HISTORY of the

MUTATION MANTRA Mutatas Formas (changing forms) Nova Corpora... (new bodies). MUTATAS FORMAS NOVA PNEUMA (new souls) The Mutation Parlour began as a physical place, where physical mutations (tattooing, piercing and other body arts) with magical intent were created in ritual context, and strange artwork (sculpture, collage, puppetry, painting, drawing, video, photography) was created. Mutation Parlour became a musical and theatrical endeavour, originally a 'band' which used the place as its 'Change Room', where performers mutated themselves/ each other before going onstage. For our first show I shaved my head but for two horns sculpted from beeswax and hair. For our second show I had eagle wings sutured into my shoulder-blades (see THE MUTATION EN-CYCLOPS-EDIA). The original place called the Mutation Parlour was razed to the ground by 'developers' and the band became their mobile heirs. As a musical/theatrical venture, Mutation Parlour has evolved from what was basically a rock band (albeit a very wyrd one, incorporating elements of neo-classical, thrash and world music) into a more amorphous collective of musicians/soundsculptors, an ever-expanding and diversifying chaos orchestra which blends ancient instruments with modern technological and techno-illogical soundscapes. Metamorphic Ritual Theatre group - who weave together threads of different ancient mythologies and universal magical symbols - have merged with Mutation Parlour to create a balance of visual and aural weirdness, with physical mutations and body arts still sometimes an element of live performances. In the second and third 'Labyrinths' created by The Order of Chaos - a physical installation/ energy matrix housing Metamorphic Ritual Theatre, constructed at the D.T.E. ConFest (Moama, NSW, Australia) - the Mutation Parlour again became a place, a chamber of transformation at the crossroads between the outer mazes and the inner spiral/ medicine wheel of the Labyrinth. Thus located, it doubled as a parlour for the transformation of initiates along their journeys, and as a 'Change Room' and backstage for performers/ magicians. All the elemental paths -fire/energy, air/space, earth/mass and water/time- intersected at the Mutation Parlour crossroads. The gates of the parlour were guarded by the mutant dog-boy, and in-it-i-ates could only enter if they received a doorstamp -a choice of different runes were offered, to be branded on the body of the initiate in their desired anatomical location. Within, further mutations were offered and performed by the experienced surgeons/ hosts Venom and Revere if the initiate so desired, while the metaphysical derivations/ imp-lic-ations of the physical changes were discussed, mutating the mind of the initiate with the inner metamorphosis ofwhich their outer metamorphosis was a metaphor for... The Mutation Parlour was on the periphery of the inner spirals, four layered elemental spins in to the womblike centre, where in-it-i-ates faced the Minotaur (their shadows/ primal selves), and Death, in the metal domed arena. On the last night of the Labyrinth cycle, I used the Change Room as a major axis-point for personal transformation. On my first visit I had snakeskins stitched to my arms for a caduceus dance in the finale in the dome; my second operation for the evening was a hermaphroditic belly-brand which caused my navel to retract about 4 centimetres into my stomach (see THE MUTATION EN-CYCLOPS-EDIA). The Mutation Parlour was the second gate in the Labyrinth. Its arches were the cervix. It sat at the end/beginning of the Spirit path/vagina, throughwhich in-it-i-ates would be reborn into the festival. Now this new Virtual Mutation Parlour sits as a Crossroads in the vast virtual labyrinth of the internet, the world-wide web. Greetings from the Moerae, the Three Fates. The veils are rent and we become visible. Since the dawn of time has the tradition been that we shall be met at the Crossroads. We are the wyrd sisters. When the moon is new perhaps you may hear our whispers on the winds of change. You can no doubt feel our presence here, ere you read these words. Ours is the subtle touch of destiny. If you have traversed the Labyrinth to get here, you will have perhaps met one or two of us already -Clotho, the Spinner Who spun you in, Who gave you the thread with which to travel? Or perhaps you have met Lachesis, the Weaver at her loom, and woven your wyrds into the Warp of the Wyrd, and arrived here via the Cross-stitch in her tapestry? If you're still with us, you can't have yet met the third of us, unless ye have re-turned for a new visit... Though oft I wear this triple veil, many are my masks, as three or as one. One is that of Hecate- Goddess of the Crossroads. If the major arcana of the TaroT are arranged in a LemniscAte (infinity symbol), my Wheel of Fate spins at their Crossroads. Which path Will you choose? There is somebody else here too you know. Who? Aha! I wait in the cracks... Ignore those odd whispers between my oracle. I am the SphinX who guards the Wheel. My five secrets are each represented by an arm of the pentagrammatical foundation onwhich the Great spiralling lunar loom above spins; where the ebb and flow of the tides glimmer in the warp and weft of the great web. This is the communications nexus-axis of this Virtual Mutation Parlour (read CrossXPoem above a-cross the screen): For the most recent information on this website, click on the Here and Now Axis above (and hear the near and how). If you are familiar with that ancient Book of Symbols The Tarot you will no doubt have noticed that the Ten Spokes of Tradition (the sephiroth of the Qabbala) on the Wheel above have been replaced with the eight spokes of the Chaosphere. The result is indeed chaotic in it's dimension-bending fract(ur)al Complexities. Who could be responsible for such a reinvention of the Wheel of Fortune? Ah! That would be telling, and we know the fourth power of the Sphinx do we Not? Yet one of my forms can be seen riding Her wheel, finger and toe hooked into two arms of the pentacle, other opposable toe hooked on the tooth of Typhon, that old drag-on the Wheel of evolution, ever drawing us back to the primordial swamps of atavistic resurgence. I appear thus above in the form of Hermanubis, psychopomp and trickster, a hybrid of Anubis -Egyptian Jackal of Judgement and Psychopomp, Hermes -Greek Psycohopomp and Messenger of the Gods, and Hanuman -Hindu Monkey God. Ha! It is I, Hermanubis Nexhagus, taking Fate into my own hands. I am the Elder Jester of the Precreate. Ha!Ho! Is it I?Ho! God of uncontrolled change! Oh! Goddess (now) of unchanged control? For I am Nexhagus, the nexus of the Hag, Hecate. Ha! Ho! Nexhagus? Ho! Ha! For many ages have I woven the chromosomes of humankind...working through such delightful vessels as Dionysus ("Aha!"), Hermes Trismegistus ("as Above, so Below"), YHShVH ("On Earth as it is in Heaven"), Austin Osman Spare ("As Within, so Without"), and now via the w-rite-ings and spell-ings of Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule ("As Before, So After"): Often outer metamorphosis is just a metaphor for inner metamorphosis For metamorphosis is just a metaphor for metaphor And metaphor is just a metaphor for metamorphosis And metamorphosis is just a metaphor for this More of this, more for this, more for this metamorphosis And more metamorphoses are more metaphors for more metaphors And more metaphors are more metaphors for more metamorphoses ...And so on and so forth and metamorph For evermore and metamore ...Until you get Metaphor-for-metamorphosis-psychosis This short track by Orryelle is from Mutation Parlour's ThanatEros CD How came this to be, this fract(al)uring of the traditional dimensions of the Wheel? Well in this Age of Information accessability, mystery traditions unveil and a-veil-able magickal systems collide. All symbols are ultimately metaphors, so unless we can continue to metamorphosize them into new contexts, we are naught but the puppets of a con-fused Fate. Sometimes the correspondences don't quite match, and we must learn the subtle art of Adjustment, dancing the masques of Maat: I imp-lore thee: to survive in this age of reality dissection, adapt to be adept at this cross-cultural and cross-subcultural Crossroads, this grand Inter-Sect-Ion of different perspectives. Bored of 'e-turn-all-y sitting on her spotty toad stool, Hekt (Egyptian frog-headed Goddess)-Ate her own timespun tapestry, and as Hermanubis Nexhagus I jumped off her wheel and onto her back, riding the frog to Arcana 23, Outside the Circles of Time. Here the physical and the metaphysical inter-sect. Bodies, Forms, Ideas, Words, Sounds, and Images are dissected and reassembled, metamorphosised in the cauldron of chaos. Solve et Coagula! Select a section from the Cross-Section over the Wheel of Fate above -or from the more tabulated index below- where new information is inputted, upcoming projects are heralded in advance, linked in while in process, re-presented and re-corded, and eventually condensed and filed into other categories as they pass from currency (of course, some are re-current). New files are created to contain those passing events or information which don't/won't fit in any established category; and some of the data which crackles through this nexus point refuses to be contained, flying off back into the ether from which it was spawned. For this virtual reality is not quite ethereal, nor quite 'real' -it is the Crossroads between flesh and spirit, between Nuit andHadit, betwixt Zos and Kia... The MUTATION PARLOUR was originally a physical place, a studio for body arts. It evolved into the name of a musical/theatrical endeavour. In the LABYRINTH performance Installations, the Mutation Parlour again became a physical place, where in-it-I-ates could stop and be physically psychically or spiritually mutated on their journeys. All the elemental paths -fire/energy, air/space, earth/mass and water/time- intersected at the Mutation Parlour, the Crossroads of the Labyrinth. The paths of the physical Labyrinth were woven through the trees with ropes, string and other threads, in the Druidic tradition. They were, effectively, physical web-sites! Now this Virtual Mutation Parlour sits as a Crossroads in the vast virtual labyrinth of the internet, the world-wide web. From humble beginnings, it has become a veritable nexus-axis of ideas and forms. Cross-communication/ cross-pollination between different cultural and subcultural tribes, clans and individuals is encouraged. email: [email protected]) I don't usually mind people borrowing bits of my art or text for their own sites; I just like to be asked first, and assure the appropriate credits and links are included, thereby facilitating the distribution of information... So please e-mail me. Cyberspace is a vast starry web throughwhich we travel at wordspeed, symbolspeed, sometimes verging on thoughtspeed. The virtual labyrinth also reaches underground, into the cavernous catacombs of hidden information. Like its ancient source, it is an underworld initiation. We dwell at the Crossroads, the Crossways, where the ancient Goddess of Fate -Hecate, also known as Orchill, or Urdu, though oft she wears a triple veil- intertwines the dark and bright threads, weaving under and over, under and over, down through the underworld and up through the overworld. The Mutation Parlour is a Cross-stitch in the fabric of eternity, the tapestry of time, spun through space. Chthonos, Ychronos, we evoke thee. Electro-magnetic wwwebs crackle with the influx to this nexus, in-it-i-ates drawn to the Mag(us)Net. And as outward from this nexus our own virtual website grows within the vaster labyrinth, so too shall our physical web-sites grow. The etheric framework of future physical Labyrinth projects is being woven herein. Once remanifest, they will link back into these cyberwebs. This virtual parlour is the Crossroads between the unmanifest and the manifest, where via Logos and Imagos we bring things into being. Physical projects of the Mutation Parlour, of Metamorphic Ritual Theatre and other affiliations of the HermAphroditic ChAOrder of the Silver Dusk shall be recorded herein, where they shall be digested, mutated and spat back out into the wo/manifest world in new forms. Solve et Coagula! - Love & Will, Orryelle email: [email protected] Mutation Parlour C.D. 'Labyrinth' -Lyrics and text from the diverse second C.D. from the MUTATION PARLOUR, illustrated with photos from the Labyrinth installations. MUTATION MANIFESTO [with additional Part II -'MUTATION & TECHNOLOGY -THE POST-HUMAN'] MUTATION PARLOUR HOMEPAGE (c) Orryelle 1998