Propaganda Hour at the Vanity Blog! This week: T.O.P.Y. !!!

Welcome to the first weekly installment of Propaganda Hour! Propaganda Hour! will dedicate itself, once a week to bringing you a different report on the most pertinent, pure, and diversified information regarding occult oriented activity in the USA and beyond! Past, present, and future!  I will be taking this time and opportunity to speak with you all about Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (aka T.O.P.Y.) Hello and Welcome!!

T.O.P.Y. was created primarily by the makers of Psychic TV although I am unsure as to which preceded the other. It is a loosely federated network concentrating on bringing an awareness to ritual in a contemporary setting. An "occult-y" network more than anything. For this reason it is associated mostly with artistic collectives, practitioners of magic, and psychedelically oriented musicians. Their official website "Statement Ov Intent" claims: "We are an organization dedicated to updating and de-mystifying religious thought.", while denying any claims to unchallengeable truths, finite answers or dogma. For those of you more interested I recommend reading this.

In order to achieve one's own highest creative expression, TOPY advocates awareness and analysis via deconstructing our own methods of religious or artistic practice whatever they may be. A strongly anti-authoritarian group, cross fertilization is key to these apocalyptic self created culture warriors; much of their online literature is dedicated to lamenting the nihilism of the present age and emphasizing the importance of manufacturing your own self empowering personal meaning. Their online library struck me as totally bizarre in light of this. Imagine what happens when postmodernists who truly believe in "magick" attempt their own cultural critique. I can't decide whether or not its stupid or awesome, but its definitely a mindfuck! And I get this suspicious feeling thats what the entire thing was created to be.

For this reason I find most philosophically oriented TOPY writing frustratingly vague, and the strictly intellectual side of the organization as a whole - though exciting - a disappointment. What do the Psychic TV videos do or say that the TOPY organization does not?


I bet the founders of T.O.P.Y. made videos like this when they were 14 or so, unless they took themselves more seriously..

THE AMAZING ARLEEN DELIMA

I had the immense fortune to attend college with the glorious young Arleen Delima. She has since showcased her video and performance work at Miami Art Basel. I have always enjoyed how she is able to integrate her self portrait style sense of humor with probing insights on her status as a Floridian Colombian Lesbian living in the United States of America in the Year Two Thousand And Ten. Drawing from a background influenced by contemporary feminist performance art and critique, she uses her own identity and oddly specific documentation of her personal life as a microcosm for larger concepts feminity, colombian/american culture, lesbian politics, and Michael Jackson.

http://arleendelima.com/


BRACE YOURSELF from Arleen Delima on Vimeo.


Arleen: Born N Raised from Arleen Delima on Vimeo.

Lucrate Milk + Psychic TV = BADASSS

I am pleased to present you with a few of my most artsy fartsy posts yet. One of many amazing of the 80's french punk band Lucrate Milk. The music is great but the videos don't compare. The second video is by Psychic TV, a video art and psychedelic electronic experimental music group collective that started in the late 80's. This is some shit that I really really like so there will definitely be more to come soon!