasy Commentator Vol. III, Nos. 3 & 4, issues 47 & 48, Fall 1995, edited by A Langley Searles, with an interview by Steve Sneyd. A version of this interview subsequently appeared in the Space Opera booklet under the title ‘Visions By Association’. The three sections from the sequence in Fantasy Commentator were ‘Gaze of the Medusa’, ‘The Neon Fly-By’ and ‘Discovered This Other Report’.
The complete Space Opera sequence was published in a special edition of Stride Magazine called The Serendipity Caper (Stride 24/25) in Summer (July) 1986. The sequence had a special title page using the drawing ‘The Neo Nova’ (also used as illustration without the title in the booklet) and was preceded by the complete version of Contact Zero. The now-redundant title Ethos Mythos still appears at the foot of the page for some of the poems from the sequence. Some phrases and lines in Space Opera link directly with Contact Zero, for example ‘gaze of the Medusa’, ‘chimaera obscura’, ‘I denounce everything: that is enough’ and ‘the membrane intercepts…’ A case of osmotic interchange confirming that the two were written in parallel and roughly about the same time.

Centre of Gravity – The Video
In February 1999 the London based digital filmmakers partnership OS2 expressed interest in using the published Space Opera text as the basis for a video film. Following discussions with Stride work started and progressed during February-April 1999. The final 6m.30s digital video production, referred to as the ‘onedotzero presentation version’, was based on parts 1-4 of the published sequence and called Centre of Gravity. It was hoped to produce a longer version incorporating parts 5-7 but this proved incompatible with the OS2 production schedule. However, the finished fragment, which includes many lines of animated original text used to overlay sequences of found footage and hi-tech diagrammatic graphics, together with an evocative soundscape of fractured effects and narrative by Firefox, successfully depicts the ‘technological breakdown of communications on board a deep space mission’.
Centre of Gravity was shown as part of wow + flutter 99, the ‘contemporary motion graphics and digital effects’ segment of the onedotzero3 digital moving image festival (in association with Film Four) held at the ICA, London between April 30-May 9, 1999. The Centre of Gravity screening took place at the ICA on May 6 and according to a press release was also shown at the SVC window (Wardour Street) and the soho_inc film festival the same year. Wow + flutter 99 films were subsequently screened at NFT2 in a Digital Underground strand on 10 August 1999.

Artwork of the Mythos and other Associations
The video title ‘Centre of Gravity’ is derived from a drawing of the same name dating from 1984. This ‘Centre of Gravity’ was incorporated into the promotional artwork for a 1985 Stride audiocassette music compilation (Step 50 in the Stride series) using the title of the original drawing.
The compilation included tracks from bands such as Face in the Crowd, Pacific 231 and Celestial Orgy, among others. The drawing itself featured as the cover art of the accompanying booklet and even on a promotional T-shirt. The inlay card for the Centre of Gravity cassette used another drawing entitled ‘The Way Of All Flesh I The Crypt’ (1981) from a graphic series with the general title Resident Aliens. ‘The Crypt’ drawing was rendered in a kind of techno-gothic style that pointed forward to the macabre SF ethos of Space Opera, as did various other drawings from this period. The ramshackle silhouette with its battered wheel and trailing wires in the ‘Centre of Gravity ‘illustration pays homage to Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel readymade via the kinetic constructions of Jean Tinguely (particularly La Tour, 1960) many of which at been displayed at a Tate Gallery exhibition in 1982. These ‘mechanomorphs’ (the name probably a distant echo of Picabia’s dessins mechaniques) surfaced in a number of drawings included in a series called Satanic Planets (1984-1985) containing many images linked, in one way or another, to the Space Opera sequence.
The mechanomorphs became identified as the inhabitants of Neogaea, the planet of astroscarps described in the original 1984 poem with its disintegrating typography. From one perspective it is fair to say that the main sequence of prose poems written from March to May 1985 were based on, or inspired by, the Satanic Planets mechanomorph drawings and the general atmosphere of the graphic series. Of the seven illustrations in the 1997 Space Opera booklet only two (‘The Scene of the Crime’ and ‘Worker Display Arena’) are new to that publication. The others had all appeared elsewhere: in Stride Magazine (editions 21 and 23) and, as already noted, in the Centre of Gravity cassette artwork. Some were published in two sets of postcards (published separately by Stride in 1985) which also included the drawings ‘Satanic Planets’ and ‘Metacropolis’ (first published in Stride 17/18 double issue, 1984), both sharing an oblique relationship with the Space Opera mythos.
The poem ‘Metacropolis’ occurs in the collection Hidden Limbo (1978) published in Colour of Dust, and, together with the small collage ‘Another Stargate (The Eye of Time)’ dated 1970, may provide the earliest intimations of the imagery of the Space Opera cycle. A small drawing ‘Stargate Variation I (The Eye Of Time)’, from 1994 but based on the 1970 collage appeared in Monomyth Issues 24 & 36 in 2004 and 2005. The phrase ‘the eye of time’ occurs in ‘The Neon Fly-By’.
In ‘Discovered This Other Report’ (Space Opera 4) is the line ‘We escaped the decaying orbit.’ This is an overt reference to the drawing ‘Decaying Orbits’ (1985) from the Satanic Planets collection. This image appeared in the 1985 Stride poetry booklet Decaying Orbits (Step 84 in the Stride series) and has been published elsewhere, including the occult-zine Nox 7 (1990) and The Grail Anthology (2004), from Atlantean Publishing. The image ‘Decaying Orbits’ with its supermassive centre of attraction and in ‘mechanomorph’ style fragmented spacecraft is a symbolic, if oblique, resume of the entire Space Opera story.

Brief Points
The phrase ‘satellite gone’ in ‘Gaze of the Medusa’ is a line from a Lou Reed song.
The 1970 collage ‘Another Stargate (The Eye of Time)’ was subsequently incorporated into a series of Xerox-based repromontage images Another Stargate/Another Room (1987). A sub-set of this series, with poems by Rupert Loydell, was included in Chain Lightning (1989) a project from Apparitions Press. The image ‘The Eye Of Time’ provided the basis for a short poem with the title ‘Some Other Star’.
The French mathematician, who gave his name to the Roche Limit, Edouard Roche (1820-1883) was a real historical figure, known for his work in celestial mechanics.
Glendenning (‘old G’ the Exosociobiologist) is a fictional character. His expedition to Neogaea is situated in the remote past in relation to the ‘present’ action of Space Opera.
The names ‘Cassegrain’, ‘Herschelian’, ‘Coude’ and ‘Schmidtt’ refer to astronomical telescopes and their lenses.
Much of the jargon in Space Opera, such as ‘trophic eggs’, ‘ergatomorphs’, ‘psychogenic symbioses’ and so on was derived from the book Sociobiology: The Abridged Edition (1980) by Edward O Wilson, particularly the description of insect societies and behaviour.

The multi media Centre of Gravity Collection (2010) is listed in the Poetry Library catalogue

Space Opera Publication History, 1985-1997

Space Opera I The First Report From Neogaea, Stride 21, 1985
Space Opera (Prelude) Gaze Of The Medusa , Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera I The First Report From Neogaea, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera II This Report Follows, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera III The Neon Flyby, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera IV Discovered This Other Report, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera V Neogaea, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera VI Space Opera, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera VII Anathema (We Are All Survivors), Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper, 1986
Space Opera (Prelude) Gaze Of The Medusa , Fantasy Commentator Vol III, 3/4, Nos. 47/48, Fall 1995
Space Opera III The Neon Flyby, Fantasy Commentator Vol III, 3/4, Nos. 47/48, Fall 1995
Space Opera IV Discovered This Other Report, Fantasy Commentator Vol III 3/4, Nos 47/48, Fall 1995
Space Opera (Prelude) Gaze Of The Medusa , Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera I The First Report From Neogaea, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera II This Report Follows, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera III The Neon Flyby, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera IV Discovered This Other Report, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera V Neogaea, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera VI Space Opera, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Space Opera VII Anathema (We Are All Survivors), Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997

Related Artwork – Publication History 1984-2008

Metacropolis, Stride 17/18 Autumn 1984, Stride Publications, 1984
Satanic Planets, Stride 17/18 Autumn 1984, Stride Publications, 1984
Centre Of Gravity, Centre Of Gravity C60 (Step 50) [booklet] cover art, Stride Publications, 1985
Centre Of Gravity, Centre Of Gravity C60 (Step 50) [postcard], Stride Publications, 1985
The Way Of All Flesh I The Crypt, Centre Of Gravity C60 (Step 50) [inlay card], Stride Publications, 1985
Decaying Orbits, Decaying Orbits (Step 84), Stride Publications, 1985
The Question, Decaying Orbits (Step 84), Stride Publications, 1985
Contact Zero 4 Flesh Eating Beasts, Stride 21 Summer 1985, Stride Publications, 1985
Contact Zero 5 The Rattlesnake Pit Organ, Stride 21 Summer 1985, Stride Publications, 1985
Life On Neogaea, Stride 21 Summer 1985, Stride Publications, 1985
Styx Insect III (Social Symbioses On Neogaea), Stride 21 Summer 1985, Stride Publications, 1985
Life On Neogaea, Stride Postcards [bronze], Stride Publications, 1985
Styx Insect III (Social Symbioses On Neogaea), Stride Postcards, Stride Publications, 1985
Metacropolis, Stride Postcards, Stride Publications, 1985
Satanic Planets, Stride Postcards, Stride Publications, 1985
Angel With Raiding Party, Stride 23 Spring 1986, Stride Publications, 1986
The Cathedral Of The Damned, Stride 23 Spring 1986, Stride Publications, 1986
The Question, Stride 23 Spring 1986, Stride Publications, 1986
Contact Zero (Complete), Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper Summer 1986, Stride Publications, 1986
The Neo Nova, Stride 24/25 The Serendipity Caper Summer 1986, Stride Publications, 1986
Satanic Planets, Formaos Vol 1 No 5 March 1987, Sothis Publishing, 1987
Styx Insect III (Social Symbioses On Neogaea), Nox, Vol 1 No 4 Issue 4 Mar 1987, Disrupters Press. 1987
Another Stargate/Another Room, Chain Lightning, Apparitions Press, 1989
Decaying Orbits, Nox, Vol 2 No 3 Issue 7 Jan 1990, Disrupters Press, 1990
Angel With Raiding Party, Chimaera Obscura, Phlebas, 1992
The Cathedral Of The Damned, Chimaera Obscura, Phlebas, 1992
Angel With Raiding Party, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Centre Of Gravity, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Life On Neogaea, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Scene Of The Crime, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
The Neo Nova, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
The Question, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Worker Display Arena, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Life On Neogaea, Space Opera [cover art], Stride Publications, 1997
The Elastic Mirror, Death's Door, Springbeach Press, 1999
Satanic Planets, Cold Print, Feb 2001
Decaying Orbits, The Grail Anthology, Atlantean Publishing, 2004
Stargate Variation I (The Eye Of Time), Monomyth Vol 4.1 No 26 Issue 28 2004, Atlantean Publishing, 2004
Stargate Variation I (The Eye Of Time), Monomyth Vol 5.4 No 34 Issue 36 2005, Atlantean Publishing, 2005
Astroscarp III, Midnight Street, Issue 9, May/June 2007, Immediate Direction, 2007
The Colossus Of Neon, Old Rossum's Book Of Practical Robots, Atlantean Publishing, 2008

Selected References

Bruinsma, Max, Exploding Cinema. Rotterdam Film Course, Sandberg Institute, 1999
Denyer, Trevor (ed.) Midnight Street, Issue 9, May/June 2007, Immediate Direction, 2007
Evans, A C, Decaying Orbits, Stride Publications, 1985
Evans, A C, Chimaera Obscura, The Phlebas Press, 1992
Evans, A C, Space Opera, Stride Publications, 1997
Evans, A C, Colour of Dust, Stride Publications, 1999
Hanson, Matt/ Walter, Shane R J, onedotzero3, Film Four/ICA, 1999
Jebb, Keith, A C Evans Space Opera/A C Evans Dream Vortex, PQR, 1998
Kopaska-Merkel, David C, Space Opera, Dreams and Nightmares, 1997
Loydell, Rupert M (ed.) Stride 17/18, Autumn, 1984
Loydell, Rupert M (ed.) Stride 21, Summer, 1985
Loydell, Rupert M (ed.) Stride 23, Spring, 1986
Loydell, Rupert M (ed.) Stride 24/25, The Serendipity Caper: An Anthology of Prose, Summer, 1986
Marsh, Jane, Jane Marsh Interviews the Poet A C Evans, Neon Highway 13, 2008
Ratcliffe, John (ed.) Cold Print, Feb 2001
Ross, Sian (ed.), Death’s Door, Springbeach Press, 1999
Ryan, Paul A (ed.), Formaos Vol 1 No 5 March 1987, Sothis Publishing, 1987
Sennitt, Stephen (ed.), Nox, Vol 1 No 4 Issue 4 Mar 1987, Disrupters Press, 1987
Sennett, Stephen (ed.), Nox, Vol 2 No 3 Issue 7 Jan 1990, Disrupters Press, 1990
Sneyd, Steve, A C Evans SF Poetry Sequence Space Opera, Data Dump 104, 2006
Sneyd, Steve, A C Evans Space Opera poem sequence, Data Dump 43, 1999
Sneyd, Steve, Flights From The Iron Moon, The Hilltop Press, 1995
Sneyd, Steve, Space Opera: An Interview with A C Evans, Fantasy Commentator Vol VIII, 3/4 Nos, 47/ 48, Fall, 1995
Sneyd, Steve, Space Opera, Data Dump 25, 1998
Sneyd, Steve, Term Speculative Poetry has more definitions, perhaps…, Data Dump 128, 2008
Tyrer, D-J (ed.), The Grail Anthology, Atlantean Publishing, 2004
Tyrer, D-J (ed.), Monomyth Vol 4.1 No 26 Issue 28 2004, Atlantean Publishing, 2004
Tyrer, D-J (ed.), Monomyth Vol 5.4 No 34 Issue 36 2005, Atlantean Publishing, 2005
Tyrer, D-J (ed.), Old Rossum’s Book of Practical Robots, Atlantean Publishing, 2008
Various Contributors, Chain Lightning, Apparitions Press, 1989
Wilson, Edward O, Sociobiology: The Abridged Edition, Belknap Press, 1980
Zine Kat , Space Opera by A C Evans, Dragon's Breath 46/47, 1998

Cultural Seismology

Not The New World Order I Cultural Seismology

The surface layer of the human biosphere is a congealed ideological-institutional superstructure. Like the earth’s crust, this ideological structure, or outer shell, consists of various plate-like power groupings competing for dominance – it is inherently unstable.

Hate Tectonics (Cultural Fault-Lines)

Beneath the outer ideological layer lies a subsurface region called the ‘mantle’ or cultural interior: a complex yet unstable force field of primal values imposed through structural violence. This structural violence is the immediate cause of surface instability leading to shifts and displacements of the cultural landscape. The institutional world is the sphere of religion, which is based on, and derived from, morality. The widespread ideas that morality is preceded by religion, or that morality has a transcendental source, are misinterpretations.

Elaborated through metaphysics and theology, formalised in laws and legal systems, morality derives its specific character from an established repertoire of primal values. These values are derived from the primitive dialectic of punishment and reward. It also incorporates the ascetic ideals of purity, sacrifice and renunciation. However the basis of morality – and the driving force of all repression – is misogyny, an authoritarian form of phallocentric biological determinism. Morality is the consolidation of all values and ideals derived from resentment: resentment of existence, resentment of suffering – resentment transmuted into self-loathing and hatred of ‘others’.

Solidarity, the basis of social cohesion, forms a toxic, fractured, inner core situated beyond or beneath the mantle. Cohesion helps – but cannot guarantee – the survival of hordes, herds and groups.

Like the entire human biosphere, the inner core is inherently unstable generating anxiety (angst) or dread: the all-pervasive fear of normality malfunction. As a transposition, echo, or reflection of the uncertainty of existence and the intrinsic fragility of being, this instability is inescapable. The pitiless, inexorable nature of instability and uncertainty, together with the futility of all enquiries into ultimate causation and intent, gives rise to resentment and hostility. From this perspective all beliefs and ideologies appear as symptoms, by-products or side effects of a primitive, anxiety condition concentrated and amplified by the pressure-cooker of solidarity, and by the relentless and repetitious regulatory practices of ‘identity’.

Both the mantle and the subsurface institutional-cultural sphere are characterised by elasticity just as the subsurface rock of the earth has similar elastic and permeable properties. Culture, the substrate of religion and all institutions, is the force field of heritage, the hothouse domain of social myths, legends, sacred symbols, primeval rituals and traditions. All traditions are retarded culture, an attempt to halt the flow of time. These ubiquitous symbolic elements are expressed through culturally diverse modes of representation including beliefs, rites, ceremonies, linguistic codes and modes of dress. These modes of representation are part of a matrix of power maintained by the constant repetition of ‘eternal truths’ enshrined in moralistic, logical propositions. However cultural diversity is just ‘window dressing’, mere surface show – everywhere morality provides a cloak of respectability for the same repressive practice. This is the case because everywhere the human condition is determined by precisely the same existential factors – characteristics that exactly define the ‘condition’ itself.

Appearing at the margins, boundaries or frontiers of mobile ideological plate formations, rifts and transformational fault-lines pervade the entire social structure, from the pressurised inner core of acculturated solidarity to the topmost, institutional layer. These rifts and faults derive from the fundamental instability of the inner core (solidarity), which is both brittle and fissile but also exerts a powerful centripetal, attractive force generated partly by the incessant repetition of dogmatic logic.

The ideological terrain is a reflected mirror image of the actual geo-physical landscape, comprising level plains, ridges, trenches and other discontinuities both internal and external.

Processes and Pressures

The process of maintaining the penumbra of social cohesion causes tension to accumulate in the toxic core. Tension arises as a natural consequence of internal repressive action. Such action is necessarily dedicated to the elimination, or control, of all forms of innovation, unconstrained desire, free expression and deviance (otherness) because such anti-social factors are likely to undermine solidarity. The function of this control is to maintain the hierarchic dominance of a phallocentric caste that regards any female (the primal ‘other’), as the main threat to social cohesion. Hypothetically this gender power-relationship can be reversed, although such a transformation is unlikely to happen before other evolutionary (technological) factors, redefine or reconfigure the ontology of identity and gender.

Repression is imposed through a power matrix of institutions functioning as conduits of concealed structural violence. The ruling high caste is regarded as the incarnation of values derived from ineffable, superior powers and is thereby legitimised. The caste therefore acquires the prestige and character armour needed to promulgate obligatory interdictions and observances. This is the source of authority needed to maintain order and enforce the naturalisation of collective identity. Customs and religious laws enforce these obligatory normative observances which project an aura of naturalness, ontological reality and historical inevitability. The tensions generated by this regulatory repression often find an outlet in xenophobic campaigns of dogmatic violence against external threats. In fact, a continuous sense of threat (‘the enemy at the gates’) is usually necessary in the overall process of repression. However the main focus of repressive action is internal deviance (‘the enemy within’) and structural violence is directed against demonised evils and impurities embodied in outcasts, untouchables, scapegoats, pariahs, outsiders, misfits, and minority groups.

The competing power structures of the ideological matrix are subjected to external and internal pressure. Internal pressures and tensions are generated by the violence deployed in the social dynamics of repression, leading to the ceaseless ebb and flow of revolution and reaction. Inevitable external stress is exerted by morphological factors. These are factors such as population fluctuations, territorial expansion, environmental changes, technological developments, economic factors, cultural erosion, wear-and-tear, entropy and energy depletion – sheer pressure of events and the passing of time itself sap vitality from the engine of repetition, leading to exhaustion and weakening of collective identity.

Currents and Changes

Cultural changes happen at various points on a continuum of intensity from minor to major degrees of magnitude – from imperceptible tremors, to catastrophic, explosive cultural eruptions. New fault-lines appear as ideologies continuously change size and shape. Ideological formations grow along constructive margins when convection currents eject new material from the toxic core. Destructive plate margins – subduction zones – are ideological ‘trouble spots’ or points of friction, regions of contention where adjoining formations collide, giving rise to destructive outbursts of acute hostility or prolonged phases of chronic enmity.

Wayward cultural currents of representational possibility pervade the social climate, inducing atmospheric changes and fluctuations. These convection currents of collective thinking are in a constant state of emergence and conflict with the rigid, entrenched, tendencies of tradition and established ideological formations. Social movements, crusades, manias, fads, fancies, aesthetic styles and fashions seem to emerge from nowhere. They dissipate almost as soon as they appear, but such transient phenomena, if they disclose subversive possibilities of mutation and realignment, can inflame sensibilities at the margins, becoming catalysts for change while inducing aggressive neophobic reactions.

When tension builds up and accumulates within the structural irregularities generated by random patterns of social interaction across the entire field of social forces, vibrations are experienced as tremors in the superstructure and across the entire biosphere. As a result seismic waves are propagated through the elastic cultural phenomena of the cohesive field, displacing and disturbing the accident-prone causal network with ephemeral, effervescent currents of thought. There may be gradual or sudden shifts of perspective along fractures and faults of adjacent or competing world-views. Tension may be relieved by snapping or rebounding along lines of weakness in the force field of cohesion, causing various forms of normality malfunction: outbursts of mass hysteria, epidemics of moral panic and in many cases, open warfare.

These types of unstable behavioural phenomena can and will operate as part of the repressive regime, being the natural consequences of structural and dogmatic violence used to maintain the toxic core of solidarity. Indeed, the ruling elite can – at times – benefit from a continuing state of nervous excitation among subordinate subaltern groups in order to facilitate mass mobilisation, or to maintain docility, fatalism and siege mentality. However the forces involved may exceed the controlling capacity, threatening the normative ontological stability and moral ascendancy of the ruling caste. In this case destabilisation and displacement can lead to unforeseen cultural mutations or to new paradigmatic, ideological formations arising from subversive zones of convergence, breakdown or re-signification.

Bibliographical Note: the term ‘cultural seismology’ is derived from an essay ‘The Name and Nature of Modernism’ (1976) by Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane. This essay is included in Malcolm Bradbury & James McFarlane (Eds.) Modernism 1890-1930, Penguin Books, 1981, where the term is defined as ‘the attempt to record the shifts and displacements of sensibility that regularly occur in the history of art and literature and thought’. The purpose of the present outline is to sketch out a primal (provisional) field structure of ‘culture’ and its causal network, to help elucidate such ‘shifts’ and ‘displacements’.