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October 3, 2007
a beautiful hoax: the lovecraft filmfest acceptance letter
by sven at 10:00 am
I've been meaning to share this for a while: the acceptance letter that the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival sent me for the new Let Sleeping Gods Lie teaser.
I love this!
I think The Hoax is the highest form of fiction. Cinema comes close, creating an immersive fantasy world; but there's always this fourth wall between you and the imaginary place. With The Hoax, however, fantasy breaks out of its cage and invades reality. I suppose it's sort of like guerilla theater in that sense... The artist's dream life can errupt into being anywhere, at any moment.
An elaborate and beautifully crafted Artist's Hoax is different from "viral marketing." It's perpetrated tongue-in-cheek, with a sense of playfulness that invites the audience to play along -- to embellish, even. Viral marketing, on the other hand, is coercive. It's a con job, where shills are planted in the audience purely for the purpose of herding their marks into the slaughterhouse.
[I'm also a big fan of mixing metaphors: the much maligned linguistic mash-up. ...But that's another essay.]
Anyway: Don't forget that the H.P. Lovecraft Filmfest is happening this Friday. Hope to see you there!
posted by sven | October 3, 2007 10:00 AM | categories: exhibits & events, let sleeping gods lie, writing