The Otherworld is a pagan idea that describes the spiritual realm of supernatural beings that runs parallel to our everyday reality. In the days approaching Samhain, the ancient Celtic precursor to Halloween, tradition has it that a thinning takes place between worlds, where ghosts and spirits, gods and faeries cross the threshold into the world of the living. Building on these themes of transformation, THEE BIRTH II is a “trans-media ritual” that explores the Otherworld through a night of film, movement and music. 

Taking place at Manchester’s The White Hotel, the event follows on from last year’s E-Birth, which featured music, film and performances by Blackhaine, Mark Leckey, and Space Afrika. Curated by artist and composer HforSpirit and Emulsion as part of an ongoing residency, the night promises gothic operas, mind-bending films, celestial dirges, and more.

Among them is a short film by Paris-based multidisciplinary artist Crystallmess, which explores the relationship between philosopher Walter Benjamin’s vision of historicism and the death of rappers PNB Rock, Pop Smoke, Trouble, Nipsey Hussle. “Hyperfate is more than a visual memento mori, it questions the differences between the notions of destiny and fate within today’s rap context,” she says. “How did rap, synonymous with initiatory and success stories, gradually become a mortuary factory for tragic heroes? How much is due to determinism, how much is the result of macabre prophecy?”

Elsewhere, London-based artist Charlie Osborne explores urban rituals with short film BURY-MAN-LANE. She explains, “BURY-MAN-LANE unlocks the feeling that magic is loitering in the ruptures of our generational ennui. In this system of echoes, disjunction is itself the means of communication: an endless performance chewing up the old self and generating constant new selves: sensation rendered as an event.”

Below, we speak to HforSpirit about what we can expect from THEE BIRTH II.

How did THEE BIRTH come about? Can you explain the meaning behind the name?

HforSpirit: THEE BIRTH is a ‘trans-media ritual’ spawned out of lockdown. A way of telling stories through film, movement and music. The name refers to an audience action, hence: you birth. The first issue featured Mark Leckey, Blackhaine and GutterRING alongside the premiere of a film I made with Nick Hadfield called UnTyMe.

How did you go about choosing the artists involved in the event?

HforSpirit: I think artists asking similar questions always find each other naturally. THEE BIRTH is an open forum, a sort of ceremonial incubator for brilliant emergents like Charlie Osborne alongside names like Ryan Trecartin and Tai Shani.

Is there a thematic thread that connects the artists? 

HforSpirit: The ‘Otherworld’ is a pre-Christian idea – a realm of spirits that were called upon to guide us through our lives. Samhain (Halloween) was honoured as a thinning of the veil between these worlds. THEE BIRTH II presents a playful danse macabre, conjuring visions of the Otherworld as a portal for transformation. A waltz with the Phoenix.

What can we expect from the night?

HforSpirit: Gothic opera (Bianca Scout), mind-bending generations (LOREM & Acre), ghouls seeking salvation (Jenkin Van Zyl), and a selection of celestial dirges soundtracked by myself.

Recent years have seen a return to avatars, phantasmas and purgatorial fantasies. Why do you think this is?

HforSpirit: Avatars are like the love children of heaven and hell. It’s inevitable that in the absence of religion (with rapidly growing fears about the environment) we turn to gods of nature for inspiration. The final endgame only exists in a spiritual void.

THEE BIRTH takes place at White Hotel in Manchester tonight (October 28)