By Benedict Sinclair
The Foundation for the Preservation of Fantastic Possibilities lies behind black double doors, like any you’d happen upon in a SOMA alley. They stand without a grandiose poster or sign to mark the entrance. Unexpected, for a crew bearing such a title. A simple white “444” points the way. Inside a sign reads “Behold! Behind every calamity lies possibility!” It is the mythological starting point, in the shot heard ‘round the world sense, once spoken aloud by VeryVery Morley in that transitional breath between the Victorian Era and World War I. A table waited nearby with two warm pots of melted chocolate. The Elationists, a spiritualist-art movement that followed on the heels of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, are said to have used an exotic mix of spices in their cocoa elixir, a mix I couldn’t well find distinctions within as the thick drink made tracks across my palette.
Archival film, displayed on video screens, was layered with a suspicious digital static. Actors attempted the earliest of film methods to document their all-night parties, garbed in mythological outfits and those of relatively decadent, imperial civilizations like Ancient Greece and Egypt. Sync sound film hadn’t yet matured but the Elationists, in a rationale for the phenomenon, carried a reputation for experimenting. Music replicating the Edison phonograph tunes they’d spin during screenings was heard alongside.
Photo by Lisbeth Ortega