On November 21, 2022; it was announced that a “Cultural Front of Russia” (Культурный фронт России) had been created. US-Sanctioned State Duma deputy and artist Nikolai Burlyaev was named chairman of the organization. Burlyaev claimed that the primary purpose of the group is to “mobilize and rally cultural and art workers” for the war effort in support of the presidential decree on “State Cultural Policy”.
Nikolai Burlyaev (Nikolai Burlyayev)
According to TASS, the meeting was attended by 227 people, including various influential members of the Duma [1].
The story is posed in a geopolitical and Christian-apocalyptic context. It closes with a comment on the supposed relation of Jesus Christ to the Merovingian dynasty of France. The idea of a Merovingian dynasty is primarily associated with ideas of Pierre Plantard, and the so-called Priory of Sion, which influenced author Dan Brown’s novels most notably, ‘The Da Vinci Code’.
Most charitably, the matter of the Priory of Sion has the appearance of being a French attempt at creating a Holy Grail mythology for France similar to that for example of King Arthur in Britain; on the other hand, this hoax also seems to have many hallmarks of fascistic propaganda linked to historical Russian influence.
The interesting thing about the cultural background of the milieu of prophecy related to COVID-19 in the Veteran’s Today article is not only its ‘Duginesque’ apocalypticism, but the idea that Plantard’s purposeful efforts to create the Priory of Sion hoax were largely based on his work with espionage-linked occultists and Surrealists. His efforts seem intended to prove that he himself was heir to the Merovingian bloodline – predicted by none other than Nostradamus – and therefore himself a descendant of Jesus by the logic of the false prophecy.
Not to praise myself, but there are many examples of Nostradamus conspiracy now being discussed in the context of disinformation and information warfare around COVID-19 (1, 2, 3). I see this as a replication of my prior efforts to some extent. (Once again, the Nostradamus piece of this conspiracy is only a facet of the total disinformation.)
I’ve been sitting on most of the below analysis for a while, but I think it is complete enough to post in light of the use of such ideas in COVID-19 disinformation.
It is interesting that Anger too was close to the Surrealist school of art which is considered as a possible factor in the psychological profile of the Black Dahlia murderer. Anger’s film making was inspired by the Surrealist artist Maya Deren, and his 1947 film ‘Fireworks’ led to his romantic involvement with older French artist Jean Cocteau, whom he lived with in France . (Much of the Surrealist school – including Deren – can be placed close to Communism, and Anger also seems to have boycotted Hollywood in the HUAC era, despite Anger’s precedence of using Nazi images in his films.)
Anger was also a lifelong friend of John Gilmore’s lifelong friend Curtis Harrington – a famous filmmaker associated with the occult scene in Hollywood. In addition he was connected to at least 3 of the Manson Family murderers. In this sense, Anger straddles both the Surrealist network hypothetically associated with the Black Dahlia case and the ‘satanist-cultist’ network which might be associated with the Tate-LaBianca murders.
I’ve been learning more about crime scene staging and extrapolating the practical similarities to disinformation. Especially in the context of probabilistically unlikely coincidences, I have long held a view that you can’t intimately know more than one Russian spy and work with them without plausibly being at least a Russian asset yourself.
Pyotr Verzilov, member of Voina and recently divorced husband of Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was (most likely) poisoned in a “non life threatening” manner and transported from Russia to Berlin, giving the Russian-Canadian artist a striking public parallel in the press with the notable poisonings of dissident figures like Alexander Litvinenko, Vladimir Kara Murza, and Sergei Skripal. No doubt this will have a lot of media trying to interview him, give him attention, etc.
However, I still advise caution about Verzilov who is noted by members of his former art group Voina as a “dexterous deceiver” “occupied with self-promotion”; and is accused of ratting out several members of the group to police, as well as subverting other anarchist-dissident movements. This could easily be a ploy for sympathy or relevance; as much as it could be some kind of Russian intelligence ruse; or even the work of an honest Russian nationalist who doesn’t get that Verzilov is possibly ‘one of their boys’.
I recently critiqued Jim Carrey in the context of his mercury-based vaccine conspiracism which seems connected to 1980’s Soviet propaganda; as well as his positioning relative to the legacy of Hollywood’s Popular Front and right-left conspiracism as I see it as a factor in modern Russian information warfare. Today, I am going to delve specifically into Carrey’s career as an artist since 2011 which I only briefly discussed in the prior essay. I believe the analysis strongly supports my prior observations – but also highlights an interesting recurring theme of Carrey’s presumable mental health related to messianic tendencies (I suggest you do not call him ‘JC’ if you meet him in order to minimize this).
It seems that internet audiences were only recently introduced to Carrey’s art in the context of the short documentary – I Needed Color (which since its release in August 2017 has got over 6 million views at the below Vimeo link). It’s noF for Fake, but it’s worth watching to get a sense for the artistic ‘Passion of the Carrey’.
In the spirit of the ‘easy solve’ for Steve Lazarides as Banksy (I’m sorry, it’s just so obvious), I hadn’t initially watched his interview from 2014 on RT, although I used it as an image in the story. Having watched it now, I think it is very informative for the “Art War“. In fact, the segment itself was literally dangled before commercial break as: “The Art of War – how Britain’s artists are taking politics to the street”.
Come learn from the impoverished historical perspective of Professor Banksy Lazarides (but made much better by a possible Monty Python reference).
‘Power as a political message’ – Steve Lazarides on the street art revolution; Oct 8 2014 – Going Underground – RT (full episode, clip below)
Banksy’s former manager and confidante Steve Lazarides is probably Banksy himself… at the very least he gives insight into the politics of the controversial British street artist tied to Pussy Riot and Voina.
‘The Art of Whores’; or ‘A(n) RT (kind of) WAR’ – Voina (War) meets Pussy Riot and the Devil
Doing some research lately on Voina and Pussy Riot. Voina literally intends to create an “Art War”. Now-expelled Voina member Pyotr Verzilov (the man in red) — an accused government informer — is married to current Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (woman in purple). Both appeared together in a public orgy, which the above image is taken from. Clearly it is my suspicion that some members of these organizations are working as assets of Russia’s non-linear warfare — possibly informed by the contemporaneous post-modern art theories of Vladislav Surkov. Continue reading “But is it Art War?”
Roseanne Barr and Madonna Louise Ciccone (a.k.a. the pop star “Madonna”) have been two outspoken feminist and ‘postfeminist’ figures from the 1980s-present. At first blush, there does not appear to be a great symmetry between the pair – however there is actually a very strong parallel in their social networks and plausibly ‘communistic’ social activism as women artists.
While it is no surprise that feminists will often adopt leftist or Marxist critiques of power which emphasize the disruption of patriarchal gender norms – it is interesting to note that both Roseanne and Madonna have currently adopted post-Soviet narratives regarding politics and the occult which are connected to modern Russian Information Warfare, underpinned by (apparently) past and present ‘communistic’ influences. This may give the social ‘performances’ of Americans Roseanne and Madonna strategic value to Russia parallel to the work of anti-establishment postmodern Russian groups like Voina (War) and Pussy Riot.
