A Brief History of the Damagomi Group

A Brief History of the Damagomi Group recounts the history of the fictional Damagomi Group; a group of spiritualists and academics allegedly active in Northern California from the 1920s until the late 1970s. It was the goal of the group to find alternative forms of communication with the natural world. The film pieces together the history of this elusive group using historical as well as fabricated documentation. Some of the characters who play a role in the group are historical figures and some are invented. I also use a number of historical sites as backdrops for documentation of alleged activities of the group and situate re-enactments of these activities in these same locations. The line between the originals and reconstructions is purposefully kept ambiguous and they are used interchangeably throughout the project.

The film A Brief History of the Damagomi Group is the culmination of the broader Damagomi Project. This project uses history, speculative fiction and reenactment to create an alternative lens through which to view the relationship between technology and nature. The project takes the form of an ever-expanding archive which pieces together the history and potential future of the Damagomi Group. The archive includes documentation such a historical texts, photographs, films and object artefacts, as well as re-enactments of experiments allegedly carried out by the group.

The archive and story of the Damagomi should not only generate the feeling of authenticity, it must become its own authentic world in which a distinct logic defines the parameters of the work being made within it. Thus the central quest of the Damagomi; to find a ‘non-anthropocentric form of communication with the natural world’ is also the goal of the project. In this sense the archive represents a series of thought experiments in physical form that try to approach the seemingly impossible task of stepping out of our own human perspective.