Artaud

This unique book, by the leading English-language authority on Artaud, explores the extremes of Artaud's work -- work that is traversed by forces of ecstacy and annihilation, and sutured together by a raw imagery of the screaming human body.

For the first time, the book gives a full and authoritative account of Artaud's film projects, and his conception of surrealist cinema. It examines his unique series of drawings of the fragmented human body, begun in the ward of a lunatic asylum and finished in a state of furious liberation. Finally, the book captures Artaud's ultimate experiment with the screaming body in the form of his censored recording To Have Done With The Judgement Of God -- an experiment which is unprecedented in the history of art, and which ultimately decimates that history.

The Screaming Body also expertly explores the links between Artaud's work and that of other legendary figures, counter-cultures and avant-garde groups, such as the Lettrist and Situationist movements, the Vienna Action Group, Tatsumi Hijikata and his Japanese Butoh performance art form, and many others.

The Screaming Body is an essential study for those seeking to document contemporary arts and culture.