Subversion Agency + Welcome to Mars

Monday 28th SeptemberDoors 7:30pm £5 Mark Boswell: Subversion Agency Nine years in the making, shot on location in Miami, Florida and Havana, Cuba, The Subversion Agency relates the exploits of an American arms dealer (Pierre Kozlov) who is invited to the K-Zone -- "a communist country somewhere in the Caribbean" -- to participate in a one-on-one golf match for one million dollars (winner take all). A self-confirmed nihilist, Kozlov becomes embedded in a morass of international politics when he discovers the prize in store for the loser, which he appears destined to become. Boswell's K-Zone Republic, "formed circa 1960 during a staged soccer riot in the K-Zone capital," is awash with two-bit politicians, American black panthers on the lam, anarcho-pranksters on the underground airwaves, double agent feminists, and a golf champion formally convicted of "cultural parasitism." Threatening the narrative of the film, a Brechtian blitzkrieg of missives take form through experimental montage, double jump cuts, over edits, and aural asides that crackle with political satire and hard boiled sarcasm. Combined with Boswell's on location footage, the film's recontextualized archival images of Miami and Cuba work to create a fictional netherworld reminiscent of the twilight zone. Ken Hollings: Welcome to Mars Bad science in suburbs, mood music for alien encounters and paranoia in low Earth orbit: lifting the lid on 1950s fantasies of outer space, Ken Hollings presents a reading from his latest book, accompanied by found footage and a specially-composed radiophonic soundtrack. 'Ken Hollings shows brilliantly how the extraordinary web of technologies that drove the Cold War have shaped not just out culture but the very way we think of ourselves as human beings. Welcome to Mars offers a rare and fascinating glimpse of the roots of the strange humanoid culture we live in today.' Adam Curtis Welcome to Mars is available from Strange Attractor Press. For more information please go to www.strangeattractor.co.uk or www.kenhollings.blogspot.com