TEMPORARY PHANTASMOUS ZONE

In Craig David Parr’s new work TEMPORARY PHANTASMOUS ZONE, he explores the otherworldliness of Shropshire, as a place where multiple dimensions and realities can converge and offer up a way to think beyond now.

The name comes from the anarchist concept of temporary autonomous zones; places where rules are redefined for a short period of time, a tool for rethinking and putting into practice new ways of structuring society.

Parr has drawn together (and continuously references) theory, fantasy, magic, sci-fi, history and class struggle to create the TEMPORARY PHANTASMOUS ZONE, a series of film chapters that act as a hybrid world that reconnects with regional folklore traditions through utilising hopefulness and magic practices – as tools to transform the world.

As well as the online work, TEMPORARY PHANTASMOUS ZONE is on display at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery as part of a further installation. In this, Parr has borrowed visual elements from ghost trains, theme park rides and fairs; working class aesthetic experiences which have a power to create otherworldly sensations, creating simulated reality shifts even if only for a few seconds. Mixing this with the language of museological display and emphasising the alien-ness of objects pulled from other times and other places he has created a TEMPORARY PHANTASMOUS ZONE installation, a display that can act as a reminder of our place within deep time and unknowing.

 

About the artist

Craig David Parr

Craig David Parr describes himself as a “Nottingham based working-class DIY art warlock, with an interest in memory/the occult/goblins/class/stone circles/ghost trains/deep-time/hyperstition/fantasy and the consequences of nostalgia. Co-founder of Midlands-based collective KUHLE WAMPE. Industrial slime production. Nofixed media. Cheap and reliable.”

 

Image: Craig David Parr, TEMPORARY PHANTASMOUS ZONE. Meadow Arts digital commission 2021.