A Speculative Genealogy of Metaphortean Research:
An illustrated lecture with Carl Diehl, Metaphortean Researcher
Date: Monday, May 30
Time: 8 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by The Hollow Earth Society

For nearly half a decade, Portland based artist Carl Diehl has researched and developed works under the auspices of “Metaphortean Research.”

The neologized term “Metaphortean” combines “metaphor” and “Fortean,” the latter term denoting strange, mysterious events popularized in the publications of the independent early 20th century researcher Charles Fort. An eccentric champion of anomalous phenomena, Fort collected facts that had allegedly been excluded, rejected, or ignored by established science because they were unexplainable. While Fort focused on the arbitrary borderlines between accepted and denied explanations, Metaphortean Research puzzles the shifting values associated with new and obsolescent media.

Persistent, if marginal, accounts of Bigfoot, UFOs, and other Fortean events will sometimes be implicitly compared with acts of technological re-use. Alternately, ghosts and monsters may be explicitly scrutinized in terms of their own hypothetical media consumption habits. Putting audacity before caution, this speculative genealogy of Metaphortean Research features short videos and performative para-lectures on topics including atemporal network culture, the perceived obsolescence of blurry sasquatches, and wayward zombie satellites. More information: www.metaphorteanspace.com and www.carldiehl.com.

Metaphors, puns and neologisms are prominent devices within Carl Diehl’s practice as an artist and writer. He extends the function of these literary tools into an audio-visual context to discover the nuanced possibilities of time-based media. Especially fascinating to Diehl are the unexpected aberrations that sometimes disrupt the intended output of an audio-visual device. Metaphortean Research mobilizes a slow disclosure of malfunction and a broad range of formal intervention at the level of image, text and sound. Diehl has presented these works widely, including Transmediale in Berlin, the International Symposium for Electronic Art in Singapore, and Other Cinema in San Francisco.