MARCUS JOHN HENRY BROWN
performance artist
A WICKED PACK OF CARDS
available now on amazon
Old Gods, venture capitalists, business process outsourcers, keynote speakers, a business magician and A Wicked Pack Of Cards come together in this genre-defining long-form poem.
Marcus John Henry Brown is a performance artist based in Munich. Born the son of lorry-driving Scotsman, Marcus moved to Germany in 1993 having studied Art & Social context at Dartington College of Arts. He has over 25 years of professional communications experience and splits his time between mentoring young creatives, answering questions for brands, businesses and consultancies and creating performance art that hacks business contexts. He also teaches people the secrets of public speaking.
Brown has created a series of critically acclaimed performances. The series looks at the relationship and impact of technology, culture and commerce on society.
THE PASSING TRILOGY
The critically acclaimed performance trilogy that looks at how technology, hustle and influencer culture and the relentless pursuit of commercial growth are changing the face of society.
THE PASSING
Performance duration: 27 minutes
Set in 2059, The Passing is a performance that explores a society designed by advertising executives, biochemists, spies, startups and fashion bloggers, the worst possible people to take on building a better world for us all to live in. The Passing describes a future where too much time and trust have been placed in the products of middle-upper class white men: The Coalition.
THE SENSORIUM PROCESS
Performance Duration: 30 minutes
Set in 2020, The Sensorium Process explores the birth of a society whose values are based on hustle, struggle, brand reach, neo-libertarianism, advertising and influence. It's a society that has been designed by a clandestine innovations agency called The Black Operatives Department for its sole client: The Coalition.
FLEX
Performance duration: 60 minutes
London. 2021
They have come in their hundreds to see him speak, The Unrequited. They have come to seek guidance, to find the light and take themselves to the next level. He will show them the way through the Sensorium Process, that final trial to prove that they have the skills, the knowledge and a brand strong enough to escape the island and enter into the coalition network. They have watched his pay-for-view-streams, bought his bible and now they are here to see him at this, his spectacular live show. They are the final batch, for the final Sensorium test. Tyler is quite literally their last chance.
FLEX is funny and dark but it’s a warning too, as it imagines a society built upon the values of marketing and influencer culture, the collapse of political integrity and the march towards sovereign individualism. FLEX is a confrontation: the audience becomes The Unrequited with Marcus John Henry Brown playing his strangest character yet, Tyler X.
ENTERPRISE KEYNOTES
Bespoke keynotes that can be adapted for your internal corporate events.
WHAT THE PAPERS SAY
THE BLACK OPERATIVE PERFORMANCES
The Black Operatives Series are part performances, part satire, part dystopian parables of our times. These performance hacks are rallying calls for resistance, hope, romance and compassion.
2014
THE PLEDGE, THE TURN, THE PRESTIGE – THE SNOWDEN PITCH
“The Pledge, The Turn, The Prestige – The Snowden Pitch” is a fictional pitch presentation that approaches the NSA as if it were a client with an unlimited budget, an image problem within the espionage community and explores Edward Snowden as the protagonist of the biggest worked shoot the world has ever seen.
The talk explores why the NSA would have done this, what they would have to gain and, more importantly, it considers that which we have not yet seen – The Prestige.
2015
PURPOSE OF ENTRY
May 2018. A post-election Europe is coming to terms with the political shift towards the right, the end of the Euro and the gradual closing of sovereign digital borders. Europe is coming to terms with the warmth and comfort of a dystopian dream. There are safety and comfort in the knowledge that each country now has its own Internet - an Internet with strictly controlled borders. It’s an Internet where passports are issued. It’s an Internet with border crossings that are owned by each national government but outsourced to and run by commercial enterprises.
Applications must be made in order to cross the borders of the Internet of a foreign country. Applications and border crossings are processed by an algorithm called RACHEL.
2015
THE PARALLEL
Have you ever wondered what happens to the posts that no one ever sees? Have you ever had the feeling that there is another, mysterious – slightly sinister, parallel timeline that is full of carefully crafted content and marketing strategies and ideas: ideas that fall through the holes of Facebook’s reach and are never seen by the eyes of humans? Welcome to The Parallel.
2016
LOVE, THE MACHINE AND THE GHOST.
It’s 2019. The Black Operatives Department have been forced into hiding: not only was there no space for their covert advertising services in a world run by Trump but they are now considered a threat. The Alt-Right have swept across the United States and Europe’s "Coalition of the Right" have successfully implemented the “Wasteland Act” and digital border controls are firmly in place. Data and programs, it would appear, didn’t make us better, happier or safer. But the Black Operatives Department have been working quietly in the shadows on an antidote. They have decided to rise again as a resistance to the horror that they helped create: the horror of RACHEL.
CHEMISTRY
2019
A bright new day breaks over the Bavarian city of Munich. A crowd of communicators gather at the conference centre to hear the man speak. Invite only. A chemistry meeting. Many of them had only ever heard his name whispered in passing, his company an industry rumour that had lingered in the dark corners of advertising history: The Black Operatives Department. The Bay of Pigs, a November day in Texas, a Princess who had vanished with incredible sleight of hand, Project Blue, Project Orange, Snowden and, of course, Brexit had all been campaigns attributed to this ghost agency. And now, here he was, reaching out from the shadows: reaching out to his colleagues on the other side, forced out of hiding by a recession that he himself had caused. He’s looking for partners, to expand, to franchise and to save his business by bringing his clandestine communication products into mainstream marketing. Will he find any takers?
CONTROL
2019
The room is full: full of the smartest, freshest minds that the Black Operatives Department had to offer. The memo had been mysterious, to say the least, but that, in itself, wasn’t particularly surprising. This was, after all the Black Operatives Department, the worlds only covert communications agency.
Nathan Banfield had invited them. An important moment in the organisation's history, it had said. Tell know one, it had said. Bring an open mind he had demanded.
The auditorium was small but packed. Nathan had decided to use their Zürich offices for this very special event and the vibe was ordered and neat. Nathan stood in the wings waiting for the last of his colleagues to take their seat. There was a countdown on the screen, it was counting down to what Nathan had promised to be a New Day and a New Way.
He was nervous. This would indeed be a new way. A massive change in the way they would be doing business. The end of the old ways and an admittance, to a certain degree that they had, as an organisation failed.
The countdown finally reached zero.
Nathan stepped up onto the stage and took a deep breath. He was dressed in his agency uniform and was connected, as ever to the main office through his earpiece. There was a lot riding on this and he knew that the senior management or The Table Of Faces as they were known within the Black Operatives Department would be watching from afar.
Find out more about control here.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES
You might get speakers who are thrilled about the modern age, and you might get those who warn you about it. But you won’t find anyone who delivers a dystopia as engaging, entertaining, thoughtful and incredibly well told as Marcus John Henry Brown does. You’ll not simply get a talk, you’ll get a show.
Johnny Haeusler
Co-Founder re:publica
PREVIOUS PERFORMANCES
Bringing performance hacking to a wide range of brands, business events, conferences and festivals.
BOOKING MARCUS JOHN HENRY BROWN
Would you like to book Marcus John Henry Brown's The Passing, The Sensorium Process, FLEX or CHEMISTRY for your business event, Festival or conference? Would you like to find out how he can mentor you and your staff or teach you the secrets of keynote speaking? You can reach him here.
Marcus John Henry Brown UG
82 Harthauser Str.
81545 Munich
Germany
+49 (0) 89 559 329 22