Residency

I am happy to announce that from autumn 2023 I am Artist and Researcher in Residence at the Swedenborg Centre, the locus of the Swedenborg Society in London.

I am researching the 18thC painter, stage designer and VFX artist Phlip James de Loutherbourg. Loutherbourg is the ‘missing link’ between art and cinema. A stage designer who developed the first ‘mechanical’ theatre show aimed at delivering a sublime ‘proto-cinematic’ experience, Loutherbourg was also a serious alchemist and occultist.

The Swedenborg Residency will involve my researching this little-known but tremendously influential artist, his occult practice, his friendships and his life in 18thC London.

I am working on the following projects:

  • Creating a version of his remarkable ‘Eidophusikon’ mechanical theatre.
  • Writing a graphic novel ‘Reanimating the Mystagogue’ on the life and work of Loutherbourg,
  • Writing and producing a play, ‘Apologia’, on the life of Loutherbourg’s friend Alessandro Cagliostro

The research will be the foundation of an eventual biography of Loutherbourg.


You can find me at

Swedenborg House

20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH

View online:

My talk about Loutherbourg on SHWEP (the Secret History of Western Esotericism podcast) with Earl Fontanelle

‘Magic, Technology, Art, and Enlightenment’

Works by de Loutherbourg:

Loutherbourg’s Eidophusikon mechanical theatre 1781



Apologia: the Life of Alessandro, Count Cagliostro – a stage play directed by Jagoda Kamov starring Maurizio Molino written by Gillian Mciver