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Demdike Stare: Chance and the Discovery of Real Magic
Chance and the Discovery of Real Magic
(p. 53 – 58)

Demdike Stare

Chance and the Discovery of Real Magic

PDF, 6 pages

  • ritual
  • occultism
  • spiritism
  • contemporary art

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Demdike Stare

is the name under which Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker have been making music since 2009 – music influenced by, among other things, occultism and spirituality, which opens up a sense of otherworldly mysteries and affords insights into the incomprehensible. Released under the Modern Love label – thus far including the four albums Symbiosis, Tryptych, Elemental, and Wonderland – their music has already been used as film scores for a number of productions, including Kiss of the Damned (2012) and Joe (2013). The Manchester-based duo have also performed internationally in numerous theatres, museums, art spaces and clubs, and with selected projects such as the live re-scoring of Häxan – Witchcraft through the Ages, Benjamin Christensen’s witch film of 1922, commissioned by the British Film Institute, or Concealed, a collaboration with the Cracow Sinfonietta and video artist Michael England for the Unsound Festival, of which a version was last performed in early 2015 at the Barbican Theatre in London.
Other texts by Demdike Stare for DIAPHANES
Susanne Witzgall (ed.): Real Magic

In Western societies a newly discovered and very lively interest in magical practices and occult knowledge can be witnessed. The magical seems to be evolving into a popular phenomenon that affects society as a whole and is also becoming the subject of intense debate in artistic and academic-scientific contexts. The book Real Magic investigates the current realities of the magical in the contemporary arts, sciences and everyday culture. It explores the present Western residues and forms of magical practices, the current potentials of magical perception and thinking in a world largely determined by financialised instrumental reason, and also the drawbacks of occultism. The publication is the result of the fourth annual programme of the cx centre of interdisciplinary studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

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