DISRUPTION : New Novel

My new novel DISRUPTION has just been published by Club Lighthouse Publishing. It’s available in paperback from Amazon and the publisher, as well as in all digital formats for e-readers and mobiles.

Devious politics, protests, and a financial scandal embroil a prominent college. Jason Fawkes, its most revered professor—popular for probing the futurist mysteries of quantum reality, artificial intelligence, literature, and sexology—joins forces with his colleagues.

Events spin out of control after President Martin appoints billionaire Winston Scarpino as a trustee. Scarpino, whose celebrity golf course adjoins the college’s property, enlists a shady hedge fund broker to help bolster the school’s sagging endowment. The microcosm of a once-idyllic college campus unexpectedly mirrors the explosive turbulence of our macrocosmic world.

“…vigorous and entertaining… ruminative.” – Kirkus Reviews

A short B.B.C. Interview/Reading is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw6uU7CuZ3c

Cover design: Grant King

“Art and Media Symbiosis” – Just Published

My wide-ranging essay connects the dots between Daguerre’s theatrical dioramas and the daguerreotype, Morse’s paintings and the telegraph, and the emergence of mixed genres, multimedia, performance art, the iPhone, and AI. “Art and Media Symbiosis” has just been published in the latest (and final) issue of PAJ: a Journal of Performance and Art. Certainly a collectors item.

TWO NEW YOUTUBE iMOVIES FOR THE HOLIDAYS

To celebrate the holidays and New Year I've made two new iMovies:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS SPECIAL

Everyone loves the colorful lights, decorations, and excitement, but…well, the holidays can quickly go off the rails! To celebrate the festivities, BBC broadcaster Basil Wraithbone returns to the Happy Valley Retirement Village to reconnect his friends and report on their comical holiday shenanigans. (I play all eight characters.) The Happy Valley series can be traced back to my childhood marionette theater, which fired my desire to become the puppets! (14:14)

FLASH POINTS

Our digital world enables us to perceive details and nuances much more quickly. For this video, I've “gene s(p)liced” movements from an ongoing dance solo by using iPhone and computer to transform the intervals and movement sequences. The voiceover is a revelatory text from Albert Einstein. (5:34)

Wishing you and your family Happy, Peaceful, and Fulfilling Holidays!

Click to watch HAPPY HOLIDAYS SPECIAL

Click to watch FLASH POINTS

THE DISAPPEARING GAME : New Novel

My new novel The Disappearing Game has just been published by Club Lighthouse Publishing. It’s available in paperback from Amazon and the publisher, as well as in all digital formats for e-readers and mobiles.

An actor, adept at impersonations, encounters unusual adventures when he moonlights at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum performing doubles of the effigies, which leads, through unexpected circumstances, to an explosive scandal that exposes the hidden secrets behind worldwide politics.

Kirkus Reviews: “…shocking events unfold. King’s story is ambitious in its attempt to tackle a range of sociopolitical issues.”

This novel might well forecast the future of AI and politics!

My “BBC” interview (on my YouTube channel Kenneth King Media) features short readings from the novel: bit.ly/3PuFO88.

Book cover design & illustration: Grant King

"Making Movies" in Performing Arts Journal

My “Making Movies” article has just been published in the September issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. (Serendipitously, I released my newest YouTube comedy, Blowout At Happy Valley a week ago!)

My fascination began unexpectedly in college when I appeared in the “underground” movies of New American Filmmakers Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas and Gregory Markopoulos. This essay moves through my dance video explorations to my recent comedies including my Happy Valley Retirement Village series on my YouTube channel Kenneth King Media, as well as insights into the media symbioses of computers, mobiles, and screens.

You can read the beginning of “Making Movies” here.

BLOWOUT AT HAPPY VALLEY – New Comedy on YouTube

The gang is back and in a tizzy…they’ve captured undercover Russian oligarch spy Boris Badenough—who’s been trying to take over Happy Valley! BBC broadcaster Basil Wraithbone returns to report on the shenanigans of resident retired actresses Katherine Heartburn and Tallulah Bankhead, feisty 151-year old Ole’ Grandpa, construction worker Buddy, TV fanatic Randy Pincer, and chef Foo Chi.

Writing comic dialogue, acting and performing the voices for these eight zany characters continue to be a fun challenge!

Watch it: bit.ly/47Ot58z

IMPOSSIBLE TONGUE TWISTERS: on YouTube

Because the world is making us increasingly tongue-tied, I decided to put it to work! IMPOSSIBLE TONGUE TWISTERS, my new YouTube short, adapts some of my twenty-five tongue twisters that were originally danced, but until now haven't been performed on camera: https://bit.ly/3IwLahi

Tongue twisters are a fun, mind-boggling challenge, and because they play with assonance and alliteration, suggest a twilight zone where riddles, puns, aphorisms, and anagrams intersect in whimsical ways.

They're also a good warm-up technique for vocal performers. The trick is to say them as quickly as possible! 

KENNETH KING INTERVIEW : new movie

In my first interview with Basil Wraithbone, BBC, I spill the beans about the childhood experiences that led me to become a performer, writer, and to make character movies. Voila!

"Halloween Showdown at Happy Valley" : New Movie on YouTube

Autumnal colors, festive decorations, and the thrill of dressing up and becoming another character— Halloween is always a magical event. To celebrate, my new movie Halloween Showdown at Happy Valley is now on YouTube!

During these trying pandemic times, creating comedy has become a necessary provocation and making videos a fun challenge—how else would I be able to write and act eight characters in seventeen minutes?! (And thank goodness for YouTube, the digital performance highway.)

The Happy Valley gang is back as Halloween kicks into high gear at this madcap retirement village! Boris Badenough, undercover Russian oligarch, schemes to take over the property and steal all the assets, while Basil Wraithbone, BBC reporter, returns to query the seniors about identity politics.

"Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia" published in Performing Arts Journal

My wide-ranging article, "Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia" has just been published in the Fall (September) issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art.

Editor Bonnie Marranca, who has made a heroic contribution for decades illuminating the performing arts, writes in her introductory editorial:

"Transmission of meanings and experiences is taken up by Kenneth King (incidentally, also a dancer/writer), who brings his historical understanding of science and technology and a poetic imagination, to this subject ranging from the ancient world of cave paintings and the pyramid of Giza, to technological invention and industrialization, and to the arts of painting, cinema, photography, and on to biogenetics, computers, AI, and, of course, viruses. King reflects on what the computer screen and internet are doing to the human mind in the ceaseless transmission of information."

The opening paragraph and more information can be found on PAJ's website.

POLITICS 4 KIDS (& adolts) WITH MR. SNAIL—New Movie

While politics continue to razzle and cause a tizzy everywhere, Mr. Snail, the slowest animal in the world, has some aptly whimsical advice and explanations for all ages in this short movie (8:55 min).

AFTER AFTERIMAGES : New Movie

We're constantly processing afterimages that mostly occur below the threshold of awareness.

Featuring some of my t-e-l-e-g-r-a-p-h-i-c s-o-n-g-s, my latest movie plays with rapidly intercutting kinetic images to reflect the subliminal messages occurring in the interstices and intersections between words, sounds, and the blinking of our eyes.

You can view After Afterimages here. And watch more of my movies on my YouTube channel.

“Strung-Out Newscasters” : New Movie

When Strung-Out Newscasters was premiered on stage, the New York Times wrote: “A verbal tour de force…‘Saturday Night Live’ was never like this. Mr. King creates works that are exercises in perception.”

Now, using digital tools that enable image production and editing that would have been not only impossible but cost-prohibitive in live performance, I’ve recreated it as a virtual duel.

You can watch Strung-Out Newscasters here. And see more of my movies on my YouTube channel.

Two new short movies!

The digital possibilities of mobiles, video, and computers have preoccupied me as a performance alternative during all the uncertain upheavals of Covid. I've just completed two new movies, each about 6 minutes:

FOREIGN FLIC ★★★★ was first performed in concert and is now adapted as a four-star faux-noir thriller! Life is a movie—and the mysterious character in this flic might be in, and/or watching it. It’s accompanied by a very “foreign” word salad soundtrack: https://bit.ly/38ONBwx

KALEIDOSCOPTICS (Dance) - Dancing on screen activates the kinetic synapses while condensing and magnifying how we process the connectivity of intervals. Here's the link: https://bit.ly/3MUvkwm

You can watch more of my movies on my YouTube channel.

Happy Valley Retirement Village - Part 7

To celebrate the first anniversary of my comic movie series, the next installment features a whodunit with topical irony — a Russian takeover. REUNION @ HAPPY VALLEY RETIREMENT VILLAGE is now on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGC5boVWAnc (7:36 minutes).

It features the debut of Boris Badenough, fatcat Russian oligarch secretly scheming a takeover to steal Happy Valley and its assets, with the rest of the HVRV gang: 150-year Ole' Grandpa, British TV fanatic Randy Pincer, construction worker Buddy, actresses Kate Heartburn and Tallulah Bankhead, the renegade cook Foo Chi, and BBC reporter Basil Wraithbone. (I play all 8 characters. )

You can watch previous installments of the HVRV series and other performance videos on my Kenneth King Media channel on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3vHLh3c.

THE GLASS POND – New Novel Now Available!

Time, memory, and music create an unexpected looking glass as two lifelong friends reconnect after several years in my new novel, The Glass Pond.

All my novels are informational; this one is more personal and emotional, and "…will likely inspire new connections about life, death, and art” (Kirkus Reviews).

It’s now available in paperback and all digital formats from the publisher (Club Lighthouse Publishing) and from Amazon.

More about The Glass Pond here on my site.

Mr. Snail & Mr. Parrot—for children! (YouTube)

Mr. Snail 4 Kids is an adaptation for children (of all ages) of one of my goofier characters. In this video, “the slowest animal in the world" offers secrets and insights on the mysteries of space, time, and animals while riffing with his pal, Mr. Parrot.

When I originally performed him live, the New York Times remarked: “The world has finally caught up with Kenneth King... At his best he is a snail, with huge antennae, inching up in a chair in ‘Ask Mr. Snail.’”

Watch us here on YouTube!

Happy Valley Retirement Village: Parts 3 - 6

The concluding installments of my six-part comic movie, Happy Valley Retirement Village, in which I play seven antic characters, can now be viewed on my YouTube channel.

Parts 3 through 6 each feature an "exclusive" interview by probing BBC reporter, BASIL WRAITHBONE, with: KATHERINE HEARTBURN, the indefatigable 116-year-old actress; RANDY PINCER, newly-appointed advice columnist; OLE' GRANDPA, irascible 150-year old, and TALLULAH BANKHEAD, the witty 119-year old actress infamous for outrageous behavior.

See the latest installments (and all available videos of my work) here: https://bit.ly/3u9BjVI.

Graphic Design: Grant King

"Art–Media–Manipulation" in PAJ

My essay “Art—Media—Manipulation” appears in the September 2021 issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, published by MIT Press. It surveys the historical precedents of multimedia and how the 1960s NYC’s downtown avant-garde art and performance scenes’ mixing of media pioneered the interactive virtuality of our digital world.

“The artist Kenneth King provides a far-reaching history of media and technological developments from the 1960s on up to today, resulting in what he calls 'cyberthesia.' He plots out developments across the arts and humanities and sciences in a much-needed historical view of how we got here, speculating on what the proliferation of platforms, streaming, and social media after a year of lockdown will produce as post-pandemic art.” (Bonnie Marranca, Editor, PAJ)

Here’s a PDF link of the essay: https://direct.mit.edu/pajj/issue/43/3%20(129)

Copies of PAJ are available at some bookstores and at https://direct.mit.edu/pajj.

SCANDAL at Happy Valley Retirement Village! (Part 2)

Secret’s out—the hidden cameras and sex scandal at this senior facility have been discovered and the lawsuits are flying!

The second part of my antic movie SCANDAL AT HAPPY VALLEY RETIREMENT VILLAGE (Part 2) is now on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2RQN3x8

In it I play seven comic characters: Basil Wraithbone, BBC reporter; Buddy, a construction worker; Ole’ Grandpa, oldest man in the world; Tallulah Bankhead, infamous comedienne; Randy Pincer, London TV fanatic; Katherine Heartburn, celebrated actress; & Foo Chi, renowned chef.

Check out Part 1, too!: https://bit.ly/3tJbR7u