A Light Upon the Screen: On the Addition of our Documentaries Section
Welcome back, as we enter a new week, ever continuing progress on The Occult Library. This week, we’d like to take the time to overview our newest section, Documentaries, focusing chiefly on the value of this unique film form.
As this blog post launches, so does the Documentaries section of the website. It can be found under the section of the web page entitled Community, under the Multimedia link. As viewers ourselves, we have found great value in documentary films, and our choice to include them was a natural and intuitive one.
Within the section, a number of documentaries are listed along with images of their traditional covers. Each listing contains a short description, as well as a link titled “Watch Documentary.” These links will take users to websites such as YouTube or Vimeo, where the respective documentary may be viewed in full.
We believe this aggregation of films will serve a special role in the realm of easy access, but also in regards to the generative, community forming force of film.
As a mode of filmmaking, documentaries occupy both a unique and diverse role. They are informative & narrative, detailing a given topic or set of issues. Often, they take on a particular lens through which to approach or engage thesec. Yet, even within these parameters, a wide breadth of form, content, and aesthetics finds expression.
In the context of the occult community, documentaries serve as a vehicle for building knowledge & ideas. Yet, they also serve as unique pieces of art and aesthetics in their own right. Many documentaries have been formative to coloring the community, and drawing the curious, the newcomer, the scholar, and the seasoned practitioner deeper into the fold.
Consider, for example, the multifaceted lens of the 2016 documentary Change Itself: An Art Apart, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, which is featured on our site. The documentary explores the life, challenges, and work of artist and occultist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge – renowned for her work with multimedia and musical groups Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV.
This documentary explores the interdisciplinary art forms expressed by P-Orridge, the sustenance of a long career in this realm, and the context in which her work was carried out. Yet, it also explores radical conceptions of gender, sexuality, identity, and belonging.
In doing so, this documentary interweaves pertinent themes located at the forefront of discussion for many occult circles. The outcome is a work of film which adds to a greater dialogue, and challenges the assumptions and preconceptions that folks in the occult community may, or may not, hold regarding these issues.
From a critical standpoint, these works help to offer up new points of view, deconstruct the old ones, and subsequently form potentially novel avenues for community constellations.
In our own assessment, we feel this is a multimedia form which is essentially indispensable. In the spirit of The Occult Library’s aims – which are detailed extensively in previous blog posts – we took it upon ourselves to aggregate a number of select documentary works.
Our ultimate hope is that these films will not only serve as tools for building knowledge, but for offering context & criticality to the span of other materials detailed on our site.
We hope your explorations into these films will turn a fruitful page in your own experience. As we continue to develop our site, our readers can expect additions to the thirteen documentaries already listed.
Once again, we thank our readership for their support and gratitude. Warmest wishes.
– The Occult Library Staff.
