Perth Voice Interactive

AN hour long psychedelic video of skulls, a deranged treasure hunt in thick fog, and an old video arcade abandoned in the jungle are just some of the highlights in this year’s Strange Festival.

Now in its second year, the 10-day festival puts to bed the notion of Perth being a dull backwater with vacant and neglected spaces throughout the city filled with strange performance, music, art and film.

One of the most poignant works is an animation based on the satirical theatre show Bindjareb Pinjarra, a black comedy about the mass killing of Noongar people at Pinjarra in 1834 (an event recorded as the Battle of Pinjarra but mourned by local Noongar as a massacre).

Making its premiere at the festival, the cartoon adaptation has been illustrated by emerging artist Kambarni, a descendent of the Nimunburr and Yawuru people of the Kimberley and the Ballardong Noongar people, and animated by local media artist Steven Alyian.

The cartoon will be shown for free on a massive video screen at Yagan Square.

If you want to take the strangeness to the max then check out the hour-long psychedelic video of 50,000 non-AI images of skulls, created by underground writer, musician and video artist James BL Hollands, who has exhibited around the world.

Described as a “video ossuary”, Trill Death Cult is deeply hallucinogenic and features fast strobing lights, so approach with caution.

If you fancy something lighter, well just a tad, then check out Dawn Chorus/Dusk Chorus – a birdwalk with no birds – by The Midnight Horrors.

Outré guides take you on an “entirely uneducational psychogeograhic birdwalking tour” of Perth, featuring birds of ill-omen, birds long-past and even “an unemployed pigeon still packing its briefcase each morning and then sitting in a park all day.”

If you feel like chilling-out after all that macabre stuff, visit Slow Rainbow.

Remove your shoes, put on headphones, then pad through the flowers and fog in an immersive art space with ambient music, quirky films and beanbags.

Although it sounds like a staff chill-out zone created by Elizabeth Holmes at her Theranos HQ, this weird silent disco, featuring music by Stellar Beams, is sure to be memorable.

If movies are more your bag then Exhumed Cinema is showing 35 cult and classic flicks at the 1950s arthouse cinema, Liberty Theatre, on Barrack Street.

Featuring everything from Freaks and Monster House to Krull and Mad Max 2, there’s something for everyone.

The festival will also have live music, comedy and performance (TBD) at the unique underground venues The Rejects Basement and Pooles Temple at the State Buildings.

Last year the inaugural festival attracted an estimated 45,000 visitors and climaxed with the burning of a 12-metre spider web in Forrest Place. The Strange Festival will be held from June 16-25.

For more info see strangefestival.com.au.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK