tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23085026191751943722024-03-18T23:42:13.130-03:00Slow Theorysumugan sivanesan | sivanesan.netUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-41272385030569737102023-10-13T06:00:00.012-03:002023-11-14T16:41:48.349-03:00Reparative Architecture: Anujah Fernando’s ‘Kantstraße 104a’, Berlin Art Link.<p><i></i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitEM9_56PPYwDY1uRBrlYRSIEtUUykmKxlp0Xhezia5qT-GEDMNqmsMi58colyrYQ9Pm9vd_XNVyZHV6gWJiuA5HLaN6fXp7beX7uSTcRaO-dWFJMUIgZ3coYkRXFXkpW4vcuAN4i150JTDDKJPBJ_wA1ealQh1gI1dnMiK1thEMQR4tXQzd4oABnAJ4M/s800/berlinartlink-fernando-kantstrasse104-c_Allan-Laurent_23-1.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitEM9_56PPYwDY1uRBrlYRSIEtUUykmKxlp0Xhezia5qT-GEDMNqmsMi58colyrYQ9Pm9vd_XNVyZHV6gWJiuA5HLaN6fXp7beX7uSTcRaO-dWFJMUIgZ3coYkRXFXkpW4vcuAN4i150JTDDKJPBJ_wA1ealQh1gI1dnMiK1thEMQR4tXQzd4oABnAJ4M/w640-h427/berlinartlink-fernando-kantstrasse104-c_Allan-Laurent_23-1.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anujah Fernando: ‘Kantstraße 104a: an archive survey (detail),’ 2023,
installation view at Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Villa Oppenheim. Photo by Allan Laurent</td></tr></tbody></table><i> </i><p></p><p><i>இனி வந்தென்ன வராமல் என்ன [Does It Matter Now If I Come or Go]–Letters
from Kantstraße 104a </i>(2023) is a docu-fiction film and visual arts
installation, currently on view at Villa Oppenheim, Museum
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Made by Berlin-based cultural scholar,
curator and filmmaker Anujah Fernando, the film and installation
elaborate on archival research, interviews and onsite documentation of
Pension Kant. This hostel in West Berlin housed asylum seekers escaping
the civil war in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, and currently hosts migrants
fleeing the war in Ukraine.</p><p>Read at <a href="https://www.berlinartlink.com/2023/10/13/anujah-fernando-docufiction-film-kanstrasse104a-tamil-migrants/">Berlin Art Link</a>. <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-30765247835836516942023-08-17T06:00:00.024-03:002023-11-30T11:32:15.823-03:00“Karaoke Theory/Karaoke Therapy”, Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis 109, 2023<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUu31s39k6jxLuiAe_Qa59SSR8Wg0bInPMEZuhUFZYDXwysI-zxSyYgshTOIAX3lQw0YRk0yXdLu_6dNdZoS9NP-9ojPKtnNV_E2-9xKoVTJh8iBOCSI_v4TIZlZFHhp_eEUdGLrESrEGIzXdfCSWhYvjh35rz_1B4La6eOxbTmjEDqKVgPOmTyTptOXw/s1200/Karaoke_AAAVJournal109_1200x900.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUu31s39k6jxLuiAe_Qa59SSR8Wg0bInPMEZuhUFZYDXwysI-zxSyYgshTOIAX3lQw0YRk0yXdLu_6dNdZoS9NP-9ojPKtnNV_E2-9xKoVTJh8iBOCSI_v4TIZlZFHhp_eEUdGLrESrEGIzXdfCSWhYvjh35rz_1B4La6eOxbTmjEDqKVgPOmTyTptOXw/w640-h480/Karaoke_AAAVJournal109_1200x900.gif" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoon by Olav Westphalen (2021) from the <a href="https://www.vda.lt/en/doctoral-studies/congress-2021">X-disciplinary Congress on Artistic Research and Related Matters, Vilnius Academy of Arts, October 14-17th, 2021</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><b><i> </i></b><p></p><p><b><a href="https://leidykla.vda.lt/lt/leidinys/1293521618/acta-academiae-artium-vilnensis-109"><i>Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis: The Uses and Abuses of Artistic Research in Post-Disciplinary Academia</i>, No. 109, 2023.</a></b></p>
<p>Editors of this issue: Aldis Gedutis, Vytautas Michelkevičius</p>
<p><a href="https://aaav.vda.lt/journal/issue/view/aaav109">https://aaav.vda.lt/journal/issue/view/aaav109</a> <br /></p><p>This Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis (AAAV) issue brings together
selected papers presented during the congress. Some of the articles are
written by scholars and some by artist-researchers from all around the
world. Aldis Gedutis and Vytautas Michelkevičius lay the ground for
artistic research and discuss the labyrinth of inter-, trans- and other
prefixes in arts and sciences as well as justify the trans-epistemic
community as the caretaker of artistic research. John Hillman claims the
practice is a symptom of research, while David Maroto presents
“fictocritical” writing as a lifesaving boat for artists who want to
seamlessly merge their fiction writing skills with (critical) theories.
Magda Stanová guides us to artistic thinking in scientific research,
while Greg Bruce flies us over the Atlantic Ocean and presents outlines
of the local (Canadian and French-speaking world) concept of artistic
research – research<br />-creation. Bettina Minder and Pablo Müller return us
back to earth in order to see how artistic research works in doctoral
programs and courses in Switzerland. Andrew J. Hauner helps us witness
an experimentally written research paper and question the existing
formats of research outcomes. Raivo Kelomees proposes and defends a
challenging hypothesis about the animistic relationship between a viewer
and an artwork, whereas Sumugan Sivanesan allows us to swing and linger
between karaoke theory and therapy. Finally, Christiane Keus proclaims
the present condition as Postresearch!</p><p>-</p><p><b>Karaoke Theory/Karaoke Therapy</b></p><p>This article, an outcome of practice-based artistic research, concerns
singing as a therapeutic performance and conveyor of knowledge. It
arises from my project fugitive radio, which responds to the uptake of
radio in contemporary art by pursuing experimental modes of
“performance-radio.” Following a voicing event in Helsinki, a colleague
suggested that singing had been “somehow civilized out of us”, prompting
me to investigate connections between singing, therapy, and knowledge
and in relation to the global phenomenon of karaoke singing. </p><p>Read in <a href="https://aaav.vda.lt/journal/article/view/166">AAAV Journal</a>.<br /></p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-39665463220367856342022-12-22T10:00:00.014-03:002023-07-20T05:00:04.706-03:00"Techno on the Radio: Constant’s Techno-Cul-de-Sac", MARCH<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil3egOzEkk3A_zCw9ZbziMhHUY5ZS5xR-Ss414A9cKe5Mhtktvpf28FT5rAu8PXWNkfuEWomj92SiP0-tA42MZOSTECssPXa2tr158NE-FMiDIf5DQGuRwUKvZZ5hqKsdyr1CwpyF71pq6bZX855iRwIUThOT-JVzdLeMiRaWGda7c2x4LnKcEgcoY/s2560/20221125_183044-scaled.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil3egOzEkk3A_zCw9ZbziMhHUY5ZS5xR-Ss414A9cKe5Mhtktvpf28FT5rAu8PXWNkfuEWomj92SiP0-tA42MZOSTECssPXa2tr158NE-FMiDIf5DQGuRwUKvZZ5hqKsdyr1CwpyF71pq6bZX855iRwIUThOT-JVzdLeMiRaWGda7c2x4LnKcEgcoY/w640-h360/20221125_183044-scaled.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Techno-Cul-de-Sac worksession “alleycasting” concluding event at Studio Techno-Cul, November 25, 2022.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />
<a href="https://constantvzw.org/">Constant</a>’s recent worksession, <a href="https://technoculdesac.constantvzw.org/">Techno-Cul-de-Sac</a>, co-convened by members Martino Morandi and Peter Westenberg (November 20–25, 2022), proposed a collective encounter with Brussels via an investigation of zoning, infrastructure, and technology, bringing together artists, architects, and urban researchers. I joined on the basis of my current artistic-research interest, <a href="https://fugitive-radio.net/">fugitive radio</a>, which seeks to develop collectively-realized modes of “performance-radio” using free and open-source tools. As such, I was particularly interested in zones determined by communication infrastructures: “network coverage, whether by cables or by the aether: phone lines, optical fibers, 4G, 5G, FM.” As someone engaged with interventions I was drawn to the worksession’s questions: What are possible strategies to express disagreement, temporarily or structurally in the urban space? As private property and public space melt into each other, what modes of dissent help us rethink public space and public action?
<br /> </p><p>Read more at <a href="https://march.international/techno-on-the-radio-constants-techno-cul-de-sac/">MARCH</a>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-19100920603148129292022-07-14T23:00:00.023-03:002022-08-15T05:43:26.705-03:00‘CTM 2022: Contact Traces’, MARCH is a journal of art & strategy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdpCuVVwRCp04WXV5GQARNuAV5Tsq5OscMVKTp4jwbFrboP1_9c7_4INLz2x1o84CRdRjpB6ieZpxQ48UEsDI9U5H0vUtwTUvURYfk07nlVmNavxPQlmwDU4PspzE-JzcaXvcjd6TmEZX-E4jXgtp6xBFqUHH3fFc_DGCeUcCFH3zZ3CJhbaCa0_D/s4653/MoorMother-Volksbuehne20220527_Stefanie%20Kulisch-CTM%20Festival%202022.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="3102" data-original-width="4653" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdpCuVVwRCp04WXV5GQARNuAV5Tsq5OscMVKTp4jwbFrboP1_9c7_4INLz2x1o84CRdRjpB6ieZpxQ48UEsDI9U5H0vUtwTUvURYfk07nlVmNavxPQlmwDU4PspzE-JzcaXvcjd6TmEZX-E4jXgtp6xBFqUHH3fFc_DGCeUcCFH3zZ3CJhbaCa0_D/s600/MoorMother-Volksbuehne20220527_Stefanie%20Kulisch-CTM%20Festival%202022.jpg" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moor Mother, CTM x Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz © Stefanie Kulisch / CTM Festival 2022.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
In the context of Covid, “contact” corresponds to a contagion that is airborne and alludes to anxieties about sharing space and breathing the same air. Music also travels through air, and the ethnomusicologist Steven Feld claims that sound is a haptic sensation as changes in air pressure vibrate our eardrums. Indeed, music has long been mediatized and distributed in such a way that we are often “touched” by recorded or broadcast sounds, but there are other aspects of music performance that forge sonic cultures and aesthetics. The burgeoning philosophy of somaesthetics proposes that our bodies are an indispensable “tool of tools” and so by enhancing our bodily perceptions we may improve our quality of life. In my early attempts to write about dance, I was advised that rather than trying to “read” the performers’ movements I should attend to how they registered in my body; how did they make me feel? So while I consider how music affects me as an audience member, I am also keen to emphasize how audiences are receptors and, indeed, hosts for sounds. In particular, I was struck by the range of singing practices represented at this year’s festival. </p><p> <a href="https://march.international/ctm-2022-contact-traces/">Read at MARCH.</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-76323019320399735442022-07-07T04:05:00.009-03:002022-07-07T04:13:31.614-03:00‘Rude Awakenings’ OJ Da Tamil Rapper x Bo Sedkid for Thattu Pattu<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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By the time you read this <i>Wake Up</i> will be history. The track was written
and recorded in January 2022 and the video finished in March, yet it predicted
the political-economic crisis that struck in April. “The Sri Lankan Spring”,
some call it, recalling the peoples’ movements in Tunisia and Egypt that gave
rise to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements in 2011–12. So now the music
video arrives to you late, but nevertheless timely. Having pre-processed the
crises and the protests currently in play, <i>Wake Up</i>’s montage possesses
some visionary power. Rendered with film grain, dust and scratches it emerges as
already archival. Might it serve as a kind of divinatory tool? What does it
reveal?
<p>
OJ Da Tamil Rapper has been something of an enigma, hiding out in the hilltops of Nuwara Eliya where he tends to a farm. Bo Sedkid, the producer alias of artist and filmmaker Muvindu Binoy, is a versatile musician, known as a beatmaker and more recently as a singer-songwriter.
</p>
<p>
Read at <a href="https://www.thattu-pattu.com/ojxbosedkid">Thattu Pattu</a>.
</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-90619950877309723082022-03-01T13:11:00.042-03:002022-05-25T13:32:17.690-03:00Contact, COVID, Catharsis & Care: CTM Festival 2022 Part 1, 19 January–6 February, Berlin.<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjKnERZJPUBLC9wsCU_P_spymcbeG8DhJUomXyVKhBJtRrk--DfNlooeMFACqf0C-lR0EIz9PMRBXcYpw3NbV44sTBDQzCcxiK5_uXDS_sYJwX-RfIo8Gs-HJFxO-Lur6xz3iP9NTfhR4h115AxtxS_M2bq0xAtIZmfCY5YM_WVk80MAgSrH5xz7BB/s1200/CTM2022_Keyvisual_dates_1200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjKnERZJPUBLC9wsCU_P_spymcbeG8DhJUomXyVKhBJtRrk--DfNlooeMFACqf0C-lR0EIz9PMRBXcYpw3NbV44sTBDQzCcxiK5_uXDS_sYJwX-RfIo8Gs-HJFxO-Lur6xz3iP9NTfhR4h115AxtxS_M2bq0xAtIZmfCY5YM_WVk80MAgSrH5xz7BB/w640-h334/CTM2022_Keyvisual_dates_1200.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><i></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i>CTM, Berlin’s world renown annual festival of ‘adventurous music and art’, is split in two this year. Part 1 occurred between 19 January and 6 February and featured exhibitions, concerts and an online discourse program. Part 2 proposes a return to the festival’s showcase clubbing events, 24–29 May. This year’s theme ‘Contact’, addresses the global COVID pandemic: ‘Few things have been made so ambiguous and unsettling by living with the virus as contact, encounter, and touch.’<a href="#">i</a></i> <br /><br /><b>40 Years of Touch, Silent Green Kuppelhalle, 31/1.</b><br />The irony of London-based imprint Touch celebrating it’s 40th anniversary at CTM ‘Contact’ was not lost when it was announced that founders Jon Wozencroft and Mike Harding could not attend. Instead, Thomas Venker from Kaput magazine introduced the concert, recalling a recent conversation with the pair over Zoom.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">ii</a> Venker relayed how from the beginning Wozencroft and Harding approached Touch as a lifetime project that was emphatically not a label, which would have a ‘long-term effect’—so they claimed not to be surprised about the anniversary and were looking forward to another forty years. Venker partially attributed Touch’s endurance to the founders ignoring marketing advice and instead finding their own rhythm and pace, which they also encouraged their artists to do. ‘You can’t hurry art’, says Wozencroft.<a href="#">iii</a><br /><br />Indeed, Touch’s Berlin celebration rolled out unhurriedly. After delays at the doors of Silent Green’s <i>Kuppelhalle</i>, audiences hurried in from the chilly night to claim their seats in the domed octagonal-shaped auditorium of this former crematorium. Marta De Pascalis, replacing the Tapeworm before and in between performances, DJed a selection of music that spanned guitar drones, digitally stretched percussion, modulating synths and field recordings. Coupled with a slideshow of Wozencroft’s photographs, often seen on Touch releases, projected large above the stage, it set the context for the performances to come. The opening sets by crys cole and Oren Ambarchi, followed by Youmna Saba were my highlights. Also on the bill were Budhaditya Chattopadhyay and Ipek Gorgun.</span></div><p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="en-US"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLnlnLHWa7f6dCNgPh6m_a6B-UDvSCmgNdkLSE5FLq23gLlB8K1DThdKJXEVeUjjQmNObZp9-geRyjfNhuMvu2dQsLpcXar4FsQX94DVTtp4t3ombDUXk6CMpvNYBcsBCsetr0EkN9FUsuAcSuMCxYzEpCDY07f0aBxXPk1Fbx0jSJASLRlyYl1O3O/s1200/40%20Years%20of%20Touch%20Oren%20Ambarchi%20&%20crys%20cole_Photo-Udo%20Siegfriedt%20-%20CTM%202022_1200x885-72dpi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="1200" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLnlnLHWa7f6dCNgPh6m_a6B-UDvSCmgNdkLSE5FLq23gLlB8K1DThdKJXEVeUjjQmNObZp9-geRyjfNhuMvu2dQsLpcXar4FsQX94DVTtp4t3ombDUXk6CMpvNYBcsBCsetr0EkN9FUsuAcSuMCxYzEpCDY07f0aBxXPk1Fbx0jSJASLRlyYl1O3O/w640-h472/40%20Years%20of%20Touch%20Oren%20Ambarchi%20&%20crys%20cole_Photo-Udo%20Siegfriedt%20-%20CTM%202022_1200x885-72dpi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">40 Years of Touch Oren Ambarchi & crys cole. Photo: Udo Siegfriedt/CTM 2022</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span lang="en-US"> </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span lang="en-US">Sitting
behind a table of electronics and assorted objects, Ambarchi cradled
an electric guitar while cole handled a mixing desk. As Ambarchi
teased out long dissipating guitar loops, cole seemed to work with
recordings, occasionally murmuring into a microphone. Their
performance seemed intuitive, like they were playing a game. When
Ambarchi adjusted his amplifier to fold layers of feedback into the
mix, cole inserted chirping birds. When cole blew into a wooden
flute, Ambarchi responded with a wooden whistle, their elongated
breaths weaving into each other. I sat delighted wondering where this
would lead, when they suddenly cut it off and they began the game
again with different sonic prompts.</span></span></span></div><p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="en-US"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQeHvZwoPPQbrFNOuf4r0BAsCt0m3YCgZ26XTk9i3H2EYLnXF2B-E5Tdd4_Y0X25uaO4tb6dz1vEw2vAJy0NMt_IBig1pOS1MK17DeE_WWBiXfOYd9cbH0l7VN6y-rGgcSxDpqHW-jOgGqqzHXD74hWayaLW_m8vDVFlhYUq1Mz08MDbuBzow6RiW/s1200/40%20Years%20of%20Touch%20Youmna%20Saba-Udo%20Siegfriedt%20-%20CTM%202022_1200x888-72dpi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="888" data-original-width="1200" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQeHvZwoPPQbrFNOuf4r0BAsCt0m3YCgZ26XTk9i3H2EYLnXF2B-E5Tdd4_Y0X25uaO4tb6dz1vEw2vAJy0NMt_IBig1pOS1MK17DeE_WWBiXfOYd9cbH0l7VN6y-rGgcSxDpqHW-jOgGqqzHXD74hWayaLW_m8vDVFlhYUq1Mz08MDbuBzow6RiW/w640-h474/40%20Years%20of%20Touch%20Youmna%20Saba-Udo%20Siegfriedt%20-%20CTM%202022_1200x888-72dpi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">40 Years of Touch Youmna Saba. Photo: Udo Siegfriedt/CTM 2022</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p></p>Youmna Saba, a musician and musicologist, performed seated in a chair caressing a 12 stringed oud. Her long dark curls hung over faded black denim as she sang in a language I assume was Arabic. I was struck by her rhythmic plucking and looking closer noticed a device strapped to the bridge of her instrument with wires connected to a laptop. When she released notes a rumbling after effect came through the PA, a slightly unsettling mix of acoustics and digital signal processing. Saba is concerned with parallels between the Arab musical system and technology in composition and specifically with qasida, improvised vocal music interpretations of classical Arab texts.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">iv</a> During the latter part of her performance, her dexterous fingers came to rest and a dense textured sound gathered like a fog in the room as she sang a lament over the top. <br /><br />Noting how certain sounds registered on different parts of my body, I later recalled the ethnomusicologist Steven Feld describing sound as touch, as air presses against our eardrums. He observes that sound is an ever-present sensation—we don’t have ear-lids! Both of these acts made use of stringed instruments vibrating in a room, amplification, processed sounds and voice, to produce surprising sonic aesthetics and (psycho)acoustic sensations. Their performances were confident, novel and unpredictable, commanding attention. Qualities that are surely lost over livestream. <br /><br /><b><i>Modular Organ System</i>, Silent Green Betonhalle, 19–29/1</b><br />Philip Sollman and Konrad Sprenger’s performative installation was undoubtably the most expansive inclusion in CTM’s program. Sprawled across the large underground Betonhalle exhibition space at Silent Green, they showcased their deconstructed organ over several days of the festival. <br /><br /> Descending the long ramp into underground exhibition space was like crossing a metaphysical portal. Moving towards a white light at the end of the tunnel one came to a rack of speaker horns strapped to a trolley. Heaven is a thumping sound system, many would agree, and indeed Saint Peter was a security guard controlling the flow of punters during Covid restrictions.<br /> <br /> Down a flight of stairs into the sunken Betonhalle, one encountered a long conical horn, propped up on A-frames, running the length of the corridor — I’d guess 15 metres long — and pointing into the exhibition space. Here many other odd shaped speaker cones, pipes and horns were arranged, made from materials including fibreglass, paper mache and metals. Many of the objects were connected via tubes to wooden boxes housing air compressors, while others appeared to be stand-alone sculptures. The room-sized apparatus had a DIY feel, comprising materials that might have been sourced from Bauhaus. The centrepiece was a rotating arrangement of five horns and interlocking tubes that reminded me of the ad hoc plumbing in my share house. On opening night, spotlights beamed across the room into the mouths of horns and searchlights projected dramatic shadows on the bare walls. The room was buzzing and turning, seemingly automated by a pre-programmed score. ‘All stops out’, I punched into my notepad. Visitors wandered around inspecting details, occasionally pausing when stumbling into a sweet spot in the room. Some sat meditating before speaker cones. </span><p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="en-US"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKofY_wlWXWHixlTe8hDhnFw6uTKG14siQCgrtevIhA2Q4gXBYs0dALOeeXzHbiniJW4uz34Af8FAi7wEFOJwL_DY3IdXRAtkJ7kIwxsA6n2lPEMS4Q2n-PZvMhvCZzQ-6DyIwc2m_PQ9FAuyroEIGmFxJ6Iv0pMBxb8Y6WfzXT2vVV6fIWnIUch2/s1200/Phillip%20Sollmann%20&%20Konrad%20Sprenger%20-%20%C2%BBModular%20Organ%20System%C2%AB%20-Udo%20Siegfriedt%20-%20CTM%202022_1200x886-72dpi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="886" data-original-width="1200" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKofY_wlWXWHixlTe8hDhnFw6uTKG14siQCgrtevIhA2Q4gXBYs0dALOeeXzHbiniJW4uz34Af8FAi7wEFOJwL_DY3IdXRAtkJ7kIwxsA6n2lPEMS4Q2n-PZvMhvCZzQ-6DyIwc2m_PQ9FAuyroEIGmFxJ6Iv0pMBxb8Y6WfzXT2vVV6fIWnIUch2/w640-h472/Phillip%20Sollmann%20&%20Konrad%20Sprenger%20-%20%C2%BBModular%20Organ%20System%C2%AB%20-Udo%20Siegfriedt%20-%20CTM%202022_1200x886-72dpi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phillip Sollmann & Konrad Sprenger - Modular Organ System. Photo: Udo Siegfriedt / CTM 202</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Over nine evenings the <i>Modular Organ System</i> was performed by invited musicians for ‘concerts’ lasting six hours (16.00–22.00). Tickets were valid for a one hour slot. <br /><br />The Stockholm-based composer Ellen Arkbro (20.1) is known for her subtle, minimal compositions. In a puffy black parka, she was a restless shadow fiddling with air compressors to release tone sweeps that invited sympathetic resonances. As speaker cones rattled around the space, I could hear the distinct materiality of resin cones and steel pipes. To me Arkbro seemed to be testing and tuning the instrument, ie the room, rather than performing a piece. In an interview she explains: ‘Listening to time passing is an aesthetic experience for me, it is the stage for the music.’<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">v</a> <br /><br />Arnold Dreyblatt was the next guest (22.01). The media artist, composer and member of Berlin’s <i>Akademie der Künste</i> describes Sprenger (AKA Jörg Hiller) as his ‘most important collaborator’. Dreyblatt had installed numerous electric guitars on white plinths around the room. Attached to the instruments were motor-driven devices and magnifying glasses, inviting audiences to inspect how they had been treated. Some had their strings raised above the fretboards, enabling harmonics to ring out when struck at rapid speed — maximal microtones. Variation was most pronounced in the higher frequencies with the organ providing a stabilizing drone. <br /><br />Dreyblatt and Sprenger occupied a taped off area where they presided over laptops and other gear, suggesting some signal processing. I listened for overtones as bass notes bubbled up. When I left Dreyblatt was bowing an electric double bass, one of his signature gestures. <br /><br />Entering the following day for Brass Abacus (23.1), I found a quiet and attentive audience. A tuba player sat in the rotating horn sculpture emitting a static-like noise. Two trombonists were positioned at right angles in the room with the bulk of the audience gathered between. The musicians’ breathing was juxtaposed with the air powered organ setting a subtle background tone. After long sustained notes, the players’ occasional gasps and groans brought some drama to their focused performances. Brass sounds sharper and brighter than the System’s fibre glass cones, adding a distinct colour to the sonic spectrum. The beatings that occurred as frequencies approached each other registered as shifts in air pressure, with the piece gradually morphing from rasps and hisses into rich enveloping chords. <br /><br />When I entered for Will Guthrie (28.1), he was positioned in the centre of the room with a drum set and a large hanging gong. He began to play, fidgeting and restless against a foghorn two note fugue puncturing the organ drones with dramatic shifts in volume and texture. A dynamic performer, Guthrie became the focus of attention and many in the audience intuitively tapped and nodded along. I observed someone dancing with small gestures and I found it odd how the rest of us suppressed this urge, inhibiting our capacity for ‘corpoliteracy’ — a critical lens invented by curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.<a href="#">vi</a> Guthrie and the System made the atmosphere thick, so when they stopped playing the silence was stunning. The pause between sets became an extended moment of anticipation — a cliffhanger.</span><p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="en-US"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Wjp_11vIPwTeW0OyZjfet9q6FCjPK6vK-J4p6xUgktzlGxm9w_Nk5i1x-cr8Kooy6bXCFVZkXo2H71vUYN_vrsipdNpiwh8AlfLipwFvLnIXLWjHW5PuCTx9UNer-_zcjl1Mq052DXnqT86nqHL6H0EwGOc5oew2AOeiBNBEAYbduRaI0sCG9pCL/s1200/Kali%20Malone%20&%20Stephen%20O'MalleyB6825-Stefanie-CTM%202022_1200x800-72dpi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Wjp_11vIPwTeW0OyZjfet9q6FCjPK6vK-J4p6xUgktzlGxm9w_Nk5i1x-cr8Kooy6bXCFVZkXo2H71vUYN_vrsipdNpiwh8AlfLipwFvLnIXLWjHW5PuCTx9UNer-_zcjl1Mq052DXnqT86nqHL6H0EwGOc5oew2AOeiBNBEAYbduRaI0sCG9pCL/w640-h426/Kali%20Malone%20&%20Stephen%20O'MalleyB6825-Stefanie-CTM%202022_1200x800-72dpi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kali Malone & Stephen O'Malley. Photo: Stefanie/CTM 2022</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley (30.1) performed together for the finale. O’Malley, known for his band Sunn o))), is doom-drone royalty. Malone’s recent album ‘The Sacrificial Code’ (2019) is a slow and revelatory composition for pipe organ. Their concert was sold out with a queue to enter. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Malone was set up on a table in front of what looked like an upright pipe organ. She sat focused over a box of knobs and a laptop on which I caught a glimpse of a symmetrically arranged Max patch. O’Malley occupied the opposite side of the room, against a barricade of well worn guitar amplifiers. As he applied an EBow to his guitar strings gear nerds ogled at his array of pedals, while others in the audience lay on the ground, absorbing the low rumbles into their bodies. My notes read: harmonics + air pressure = full frequency body massage. Malone filled the room with long notes that would suddenly shift, accentuating overtones. I listened for microtonal beatings, and moved around the room trying to hear heterodynes, before she ended abruptly. Long minutes passed before O’Malley eased air into a low frequency horn and struck a slow a metal riff on his thin transparent-bodied instrument; dissonant notes resolving into a major bar chord. I thought of the lowest known note in the universe, a B-flat, as O’Malley hammered his strings to sound a metallic klang that contrast the drone.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">vii</a> <b> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fronte Vacou, <i>Humane Methods [ΣXHALE]</i>, radialsystem, 6/2. </b><br />The final event of CTM Part 1 was a performance/installation, <i>Humane Methods [ΣXHALE]</i> from Fronte Vacou (vaccinated front), a ‘bastard performing arts triumvirate’ founded by Marco Donnarumma, Margherita Pevere, and Andrea Familari. Installed at radialsystem, a riverside theatre complex, <i>Humane Methods [ΣXHALE]</i> is described in the festival program as ‘a living biome’ in which the audience is ‘immersed’ into a garden-like habitat of human performers, plant and fungal life, and an omnipresent AI named <dmb>.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">viii</a></span></div><p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="en-US"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbanuOX-kRzJChqPgyfbioFmLupxstBEo6ZHAQPZUbKe2iCutriV_0j6jUc8e4_RZ0NnIyyu3omiMJkNR0uPi1X2-TiRrlkO7ANWqwkpWvIUA8TaoKsnqwEJz4Vkqumge7xswh1arawL0v1sIFeYqMI4SYhAgVGrBSjcjPsFwVRJc12hGxiBrngR8/s1200/Humane%20Methods%20%5B%CE%A3XHALE%5D%20%E2%80%93%20Episode%201-%20Stefanie%20Kulisch-%20CTM%202022_1200x800-72dpi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbanuOX-kRzJChqPgyfbioFmLupxstBEo6ZHAQPZUbKe2iCutriV_0j6jUc8e4_RZ0NnIyyu3omiMJkNR0uPi1X2-TiRrlkO7ANWqwkpWvIUA8TaoKsnqwEJz4Vkqumge7xswh1arawL0v1sIFeYqMI4SYhAgVGrBSjcjPsFwVRJc12hGxiBrngR8/w640-h427/Humane%20Methods%20%5B%CE%A3XHALE%5D%20%E2%80%93%20Episode%201-%20Stefanie%20Kulisch-%20CTM%202022_1200x800-72dpi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Humane Methods [ΣXHALE] – Episode 1. Photo: Stefanie Kulisch/ CTM 2022</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">My ticket was for ‘Kategorie A’ and I shuffled into the designated door past a row of shambolic structures. Resembling greenhouses, they appeared to be made from scavenged materials; odd shaped plastic sheets affixed to wooden frames. I was ushered into one at the far end of the theatre. Inside, seats were arranged in rows for singles and couples with an aisle down the centre. There was a taped-off section behind us, presumably ‘Kategorie B’ in the tiered seating. After we claimed our spots, an usher entered with a stack of freshly laundered floppy red hoods. Covering our heads and hanging over our shoulders, we marked ourselves as a distinct group. I thought of <i>The Handmaid’s Tale</i> but we looked like a Smurf Armageddon — the absurdity of the mise-èn-scene. Sitting in anticipation, captive in our shattered shelter, I wondered if Kategorie B had the better seats, with a superior overview of the unfolding action. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">After the doors to our greenhouse was shut and the lights dimmed, near naked figures appeared outside. They looked weary and distressed, as they pressed up against the flimsy barriers between us. They leaned onto each other and lurched around the perimeters of the structures and the thin alleyways between the three shelters. The performers closest to me dragged a thin and seemingly unconscious man with distinctive full body tattoos. They made eye contact and caressed the walls, provoking empathy when they massaged the thin man’s legs. Another performer attempted to scale the walls of an adjacent structure. He failed to establish a grip and slid back. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I looked for hand signals and the performer closest to me made a gesture reminiscent of a cross. Small flat screens installed at head height flickered on: ‘Found Pattern 881.0’. I noticed one of the performers held a camera wrapped in a dirty rag, but the image on screen was not anything I could distinguish; high contrast and blurry; ‘Loop corrupted’. The soundtrack segued into what sounded like suspenseful strings and a stool was knocked over. The lights flickered off briefly and I sensed the action was reset, as performers raced back then again staggered down the aisle to tend to the unconscious man. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">As a meditation on ‘algorithmic violence’ where action and automation are integrated and repetition implied a cathartic ritual, Fronte Vacou presented an obtuse allegory.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">ix</a> After an hour or so, the house lights faded up and the glasshouse doors were opened, which we took as a cue to leave. The performers continued in the aisles as the theatre emptied. No explanation, resolution or relief; a dystopian garden of no respite. </span></div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc9L4b6sxS0UOWKeOS0lTswyddi-nnJJuXypN1IeLgV9BfLRLjCcgeVG6jdQmb2rYGFekTLSLlVX2xqSw1Noc_R_3tTY70_1vhRiVjeZLfAjIYTlCt_kLyu6ZmZ2SPJWBtkZIHIqChipM_nOUsrQ94uNFBKWXFzuK9CzGaR429FekJvqvmavGrB8YD/s1200/Humane%20Methods%20%5B%CE%A3XHALE%5D%20%E2%80%93%20Episode%201%20-%20Stefanie%20Kulisch-%20CTM%202022_1200x800-72dpi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc9L4b6sxS0UOWKeOS0lTswyddi-nnJJuXypN1IeLgV9BfLRLjCcgeVG6jdQmb2rYGFekTLSLlVX2xqSw1Noc_R_3tTY70_1vhRiVjeZLfAjIYTlCt_kLyu6ZmZ2SPJWBtkZIHIqChipM_nOUsrQ94uNFBKWXFzuK9CzGaR429FekJvqvmavGrB8YD/w640-h426/Humane%20Methods%20%5B%CE%A3XHALE%5D%20%E2%80%93%20Episode%201%20-%20Stefanie%20Kulisch-%20CTM%202022_1200x800-72dpi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Humane Methods [ΣXHALE] – Episode 1. Photo: Stefanie Kulisch/ CTM 2022</td></tr></tbody></table> <br />According to CTM: <br /><div style="margin-left: 40px;"> The pandemic has rendered many things we once took for granted fragile. Among them is the certainty that music holds spaces for us, where freedom, closeness, exuberance, and community are within reach … the inequality-reinforcing effect of the pandemic becomes apparent, because reducing contact might not be something one can afford, and its ramifications depend directly on their respective social status and economic resources.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">x</a><br /></span></div><br />I have no doubts about the significance of CTM to contemporary music and club culture so I certainly felt privileged to attend Part 1 physically, when so many — including those in the program — could not. Following threads on CTM’s Discord and Telegram channels, it occurred to me that electronic music communities might have more easily adapted to pandemic conditions, as much music production, distribution and promotion occurs via file sharing over networks, even while being together in sound is sorely missed. ‘Contact’ could also mean interpersonal networks that are ‘technologies of care’ — as Daphne Dragona, former Transmediale curator, might say.<span style="color: black;"><a href="#">xi</a> So while ‘music holds space for us’, CTM proves it is also an infrastructure for care, having established a context from which diverse organizing interests can begin.</span><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-US">– </span></span>
</p><span style="color: black;"><a href="#">i</a> <a href="#">“CTM 2022 Festival Theme”<br /></a><br /><a href="#">ii</a> See <a href="#">Thomas Venker’s interview with Jon Wozencroft and Mike Harding, “TOUCH: ‘We survived because there’s a lot of things that we chose not to do, which has worked out really well’ ”, <i>Kaput</i>, 22 February 2022.<br /></a> <br /><a href="#">iii</a> See <a href="#">Mike Harding interview by Bana Haffar, Brussels, May 4th, 2019.<br /></a><br /><a href="#">iv</a> See <a href="#">‘Youmna Saba’ (interview), <i>Cité Internationale des Artes</i>, n.d.</a><br /><br /><a href="#">v</a> <a href="#">“Fifteen Questions Interview with Ellen Arkbro: A Tender Moment”, <i>Fifteen Questions</i>, n.d.</a><br /><br /><a href="#">vi</a> Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, “Corpoliteracy”, In S. Angiama, C. Butcher, & A. Zeqo (eds.), <i>aneducation, documenta 14</i>, Archive Books, Berlin, pp. 107–115.<br /><br /><a href="#">vii</a> <a href="#">“Interpreting the ‘Song’ Of a Distant Black Hole”, <i>Goddard Space Flight Centre</i>, 17 November 2003.</a><br /><br /><a href="#">viii</a> <a href="#">“Humane Methods [ΣXHALE] – Episode 4”.</a><br /><br /><a href="#">ix</a> See <a href="#"> “Fronte Vacou ΣXHALE”</a><br /><br /><a href="#">x</a> <a href="#">“CTM 2022 Festival Theme”</a> <br /><br /><a href="#">xi</a> <a href="#">Daphne Dragona “Technologies of care: networks, practices, infrastructures”, 12 December 2019.</a></span><div id="sdendnote11">
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<p><style type="text/css">p.sdendnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: normal; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: left; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; margin-left: 0.24in; text-indent: -0.24in; margin-bottom: 0in; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: auto }p.sdendnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; letter-spacing: normal; background: transparent; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: zh-CN; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: left; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; margin-left: 0.24in; text-indent: -0.24in; margin-bottom: 0in; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: auto }p.sdendnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; letter-spacing: normal; background: transparent; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: hi-IN; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: left; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; margin-left: 0.24in; text-indent: -0.24in; margin-bottom: 0in; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; letter-spacing: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; margin-bottom: 0.1in; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: auto }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-size: 12pt; so-language: zh-CN; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-size: 12pt; so-language: hi-IN; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:link { text-decoration: underline }a.sdendnoteanc { font-size: 57% }</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-91249122529756619902021-11-15T09:55:00.013-03:002021-11-16T10:03:04.914-03:00Funny Feelings: ‘camouflage’ by Sonya Lindfors and working group, Berlin Art Link<p data-fontsize="16"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULMIvvWSpTQ7BRcAAxchswaFn16QhaZ3GbCvgmvDPnpcuiBcFZgAVmwetk_5wQyt35LiTv4i7t92NkV-bHL5UIL5bdTL7jsJ7p3-OUtHPrRieRUlb1BQtmWJknmC62jCs-3w6iiwRQUA/s2048/naukkarinen_camouflage_285a9627.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULMIvvWSpTQ7BRcAAxchswaFn16QhaZ3GbCvgmvDPnpcuiBcFZgAVmwetk_5wQyt35LiTv4i7t92NkV-bHL5UIL5bdTL7jsJ7p3-OUtHPrRieRUlb1BQtmWJknmC62jCs-3w6iiwRQUA/w640-h426/naukkarinen_camouflage_285a9627.jpg" title="Sonya Lindfors and working group, ‘camouflage’ (2021), Stoa Helsinki. Foto: Katri Naukkarinen" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sonya Lindfors and working group, ‘camouflage’ (2021), Stoa Helsinki. Foto: Katri Naukkarinen.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p data-fontsize="16">Sonya Lindfors and working group’s ‘camouflage’
(2021) contains props, gestures, dialogues and citations that make us
laugh, but not always comfortably. Problematising the gaze, it taunts
audiences with imagery that turns on culturally-engrained tropes,
prompting me to ask: who is humouring whom? </p>
<p data-fontsize="16">Sonya Lindfors is a Cameroonian-Finnish
choreographer and an educator. Berlin art audiences might know her as
part of the Miracle Workers Collective, a transdisciplinary, “anational”
community who formed for the Finnish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in
2019, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. In Finland, Lindfors
is a significant force. She has amassed accolades and is something of a
role model for a generation of artists, activists and intellectuals
grappling with issues of race, gender and multiculturalism. Following on
from the lauded ‘COSMIC LATTE’ (2018), ‘camouflage’ has languished in a
Covid-induced limbo for a year. So it’s no surprise to find a sold out
crowd gathered for its much-anticipated premiere at the theatre doors of
Stoa, East Helsinki’s notable community cultural centre. </p><p data-fontsize="16"><a href="https://www.berlinartlink.com/2021/11/12/sonya-lindfors-camouflage-stoa-helsinki/">Read at Berlin Art Link. <br /></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-9832201104012646962020-12-01T08:18:00.006-03:002021-11-23T07:03:58.805-03:00‘Killing the Dominant Narrative: Geopolitics and Training for the Future’, MARCH<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWvcveN9tx6aiP9frGOKnAJ-rgUBuR_kE8jxDha45s1xvO-zGvA23IyayBT0g3pSOUiJ_SV5SKyG37Xo_cSknihQ6gkubSANLPDv3nTGeEtdHxvxQ3yerVXJrPtQh7-8lULUp3JlhrU7s/s2048/Arrivati-LaToyaManly-Spain-AsuquoUdo-SchwabinggradBallett-Liz+Rech-NikolaDuric_003-2048x1362.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1362" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWvcveN9tx6aiP9frGOKnAJ-rgUBuR_kE8jxDha45s1xvO-zGvA23IyayBT0g3pSOUiJ_SV5SKyG37Xo_cSknihQ6gkubSANLPDv3nTGeEtdHxvxQ3yerVXJrPtQh7-8lULUp3JlhrU7s/w640-h426/Arrivati-LaToyaManly-Spain-AsuquoUdo-SchwabinggradBallett-Liz+Rech-NikolaDuric_003-2048x1362.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Arrivati (La Toya Manly-Spain and Asuquo Udo) & </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Schwabinggrad Ballett</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (Liz Rech and Nikola Duric), 2019.<br /></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
<i>Training for the Future</i> was an initiative developed by Studio Jonas Staal in conjunction with the 2019 Ruhr Triennale curated by Florian Malzacher and presented last fall (September 20-22). The “utopian training camp” was held in the impressive Jahrhunderthalle, a former gas powerstation cum Kraftwerk für Kultur set on the edge of Bochum, Germany’s sprawling Westpark. The site of a former steel works, it was revived for recreational and cultural purposes with circular pathways, spiraling bridges and staircases winding around landmark industrial ruins. </p><p> <a href="https://march.international/killing-the-dominant-narrative-geopolitics-and-training-for-the-future/">Read at MARCH Journal for Art & Strategy.</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-39497450078516079802020-11-26T07:58:00.025-03:002021-12-08T09:12:37.991-03:00‘Another Genealogy’ un Magazine 14.2<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKXSDJ_g3GfTFqEHBdkrlwzyIZf1oQWanQtQUNx8xdOJumdl_vj-CT_7CuOdoGAeob4DAK3pAXWdFLwbBhyphenhyphenW2hI03giayvgkXnmgnZ7AtFrWxPTZjsz9CLjQODq6OId3_hf6Tj3dA7nbc/s972/AnotherGenealogy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="906" data-original-width="972" height="597" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKXSDJ_g3GfTFqEHBdkrlwzyIZf1oQWanQtQUNx8xdOJumdl_vj-CT_7CuOdoGAeob4DAK3pAXWdFLwbBhyphenhyphenW2hI03giayvgkXnmgnZ7AtFrWxPTZjsz9CLjQODq6OId3_hf6Tj3dA7nbc/w640-h597/AnotherGenealogy.jpg" title="Another Genealogy un Magazine 14.2" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Another Genealogy’ (2020) (detail), Sumugan Sivanesan.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <p></p><p> Art and text piece featured in <a href="https://unprojects.org.au/article/3846/">un Magazine 14.2: ANTI/ANTE</a>.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-4514916895815793902020-09-01T06:39:00.027-03:002021-11-16T16:32:35.548-03:00 ‘Seeding a Revolution in Art: Luiza Prado de O. Martins and Amazoner Arawak at the Transmediale 2020’, Springerin<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEzRS6X-Bx-u7BJC8MkoeZWOpdw4cVHOVQnTn4xZjeK_nCatbrKY-meH8cKvpAnmKYffsc2dAVAlI3JKVbNw3MeNTS0bl_qd4mdsgBFXxZlnJmPvnKxa3VsZ7ySSBtCRrTIMqY7kgnKU/s1250/LuizaPrado-Shoreline-TM-2020.JPG" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="Installation view of ‘For Those Who Stand At Shorelines’ (2020)Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt for Transmediale." border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEzRS6X-Bx-u7BJC8MkoeZWOpdw4cVHOVQnTn4xZjeK_nCatbrKY-meH8cKvpAnmKYffsc2dAVAlI3JKVbNw3MeNTS0bl_qd4mdsgBFXxZlnJmPvnKxa3VsZ7ySSBtCRrTIMqY7kgnKU/w512-h640/LuizaPrado-Shoreline-TM-2020.JPG" title="‘For Those Who Stand At Shorelines’ (2020), Luiza Prado De O. Martins" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘For Those Who Stand At Shorelines’ (2020), Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt for Transmediale.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>For this year’s Transmediale “End to End” (28.01–01.02.2020), Berlin’s premier festival for media arts and digital culture drew on pre-internet ideas of the network to uncover potentials for sustainable social change.1 In 2019, the Berlin-based artist, scholar and designer Dr. Luiza Prado de O. Martins was awarded Transmediale’s Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research. From Brazil, Prado de O. Martins draws on feminist and ‘folk’ knowledge to discuss reproduction and the control of bodies, coloniality and radical forms of care. During her residency she met with activists, artists and elders representing marginalized groups in Berlin and Brazil to develop her research to encompass “entanglements between the ongoing climate crisis, fertility, land and belonging.” </p><p><a href="https://www.springerin.at/en/2020/3/der-samen-der-revolution-in-der-kunst/">Read at Springerin</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-11387312807234190692020-04-08T11:32:00.001-03:002021-01-28T07:54:27.105-03:00‘Reconsidered: Dhaka Art Summit 2020’, Arts of the Working Class<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pangrok Sulap unveil the collectively produced print.</td></tr>
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Originally titled ‘Collective entanglements’, my review of the <a href="http://artsoftheworkingclass.org/text/reconsidered-dhaka-art-summit-2020?fbclid=IwAR0EmmrPRniC6N2k8oXNma9PfAfr6qEJHZl94TZdRelNUv2ZJdP2W_9lm7I">2020 Dhaka Art Summit: Seismic Movements</a> published in <a href="http://artsoftheworkingclass.org/text/reconsidered-dhaka-art-summit-2020?fbclid=IwAR0EmmrPRniC6N2k8oXNma9PfAfr6qEJHZl94TZdRelNUv2ZJdP2W_9lm7I"><i>Arts of the Working Class</i></a><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Friends often joke that when bankers
get together they talk about art, but when artists get together they
talk about money. Given how the interests of private collectors,
philanthropic funds and state initiatives align to bankroll contemporary
art spectacles, it is impossible to have a critical discussion about
biennales and major periodic art events without raising their
entanglements with corporate interests. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">The
globalising system of contemporary art brings economic interests,
political power and institutions for the production of culture and
knowledge together with organisations and individuals dedicated to the
novel production of the new. The term ‘culture washing’ describes how
corporations and philanthropic organisations financed by those who
profit from exploitative practices, fund art events to manoeuvre their
name brands, align themselves with prestige culture and improve their
social capital. Alternatively, such arrangements also make contemporary
art available as a form of activism for the rich, as it is a means by
which the wealthy can flex their financial and political muscle to
promote issues such as climate change, gender justice and
decolonisation. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span><br />
<a href="http://artsoftheworkingclass.org/text/reconsidered-dhaka-art-summit-2020?fbclid=IwAR0EmmrPRniC6N2k8oXNma9PfAfr6qEJHZl94TZdRelNUv2ZJdP2W_9lm7I">Read on <i>Arts of the Working Class</i></a>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-69136834028888781592020-02-05T00:15:00.001-03:002021-11-16T10:03:47.550-03:00Healing Berlin: ‘Rituals of Care’ at Gropius Bau, Berlin Art Link<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcelo Evelin and Demolition Incorporado, ‘‘A Invenção da Maldade’ (The Invention of Evil)’, 2019. <br />Photo: Sumugan Sivanesan</td></tr>
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If art is an indicator of social wellbeing, Gropius Bau is an example of how major institutions act as intermediaries between state sponsors, corporate interests and their publics, suggesting the curatorial power to shape ethics. ‘CONNECT, BTS: Rituals of Care’ was part of an initiative to bring together contemporary art and pop music audiences, set up by South Korean boy band BTS. Curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, director of Gropius Bau, and Noémie Solomon and in collaboration with CONNECT, BTS art director Daehyung Lee, the series sought to explore the relationship between performance and healing; from somatic states to spiritual practices. The building was proposed to be a “conversation partner” with works that resonate with its history and physicality. </div>
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Opened in 1881 as a Museum of Applied Arts, Gropius Bau was left as a ruin after World War II. Re-opened in 1981, it stood on the border between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. The museum’s Lichthof atrium is a grand light-filled space distinguished by its patterned tiles, gilded columns and arched ceilings. I expect it was an intimidating interlocutor.<br />
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Read at <a href="http://www.berlinartlink.com/2020/02/04/healing-berlin-rituals-of-care-at-gropius-bau/">Berlin Art Link</a>.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-66882932686308813072020-01-18T00:00:00.000-03:002020-02-14T00:25:33.449-03:00Defying Sex Laws: ‘Around the World: An Evening of Lavani’ at Sophiensaele Berlin Art Link<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Gerhard F. Ludwig/Sophiensale, 2019.</td></tr>
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Savitri Medhatul from Kali Billi Productions appears on stage before the full house of Sophiensaele’s <i>Hochzeitssaal</i>. “Namaste!”, she beams and the not-exclusively-white audience responds in kind. Introducing the program’s premier in Berlin, Savitri informs the crowd that they are expected to interact; clapping, cheering and especially wolf-whistling will greatly enhance their experience of Lavani.</div>
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Read at <a href="http://www.berlinartlink.com/2020/01/17/defying-sex-laws-around-the-world-an-evening-of-lavani-at-sophiensaele/">Berlin Art Link</a>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com355tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-24818217288654766282019-11-09T08:01:00.003-03:002023-01-25T13:12:05.754-03:00‘A diaspora problem?’ Christopher Kulendran Thomas and Annika Kuhlmann’s Ground Zero and New Eelam, 4A Papers.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Installation view of <i>Being Human</i> (2019), Christopher Kulendran Thomas in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann, digital projection on acrylic. Presented in <i>Ground Zero</i>, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, 11 September – 15 December 2019. <br />Photo: Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti. Commissioned by V–A–C Foundation. Courtesy Schinkel Pavillon.</td></tr>
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<i> </i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Initially published in<a href="https://4a.com.au/articles/a-diaspora-problem-sumugan-sivanesan"> <i>4A Papers</i>, Issue 7, 2019.</a> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i> </i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>Ground Zero</i> (2019) is a slick and arresting spectacle by the young British-Tamil artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas in collaboration with Berlin-based curator Annika Kuhlmann. Opening during Berlin Art Week (11–15 September 2019), the installation has prompted much talk. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The centrepiece of the exhibition is <i>Being Human</i> (2019), a twenty-minute thesis-video/scripted docu-fiction told through three figures: ‘a young Tamil artist’, ‘a famous popstar’ and ‘a well-known painter’. It plays on tropes of the artist interview, with its implications of the artist-as-genius in canonical Western art histories and as neoliberalism’s ideal subject, the creative entrepreneur. The video puts forward a complex argument that draws on Thomas’ family’s involvement in the Tamil struggle for independence and the self-governed state of Eelam, in the north of Sri Lanka. Prompting a thirty-year civil war, the dream of Eelam was brutally quashed in May 2009 when Sri Lankan armed forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), killing between 40 000 and 100 000 Tamils. A decade on, <i>Being Human</i> addresses the failure of International Human Rights Law to bring justice for Tamils. Returning to concepts in European philosophy and Western art that gave rise to the idea of the universal human subject from which Human Rights Law is derived, the video questions the very category of the human in an era of algorithmic decision-making and networked governance.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Projected onto a semi-reflective glass box, the video installation forms a ‘three-dimensional hypertext’ that literally frames and stages artworks by artists Upali Ananda and Kingsley Gunatilake. Purchased from Saskia Fernando Gallery in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, these are installed behind the projection surface as an exhibition-within-an-exhibition. Periodically the video image dissolves and white lights come on, illuminating the objects in a performative, and often lulzy, dialectical montage.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Art shapes the world</b><br /><i>Being Human</i> follows a young Tamil artist, performed by Oslo-based artist and designer Ilavenil Jayapalan, as he travels between the Colombo Art Biennale and the former Tamil capital of Jaffna in the north of the island. With a strong British accent (and dressed in an enviable range of stylish sports shirts), Jayapalan could well be a stand-in for Thomas as he delivers the latter’s thoughts straight to camera. Another character, a digitally generated ‘famous popstar’, looks uncannily like Taylor Swift, one of the world’s biggest selling recording artists, her face mapped onto the body of model Chantelle Pretorius. A third character, ‘a well-known painter’ (actor Peer Liening-Ewert, but I can’t tell if he is also digitally generated), is supposedly a guest of the Colombo Art Biennale. Colombo’s first Biennale was inaugurated in September 2009, just months after the end of the war, with the theme ‘Imagining Peace’, but seems to have been inactive since 2016. Being Human is also interspersed with segments of a videolink conversation with Father Alphonsus Iruthaynayagam Bernard who founded the Centre for Human Rights in Tamil Eelam (Jaffna), who is described by Thomas in the exhibition notes as a family hero. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">In one scene a young Tamil artist sitting in the courtyard of a chic Colombo cafe asks:</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Supposedly art created a space for this country to heal…a space for positional view points, a space for new ideas, for freedom of thought…a space for democratic values. This is contemporary art and nowadays it is everywhere, but what exactly is it and how did it get here? </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Thomas establishes a synergy between the end of the war in Sri Lanka and the appearance of contemporary art, linked to the country’s post-war economic prosperity and the failure of processes to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations. The appearance of contemporary art in Colombo lends a veneer of cosmopolitanism, civic culture and democracy to the authoritarian state, which claims to be an arbiter of justice having eliminated Tamils under the guise of defeating terrorism. As such, contemporary art smooths the entry of capital and investment by backers who also supported Sri Lankan forces and intensifies the economic discrepancies between the north and south of the island, and projects that reshape once majority Tamil areas. A young Tamil artist states: ‘Every geopolitical issue is now negotiated as a human rights issue… Human rights is the medium by which imperial power is organised.’</div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>For real</b><br />One striking sequence is a dizzying of montage of artwork details and white cube installation views, sourced from the web and fast cut to pulsing electronica. Later, a well-known painter comments on this meme-like proliferation of contemporary art ‘in an era of total connectedness.’ As explained by a young Tamil artist earlier, since Duchamp (Western) art has tasked the viewer with interpretation, contributing to the production of a privileged autonomous subject and affirming the theories of Emmanuel Kant (1781) of a universal human subject through whom the world can be known. Thus, a well-known painter claims that the circulation of contemporary art trains a collective performance through which a fiction of being human emerges. Regarding the nation state’s unwillingness to uphold human rights, a young Tamil artist poses the question:</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Well, the idea of the individual upon which human rights is based derives from Kant’s definition of the universal human subject distinct from nature. Maybe the problem is not something that can be fixed within Human Rights International Law, maybe the problem is with the category of human itself?</div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">In the following section a famous popstar discusses authenticity as a demand of the markets in which she operates. ‘I mean, I believe I’m genuine in what I’m doing, but that’s the paradox. So does everyone else.’ Synthesised Taylor Swift lists the way individuals perform their authentic selves on social media; posting their likes, meals, vacations etc as content from which data can be algorithmically analysed and repurposed, to in turn shape users’ behaviours. Arguably, her observations about the entertainment industry are applicable across all of networked society when she states:</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">If believing in your own authenticity is the basic price of admission, then authenticity itself becomes the most contested object of synthesis…Behind the ranking algorithms and sociographs, maybe simulating simulated behaviour is the only way we have of being for real. </div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Like all good Tamil films, any significant development is marked by a musical interlude and <i>Being Human</i> does not disappoint. The soundtrack lifts into a pop song crafted by ‘reverse engineering’ hit maker Max Martin’s method of ‘Melodic Math’ (I’m guessing Swift’s ‘Wildest Dreams’). ‘Loose lips sink ships’— the song is clichéd and anthemic. Aspirational and drenched in teen yearning it is matched to a montage of adolescents pouting and gyrating at webcams. Clips of dancing girls from Tamil movies are interspersed with close-ups of a famous popstar stretching in the filtered glow of a digitally-rendered sunset, while a young Tamil artist dances under club lighting. Eyes closed and withdrawn into themselves, the animation-model and actor-artist look like they are <i>really feeling it</i>. At times the video dissolves and the exhibition-in-the-box illuminates, punctuating the emotion. The irony is unmissable. The track gets stuck in my head.</div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">As the song fades, the image switches between clips of teenagers rehearsing themselves on web platforms to clusters of digitally-animated youth checking their phones and taking selfies. The voice over explains how artificial intelligences now structuring the world transform individual identities into the artefacts of their calculations, ‘machines in the ghost’. It concludes that in this era of autonomous computation, sovereignty of both individuals and states is made subject to these recursive equations. Cut to excerpts of online riot porn; Occupiers wearing Guy Fawkes masks, swarms of riot police unleashing a high pressure hose, the alt-right torch-lit march in Charlottesville and on it goes, juxtaposing the swarm behaviour of people against those determined by algorithms. The sequence climaxes with security camera footage of a bomb explosion inside a restaurant.</div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Propaganda</b><br /><i>Being Human</i> concludes by recalling a 2018 incident when angry Sinhala mobs attacked Muslims in the Sri Lankan district of Ampara, resulting in the death of 27-year-old Abdul Basith after his home was set on fire. The mob violence was prompted by the death of a Sinhala man following a traffic dispute with a group of Muslim youths (Mashal and Bastians 2018). The text on screen reports that Facebook algorithms helped escalate this anti-Muslim rage. Irony gives way to propaganda.<br /><br />For many in Tamil diasporas, these images of mob violence echo the 1983 anti-Tamil pogroms at the onset of the war. More broadly, it speaks of a long history of class and ethnic tensions on the island. One is also reminded of Tamil-Muslim prejudices and how the LTTE attempted their own ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 1990, when they expelled Muslims from their homes with 24 hours notice. Many had lived alongside Tamils for generations (Perera 2011).<br /><br />My concerns with Thomas’ work is the way he appears to romanticise the struggle for Eelam. Arguably, the very notion of Eelam arose partly as a reactionary counter-myth to the ‘homeland’ nationalism developed by the Sinhala majority while the region was under British occupation, and in the period prior to Lanka’s independence (Guneratne 2002). While <i>Ground Zero</i> leaves aside the LTTE, who controlled the self-governed state under the autocratic leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran, it is difficult to separate them from what constitutes Tamil self-determination. Indeed, Prabhakaran, who was killed during the final battle at Nanthikadal is still revered by many in the diasporas. So while I support the need to denounce Sinhala supremacy and demand post-war justice, I wonder if Thomas’ activities will affect the people of the north and east; Tamils and other minorities. </div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Power</b><br />Since the launch of his 2012 artistic enterprise <i>When Platitudes Become Form</i> Thomas, a Goldsmiths graduate, has been buying the works of promising Sri Lankan contemporary artists and ‘reconfiguring’ them for sale in the arts scenes in which he circulates. For <i>Ground Zero</i> works by Upali Ananda and Kingsley Gunatilake made in 2018 are subtly retitled with the year of Thomas and Kuhlmann’s 2019 installation. Displayed intact, they are nevertheless most visible in the galleries and museums of the global north as Thomas’ possessions.<br /><br />It was revealing that when I visited Lanka at the end of 2014 and asked both young and established artists if they were aware of this work, I was met with silence and (feigned?) disinterest. Indeed, Thomas may well be a significant collector of contemporary Sri Lankan art. While Lankan artists I spoke with, Tamil, Sinhalese and otherwise, struggle to raise interest in international art markets and make a living from their practice, Thomas is able to access what would seem to many like excessive funds and backers. It is notable that <i>Ground Zero</i> was commissioned by the Russian V-A-C Foundation for the 58th Venice Biennale and has an impressive list of production credits (2019). <i>Ground Zero</i> can be read as a revenge piece; a display of art power that might affirm ideas about diaspora privilege and the meddling of Western-educated intellectuals that irritates many on the island struggling for peace. Thomas considers spectatorship as a material to be worked with, and certainly his art spectacles make viewers (and indeed this review) complicit in developing Thomas’ art power as a brand.</div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Home</b><br />Thus it is worth contextualising <i>Ground Zero</i> with Thomas and Kulhmann’s other enterprise, a real-estate technology start-up, <i>New Eelam</i>, first exhibited at the 9th Berlin Biennale, 2016, curated by DIS and more recently at the IMA Brisbane, 2019. ‘Eelam’ loosely translates as ‘home’ and <i>New Eelam</i> was founded to develop an idea of flat-rate subscription housing, similar to how Netflix and Spotify stream movies and music, to cater for a mobile and flexible ‘post-work’ society liberated by automation. As described in the (corporate) video <i>60 million Americans can’t be wrong</i> (2017), the proposed ‘housing cloud’ would maximise profits by trading its portfolio of flexibly-occupied apartments. Capital gains absorbed by the start-up would go towards reducing the subscription price rather than return as dividends to shareholders, making its housing/lifestyle model more accessible and desirable.<br /><br />If this phenomena develops it could give rise to ‘cloud nations’ (similar to how Facebook users might be considered a population) which forms the basis of what Thomas and Kuhlmann describe as ‘liquid citizenship’, a form of citizenship based on self-selected networked ‘autonomous individuals’ with common interests rather than by geographically-bounded nation states. From such ‘reverse diasporas’ inhabiting <i>New Eelam</i> would emerge a form of self-governance based on common desires managed by technology, rather than by the militarised force that organised the self-governed state that inspired it.<br /> <br />Arguably, <i>New Eelam</i> sets up a process to discover what democratic forms might emerge in accelerated technocapitalism. Yet, behind its smooth rhetoric <i>New Eelam</i> seems similar to the kinds of entrepreneurial co-housing schemes designed for aspiring millennials that are set to expel socially and economically marginalised communities from already gentrified cities. Such initiatives are stirring debates in Berlin, where Thomas and Kuhlmann sometimes live (see Sonntag 2018) and indeed Kuhlmann admits that <i>New Eelam</i>:</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">will provide no immediate solution to the urgent problems of displacement or of those excluded from citizenship, on a longer timescale, we’re interested in how dislocation is perhaps becoming a permanent condition for more and more people (Thomas and Kulmann 2017, p.10).</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Thomas and Kuhlmann have produced a thought provoking and troubling project that seems to have abandoned hampered discussions about art as a means towards global civic culture in preference for something that sounds like an alternative privatised takeover of civil society (see Thomas 2014). Will it produce as they propose a form of automated ‘luxury communalism’ based on what users really want or give rise to what metís artist and scholar Audrey Samson (2019) fears as a ‘deeply hierarchical citizenry model governed by market operations’? Given time, <i>New Eelam</i> may prove to be more than just a diaspora problem. </div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>References</b></div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="http://contemporary.burlington.org.uk/reviews/reviews/new-eela">Barratt, Martha and Samson, Audrey, 2019. ‘New Eelam,’ <i>Burlington Contemporary</i>, 20 March.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://bb9.berlinbiennale.de/">The Berlin Biennale, 2016.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://colomboartbiennale.com/2009-2/home/">Colombo Art Biennale, 2009.</a><br /><br />Guneratne, Arjun, 2002. ‘What’s in a name? Aryans, Dravidians, and other myths of Sri Lankan identity.’ Neluka Silva (ed.), <i>The Hybrid Island: Culture Crossings and the Invention of Identity in Sri Lanka</i>, Zed Books, London, pp. 20–40.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/world/asia/sri-lanka-anti-muslim-violence.html">Mashal, Mujib and Bastians, Dharisha, 2018. ‘Sri Lanka Declares State of Emergency After Mob Attacks on Muslims’, <i>The New York Times</i>, 6 March.</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.new-eelam.com/"><i>New Eelam</i> (website). </a><br /><br />Perera, Suvendrini, 2011. ‘Sri Lanka: landscapes of massacre.’ Shampa Biswas and Zahi Zalloua (eds), <i>Torture: Power, Democracy and the Human Body</i>, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, pp. 215–243.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.district-berlin.com/en/news/14-12-open-letter-by-kunstblock-and-beyond-for-the-protection-of-the-non-commercial-youth-centres-potse-and-drugstore/">Sonntag, Kim, 2018. ‘Open Letter by KUNSTBLOCK AND BEYOND for the protection of the non-commercial youth centres Potse and Drugstore’, 14 December.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.tenstakonsthall.se/uploads/189-EN%20CKT_171023.pdf">Thomas, Christopher Kulendran and Kuhlmann, Annika, 2017. <i>New Eelam: Tensta</i> (exhibition guide PDF, 169KB).</a><br /><br /><a href="https://dis.art/60-million-americans-cant-be-wrong">Thomas, Christopher Kulendran and Kuhlmann, Annika, 2017b. <i>60 million Americans can’t be wrong</i>.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://dismagazine.com/discussion/59883/art-commerce-ecology-beyond-spectatorship/">Thomas, Christopher Kulendran, 2014. ‘ART & COMMERCE: Ecology Beyond Spectatorship’, <i>DIS</i>, 7 March.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.v-a-c.ru">V-A-C Foundation (website).</a><br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-53592524942593953422019-09-16T15:54:00.000-03:002019-09-16T15:54:30.473-03:00‘Sanni Est ‘War In Her’ live’, KALTBLUT.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <a href="https://www.chueire.de/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Renata Chueire</a>, 2019</td></tr>
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Sanni Est is blowing up in Berlin. One lasting memory of her recent concert at Klunkerkranich was of the artist gathering people after the show to help move all the gear from the stage to her apartment, located around the corner from Neukölln Arcarden. I picked up one of the beautifully crafted <i>Alfaia</i> drums and followed Sanni’s housemate into the carpark below the popular rooftop bar. As we were about to step into the elevator and join a couple readying to leave, we spotted the rest of Sanni’s entourage— about twenty people, and not all Brasileirxs—each carrying a single piece of equipment. More drums, an obscure instrument in a carrier bag, a microphone stand, a drumstool…<br />
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Read more at <a href="https://www.kaltblut-magazine.com/sanni-est-war-in-her-live/">KALTBLUT</a>.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-36966818391569481452019-08-28T15:25:00.005-03:002021-11-22T15:42:19.874-03:00Ropes and Tropes: Latifa Laâbissi’s ‘White Dog’ at Tanz Im August, 17 August, HAU2, Berlin.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Latifa Laâbissi’s<i> White Dog</i>’ Photo: courtesy of the artist/Tanz Im August, 2019.</td></tr>
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Lights up to the sound of dogs barking in the distance. Four figures sit stage right in a circle, handling a tangle of fluorescent yellow rope. From between their dextrous fingers emerges a headpiece, a cushion, a noose… They are three women of colour and a tall, lanky, bald white male.
Later in the foyer my friend, a white Colombian who tells me she experienced racism as a Latinx for the first time when she studied in the US, commented that ‘the casting is definitely not colour-blind.’<br />
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The performers wear short-legged playsuits made of blue denim, a material associated with workers and the working class. It could be read as infantilising. Also, all four performers sport gold grills.<br />
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There are different ‘movements’ or configurations to the one act piece. For example, three dance together as a troupe with one hidden beneath a bundle of ropes. The tall male performer braces a Black woman upside down against his body and they dance together awkwardly. He dances solo like the trance-ritual performers captured in Jean Rouch’s<i> Les Maîtres Fous</i> (1955). Towards the end all four dance together in a row. Scrawling in my notebook in the dark I can later make out the words: cartoon, caricature, <i>Gummo</i>, Coolie dance.<br />
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<b><i>White Dog</i>, white gaze</b><br />
In the discussion with Grada Kilomba following the performance billed to be about cultural appropriation, Laâbissi explains through a translator that <i>White Dog</i> concerns four individuals who want to build a work together. They work on knots and unraveling those knots together and thus build consensus ‘in a debate together’. Thus, it is not a work about universality but pluriversality.<br />
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<i>White Dog</i> is performed in a striking set designed by Nadia Lauro that evokes a jungle
setting, with trees and vines made of ropes.‘Our bodies are enforested,
they are part of the forest…our bodies are like branches,’ says
Laâbissi. The piece was inspired by a conversation with Dénètem Touam
Bona, author of <i>Fugitif, où cours-tu?</i> (Fugitive, where are you
going?) (2016), which recounts runaway slave narratives. Its thematics
are about ‘marooning’; escape, fleeing, withdrawal. Yet the French-born
artist with a Moroccan heritage, insists that the work is not
representative of any particular group. Rather she states that her main
concern is about the artist as a singularity—‘a dialectic between me and
me’.<br />
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A comment from the audience concerned how <i>White Dog</i> seems to reproduce clichés about Black bodies and perhaps even reinforces racist stereotypes, particularly to do with primitivism. One could argue that the work challenges audiences to read their reactions and reception of the images it evokes, which are also inscribed in history and (colonial) systems of knowledge. Laâbissi confirmed that the piece does indeed take ‘a deep dive into these stereotypes’ and is busy with unknotting these complications. She admitted that the dancing is very permissive. As an artist heavily criticised for her use of Native American signifiers in her solo piece, <i>Self-portrait: Camouflage</i> (2005) Laâbissi was emphatic that she does not do censorship.<br />
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<b>Epistemic violence</b><br />
Grada Kilomba spoke of artists’ responsibility to deliver a language that goes beyond the reproduction of racist and gendered stereotypes, their associated forms of epistemic violence and modes of ‘cultural appropriation today.’<br />
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She claimed that a lot is expected of artists of colour, and noted how many of us pursue hybridity so as not to respond to what is expected of us; to represent a certain group of people or issue. Kilomba spoke of trends in contemporary art by which institutions seek out such artists who move beyond colonial narratives. While she has benefited from such interests, she admits to it being problematic given that certain artists are effectively recruited to play a role in institutional discourses. This gives rise to a situation that she describes as ‘inclusion within exclusion and raises questions about who gets funded and ultimately gets to produce new knowledge. It also worth noting who accesses these spaces; are there many people of colour? <br />
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Kilomba outlines artist strategies to subvert these machinations. For example, Kilomba who is based in Berlin is represented by Goodman Gallery in Capetown and Johannesburg. So when European institutions want to show her work in Europe, they still have to go via South Africa. Later at the bar she talked about the strategies adopted by some of her peers who set conditions about how and where their work is shown, often insisting that the interested gallery also exhibits an accompanying piece or the work of a fellow artist.<br />
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<b>Fortress Europe</b>
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Trained in psychoanalysis and also an author and theorist, Kilomba is critical of how discussions about race and colonialism in Europe are often presented as an ‘intellectual choice’; often as part of discourse or a curriculum to be pursued as part of one’s career. In such instances the experiences of the racialised and colonised are commodified as ‘knowledge’ of which one can gain expertise without lived experience or committing to transformative decolonising work. Kilomba, whose practice is anchored in her biography and subjective experience, argues that Europe is yet to understand how these histories are ‘inscribed in the skin of our bodies and biographies’ and indeed society. <br />
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In light of this discussion, <i>White Dog</i> might be understood as a thoughtful provocation that makes time for contemplating historic and ongoing processes of racialisation and the ways they are reinforced through the ways we have learned to look and make associations. It evokes a desire to flee from such a world, but this is near impossible and there is still much work to do.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘On the Sofa: Questions of Cultural Appropriation in Contemporary Creation’ with Grada Kilomba, Latifa Laâbissi and moderated by Sandra Noeth.</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-23823582866770743792019-08-17T06:07:00.001-03:002019-08-17T06:07:10.663-03:00 ‘Raving Lite: NLC Festival’ Norient<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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‘The Nature Loves Courage Festival in Sougia, Greece was founded by DJ Abyss X. Through its foregrounding of female-identifying, queer and non-binary artists, as well as its commitment to a diversity of styles, the festival contributes to the development of what is known as post-club culture. What can this festival tell us about today's post-internet club scene?’ <br />
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Read at <a href="https://norient.com/blog/raving-lite-nlc-festival/">Norient</a>.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-82302387580773392842019-07-31T06:44:00.000-03:002019-07-31T07:10:19.244-03:00‘Data Science Friction’, springerin, 03/2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Asunder </i>(2019), Tega Brain, Julian Oliver and Bengt Sjölén, Vienna Biennale for Change 2019: Brave New Values: Shaping Our Digital World. Photo: courtesy of artists.</td></tr>
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<b>On the AI-based eco-management system <i>Asunder</i> (2019) by Tega Brain, Julian Oliver and Bengt Sjölén</b>.<br />
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How to manage the transition of Earth’s climate into something that is less suitable for human flourishing is a polarising issue. One solution being forwarded by tech industries is to develop data-driven computational systems which prioritise ecological agendas and mitigate human influences. Such methods of ‘painting humans out of the picture’ (Cantrell et al. 2017) is often put forth as a neutral, rational and depoliticised means of managing environments. <i>Asunder</i> (2019) addresses such assumptions of computational neutrality and the ideological framing of the environment as system – an ecosystem – that can be monitored and managed. An AI-driven ‘autonomous environmental manager’, <i>Asunder</i> arises from a collaboration between artist and ‘eccentric engineer’ Tega Brain (New York City), artist and ‘critical engineer’ Julian Oliver (Berlin) and artist, independent software/hardware designer and hacker Bengt Sjolén (Stockholm) commissioned for Vienna Biennale for Change 2019: Brave New Values: Shaping Our Digital World.<br />
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Read more at <a href="https://springerin.at/en/2019/3/data-science-friction/">springerin</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-7612031664031422932019-07-06T06:38:00.000-03:002019-07-06T06:38:13.236-03:00Society Must Be Upended: ‘Manifestos for Queer Futures’ at HAU, Berlin Art Link<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Romily Alice Walden, ‘Notes from the Underlands’ (2019), video still courtesy of artist.</td></tr>
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Catalysed by an open call for Berlin-based artists, the performance event ‘Manifestos for Queer Futures’ premiered at HAU’s multi-venue festival, ‘The Present is not enough. Performing Queer Histories and Futures’, from June 20th to 30th. From the 270 applications received, HAU produced 26, bringing together artists who regularly perform in clubs, theatres and art spaces with those who may have never set foot on stage. Over three consecutive nights, ‘Manifestos…’ sampled the profusion of Queer cultures in Berlin. </div>
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Read in <i><a href="http://www.berlinartlink.com/2019/07/05/society-must-be-upended-manifestos-for-queer-futures-at-hau/">Berlin Art Link</a></i>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-59697525945024257182019-06-19T05:07:00.004-03:002019-06-19T05:09:36.109-03:00The Long Now: ‘Here-Now and There-Then’, Norient.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Long Now, Kraftwerk Berlin, 2019. Photo: Sumugan Sivanesan</td></tr>
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A short photo-essay…<i><br /> </i><br />
<i>The Long Now</i>, the culmination of the MaerzMusik festival, occurred over thirty hours at Kraftwerk, Berlin, in cooperation with Berlin Atonal. Under the directorship of Berno Odo Polzer since 2015, Maerz Musik has developed from being a showcase of new compositional and avant garde music to become a ‘festival for time issues’ with an expanded program of lectures, workshops, screenings, panels and installations alongside concerts. Kraftwerk, a former power station for East Berlin built in the 1960s, was revived in 2006 as part of the Tresor club’s complex of venues and is renown for its atmosphere and acoustics. </div>
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More at <a href="https://norient.com/blog/here-now-and-there-then/">Norient</a>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-29782108401524283312019-05-31T11:04:00.000-03:002019-06-12T12:55:06.071-03:00‘Initials B.B.’: Bishop Black, ‘Becoming My Body’ at Ballhaus Naunynstraße<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Zé de Paiva / Ballhaus Naunynstraße, 2019.</td></tr>
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I wrote a short text for <a href="http://lolamag.de/guide/performance-art/becoming-my-body/">LOLA</a> to promote Bishop Black’s debut solo piece, <i>Becoming My Body</i> at <a href="http://www.ballhausnaunynstrasse.de/">Ballhaus Naunynstraße</a>, 30–31 May, as part of its ‘Postcolonial Poly Perspectives’ Festival.</div>
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‘Bishop Black seeks decolonisation’ announces the press release for <i>Becoming My Body</i>, Black’s first solo performance at Ballhaus Naunynstraße as part of its Postcolonial Poly Perspectives festival. Hailing from the UK, Bishop has lived in Berlin for several years where he is much admired in its queer porn scene. Black has worked with some of the industry’s most provocative figures including Venice Biennale artist Shu Lea Cheang, directors Bruce LaBruce, Erika Lust and filmmaker and DJ, Sky Deep. His contributions to queer and alt-porn were acknowledged when he was selected for the 2017 PorYes Feminist Porn Award. Themes of sexual fluidity and race arise in Bishop’s oeuvre and <i>Becoming My Body</i> is poised to address these issues as an amalgamation of video, sound, dance and drag. Challenging oppressive forces determined by white Christian hegemony in Europe that are being reinforced by the New Right, Black proposes to radiate and accelerate towards an open unknown.
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I attended the premier last night and after B.B.’s performance I wound up in the garden chatting with Daphne, Sheeka, Wagner and Fabian. What follows are some reflections.<br />
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Black bodies are inescapably inscribed by history, art and media representations; the trauma and abjection of slavery, idealised as athletic forms with the hyper-masculine body simultaneously perceived as a threat of potential violence. As Daphne pointed out, being conditioned as such significantly shapes and restricts the way Black men dress, act or otherwise present themselves.<br />
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For his first solo performance at Ballhaus Neunynstraße, <i>Becoming My Body</i>, Bishop Black compels his audience to look intently at his body. Evoking images with his use of costume, props and video, B.B. makes us aware of the references by which Black bodies are read and how we project onto or identify with these images and thus the experiences we bring to an artwork. The audience entered the theatre where B.B stood waiting. He paced around, bare-chested, humming and singing. On top of his shaved scalp was a candelabra headpiece with a clutch of lit black candles, wax dripping on to his shoulders. His waist was wrapped in a long silver cloth that trailed behind him and his feet were clod in red glitter pumps. I saw the Statue of Liberty, whereas Daphne saw a Satyr. Over the course of the piece I also saw a ceremonial leader, a man servant, a trickster, a virile stud and Black bottom amongst others. As such, <i>Becoming My Body</i> makes us aware of the tropes by which racialised and sexualised subjectivities are formed and also of our own racisms.
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Being aware of this effect of Black performance, I focused less on the images B.B. evoked and rather on how his presence registered on my body. While B.B. moved through these forms and across the stage, I made note of how I would tense and relax. I was impressed by how he could switch and shift between different modes—camp, reverent, militant, vogue. In one sequence adopting the poise of a butler, B.B. offers a platter of fried dumplings to the audience, quickly retracting when someone reached for them. ‘You can’t have it, but I can!’, he quipped before greedily biting into one. ‘Mmmmm… it’s good’
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After the performance B.B. thanked the House for enabling him to be vulnerable on stage. He said he had no secrets. I thought how being able to open up on stage—which to me sounds terrifying— must have been for him empowering, perhaps even liberating. I recently read an interview with B.B. by ‘ethical adult filmmaker’ Erika Lust in which he admits to being <a href="https://erikalust.com/bishop-black-interview/">‘a massive exhibitionist’</a>. What stood out for me was B.B.’s control of his body; his ability to manipulate his representation and by extension his command of the room. Surely, that must feel good?
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Familiar faces in the team that produced <i>Becoming My Body</i> include film director Jasco Viefhues and BDSM artist Carita Abell, and are reminders of B.B.’s presence in Berlin’s queer and sex-positive scenes. I recall having first met him at the 2017 <a href="https://pornfilmfestivalberlin.de/">Porn Film Festival Berlin</a> where he was a featured artist and also co-organised a workshop for Black and People of Colour (BPOC), ‘Reclaiming my image’. Even in Berlin, with its liberal attitudes, the presence of Black male bodies in public can be confrontational. Yet, Black men are readily fetishised and consumed as objects of desire when presented on stage, on screen or otherwise framed within representational formats. <i>Becoming My Body</i>, and much Black performance I have experienced recently, works to manipulate these learned perceptions and the socially reinforced conditions that determine what a (male) Black body should be — and thus for some of us BPOC, challenges us about how we too could be. When B.B. held aloft a two-sided mirror with one of its faces cracked, I first thought of it as an overworked trope. Nevertheless, as an object that mediated between the performer and audience, it registered on my psyche along axes of (dis)identification, projection, self-love and hate.‘We looked long and hard in the mirror and were confronted’, said Abell after the performance. <br />
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As a respected performer in queer and porn scenes, B.B. might also appear intimidating as a figure of sexual freedom, desire and defiance, especially for those already stifled by social constraints and norms. In the garden after the performance Wagner noted the majority white audience who attended B.B.’s premier and mused if the wider Black community was ready for him. For me, <i>Becoming My Body</i> emphasises the need for BPOCs in Berlin to seek each other out, form friendships and support each others practices. It is crucial to advocate for the infrastructures, such as Ballhhaus Naunynstraße, that concern us and engage in the conversations about us, especially under conditions where white privilege, and indeed white supremacy, prevail.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-19331355648172964152019-05-16T06:09:00.002-03:002019-05-16T06:11:57.056-03:00‘Persepolis Now?’ A Utopian Stage at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin. MAP Magazine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Utopian Stage, SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, 2019.</td></tr>
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<b>A Utopian Stage at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin. Curated by Vali Mahlouji | Archeology of the Final Decade. </b><br />
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The Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis ran for a decade between 1967 and 1977 in Iran. Generously funded by the government, oil companies and the Festival’s founding patron Empress Farah Pahlavi, it was described as ‘…the most important performing arts event in the world’ by Professor Enrico Fulchignoni, director of UNESCO’s International Committee for Cinema and Television, 1975. An ‘artistic pilgrimage’ which promised to open cross-cultural dialogue in a post-colonial world, it was held annually in Shiraz, city of poets, and staged at one of Iran’s most spectacular sites, the ruins of Persepolis, a ceremonial city of the Persian Empire built circa 515 BCE.<br />
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Held during a period of heightened tensions between the monarchy and groups pursuing constitutional reforms, the Festival was described as a ‘Temporary Autonomous Zone’ by Vali Mahlouji, curator of A Utopian Stage. Organised under the auspices of National Iranian Radio and Television, a committee of artists and intellectuals sought to invite work from around the world. During a time of post-colonial optimism and possibility, this signaled a move away from European domination and the emergence of Third World confidence, giving way to a fluid exchange ‘across geographies, histories and forms’, on a scale that we might still marvel at today. However, regardless of accolades, the Festival troubled Iran’s internal security forces, Shia clergy and hardline Leftist organisations and was closed down in 1978. The following year’s revolution replaced 275 years of Shah rule with an Islamic Republic.<br />
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More at <i><a href="https://mapmagazine.co.uk/persopolis-now">MAP</a>.</i>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-46442517553256264902019-05-08T05:40:00.002-03:002019-05-08T05:49:22.139-03:00‘Is this what democracy looks like?’ Immersion: Palast Der Republik, Berliner Festspiel, 8–10 March 2019.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Immersion: Palast der Republik’ Photo: Mathias Voelzke/Berliner Festspiel (2019)</td></tr>
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<b>Palast der Republik</b><br />
Billed as ‘art, discourse and parliament’, the Immersion programme at Haus der Berliner Festspiel staged a symbolic reconstruction of the Palast der Republik. As an ideological ‘people’s house’, the Palast der Republik was the seat of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) parliament between 1976 and 1990. It was a bold architectural experiment with theatres, galleries, restaurant, bars and a bowling alley that stood on the site of the former Berlin Palace, originally built in the 15th Century and the residence of Prussian royalty. Damaged during World War II, the Berlin Palace was demolished by the East German Government in the 1950s. Found to be contaminated with asbestos, Palast der Republik was abandoned in 1990, then demolished in 2003. In its place the reconstructed Berlin City Palace is due to open later this year, stirring debate about the politics of remembrance and the legacy of the GDR. The New Berlin City Palace will host the Humboldt Forum, a museum to showcase objects held in Germany’s ethnological collections, drawing criticisms about the providence of these items and accusations of ‘colonial amnesia’. </div>
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Featuring talks, performances, music, films and installations <i>Palast der Republik</i> transformed Haus der Berliner Festspiel into an art, politics and entertainment complex. Recalling the people’s roundtables convened in the interim period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first free East German elections, the programme was bookended by two constitutions. The first day revisited the ‘New Constitution for the GDR’ (1990), a ‘people’s constitution’ drafted by representatives of civil society groups. The last day moved beyond local issues to consider proposals for a Transnational European Constitution to be eventually taken to the European Parliament.
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<b>Eastern Empowerment</b>
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<i>Palast der Republik</i> was inaugurated by an installation, <i>Wolkenreich</i>, by Klaus Pobitzer, who obscured the façade of the Haus der Berliner Festspiel with a thick cloud of fog. Although located in what was once been West Berlin, the bronzed mirrored windows of the Festspiel are reminiscent of those featured on the Palast, and as the smoke cleared and the simulacrum emerged, one could make out an insignia affixed to them. Akin to the GDR’s national emblem that hung above the entrance of the original, here the hammer and compass encircled in a wreath of rye was replaced by the hexagonal design of the Festpiel’s main stage. As patrons made their way into the building transformed, the fading dusk enhanced the theatrics of this first act, as a place out of time.<br />
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By one entrance stood an assemblage of the actual chairs used in the
GDR parliament. Recovered last year from a warehouse in Berlin, they
were presented as found—bent, dusty and strung with cobwebs—as the
installation <i>Sturzlage</i> by Gabriele Dolf-Bonekämper. They seemed
to pronounce that the Palast was not exhumed for the sake of nostalgia,
but rather for critical reappraisal.<br />
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Following a short choreographic work in the foyer <i>Odori, the Shit!</i> by Trajall Harrell, the first discursive event was a ‘revue of ideas’, <i>Verfasst euch!</i>
(Constitute yourself!) which included keynote addresses by philosopher
Susan Buck-Morss and professor of law and novelist Bernhard Schlink.
Although from the West, Schlink became involved in the roundtables
following a teaching appointment to Humbolt University soon after the
fall of the Wall in November 1989. He emphasised that his primary
concern in drafting the Constitution was that it could be enforced by
the people. The ‘New Constitution for the GDR’ was completed on 4 April
1990, after the first free parliamentary elections on 18 March. Schlink
recalled it was immediately eliminated by the new parliament, but did
play a role in later discussions and informed many of the protests that
followed as the East was restructured.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Wolkenreich und Sturzlage’ Photo: Eike Walkenhorst/Berliner Festspiel (2019)</td></tr>
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<b>There Is No Alternative</b><br />
Saturday featured two discussions about the policies of privatisation implemented as the East merged with the West. These roundtables titled <i>Schwarzbuch</i> (Blackbook) focused on the <i>Treunhand</i>, an agency established to manage the sale of East German assets and infrastructure. Described by economic historian Jörg Roesler as a ‘pure privatisation machine’, the Treunhand is regarded as pioneering European neoliberalism.<br />
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Berhnd Gehrke, a writer, historian and educator who represented trade unions in the 1989 roundtables, spoke of the mass sell-off of the GDR’s factories and industries leading to job losses and the devaluing of skills and capital. With the ‘credit-worthiness’ of the former East weakened, even those with savings were unable to secure loans to purchase the apartments in which they lived. Thus, the <i>Treunhand</i> paved the way for investors from the West to scoop up buildings whole, causing frustration, humiliation and disillusionment amongst those ‘wage dependent’ in the GDR. Indeed, according to author and filmmaker Inge Kloepfer the <i>Treunhand</i> effectively produced a ‘new German underclass’ and primed the conditions that have given rise to the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany (AFD) political party in Berlin.<br />
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Journalist Aris Chatzistefanou, whose documentary <i>Catastroika</i> (2012), investigates parallels between the <i>Treunhand</i> and the EU Troïka (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund), argued that the measures trailed in Germany in 1990 were honed in Greece 2009. Anastasia Frantzeskaki, an activist and dockside trade union representative concurred, claiming that the transfer of Greek state assets to private holdings occurred over a single night.
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The discussion concluded as <i>Duvurlar—Mauern—Walls</i> (2000) screened in the balkon-cum-kino overlooking the main theatre. Made by a then young Turkish–North American émigré, Can Candan, the film documented the experience of Berlin’s Turkish communities in the first decade of Reunification, who had established themselves in the city since the 1960s as guest workers, ironically filling the labour shortages caused by partition. Candan’s documentary presents a nuanced discussion of East-West prejudices intensified by gentrification through interviews with vendors selling sections of the wall in streets markets, community spokespersons and first and second generation Deutsch-Türken youth.<br />
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<b>Herstory</b><br />
It is significant that <i>Palast der Republik</i> opened on 8 March, International Women’s day and a public holiday in Berlin. In her opening keynote Susan Buck-Morss recalled the five-day demonstration held by women in Iran on this day in 1979, as a precursor to 1989 and as possibly the first revolution of the 21st Century. Indeed, artist and filmmaker Elke Rosenfeld, a co-curator of the programme who was a teenager in the East at that time, claimed that non-violent liberation marked the passage into the 21st century, gesturing to a longer history of women’s struggles. In the programme’s first roundtable <i>Nach dem Protest</i> (After the Protest), Tatjana Böhm spoke of the Independent Womens Association and their concerns of work, home and individual rights, reminding audiences that legal abortion remains an issue in Germany. The panel closed with a video message from Bini Adamczak, author of <i>Communism for Kids</i> (2014), who declared that global feminism was the most successful counter-fascism movement, linking together its historical waves.<br />
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A performance-installation, <i>Caen Amour</i>, by Trajal Harrell introduced another thread of ‘herstory’ into Friday night’s proceedings. As an imaginative re-staging of the ‘hoochie koochie shows’ that toured the USA in the early 1900s, the ‘all-female revue’ was performed by a mixed-gender ensemble. The audience moved between the stage front, where the exotic dances were performed, and the back of the set where the dancers hurriedly traded costumes. Harrell prompted them to reflect on the dynamics of performing, consuming and reinforcing gender and racial stereotypes and to consider other possibilities glimpsed in these liminal spaces.<br />
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Given that Saturday was billed as a ‘circus of ideas’ it was fitting that the second day of <i>Palast der Republik</i> culminated in the queer cabaret CHEAP. As a self-contained mini-event, CHEAP included screenings and projections, interviews, live music, performances and vodka shots, bringing together several threads of the programme concerned with gendered violence in the former socialist states. Defiantly underground, CHEAP shone a light on LGBT+ identities and experiences, using ‘joy, laughter and erotic desire as political weapons’.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘CHEAP’ Photo: Eike Walkenhorst/Berliner Festspiel (2019)</td></tr>
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<br />
<b>Passage to the 21st Century</b><br />
Day three of <i>Palast der Republik</i> opened on a rainy Sunday afternoon for a parliamentary hearing, with the theatre at capacity for the keynote address by former Greek finance minister, Yanous Varifakis. Having resigned from Greek politics, Varifakis is currently the German candidate for the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. Formed in 2015, DiEM25 is the first trans-European party campaigning for election into the European parliament, building a popular front against ‘austerity, privatisation and socialism for oligarchs’. It is notable that DiEM25 launched in February 2016 at Berlin’s iconic Volksbühne theatre, in what was once the GDR. Varifakis emphasised the role of the European Central Bank as an institution that ‘supports no states but has nineteen states supporting it’, and as a key instrument for a system that generates crises it cannot resolve. He warned that the disaffection brought on by the EU Troïka’s demands for structural adjustments is like history repeating in Europe, and might forsee ‘the hatching of the serpent’s egg’.<br />
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One of the first acts of any democratic process is the drafting of a constitution, and the climax of <i>Palast der Republik</i>, gathered together eleven delegates to each put forth proposals. These included the phasing out of plastics, enabling children to vote, the communalising of ‘big companies’, the right to housing, the reparation of objects and restitution of wealth acquired via colonial projects amongst calls to ‘de-Westernise’ Europe. Some proposals were awkwardly put. For example, author and activist Lorenzo Marsili arguing for what sounded like a digital commons phrased it as ‘Google as a human right.’ Indeed Varoufakis pledging that humanity deserved ‘mechanical slaves’ seemed out-of-step with current discussions about developments in robotics and synthetic intelligences.<br />
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One notable delegate was the political theorist and author, Vijay
Prashad, an Indian national and scholar of the Tricontinental alliances.
Comprised of the postcolonial states of Asia, Africa, Latin America and
including the former Yugoslavia, the Non-aligned Movement formed as an
alternative to the Cold War socialist and capitalist blocs, and were
often raised during the programme as a precursor to the formations that
were being presently rehearsed. Invited to give the ‘last word’
Prashad’s presence provoked the possibility of a New European Parliament
that would include seats for members of all democratic nations, in
acknowledgement of the legacies of colonialism and gesturing towards the
horizon of global democracy. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Delegates’ Photo: Eike Walkenhorst/Berliner Festspiel (2019)</td></tr>
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<b>Practical Experiences</b><br />
Immersion’s <i>Palast der Republik</i> elaborated on recent trends in political theatre and art that adopt the parliamentary form. These include the <i>New World Summits</i> founded by artist Jonas Staal, Yael Batana’s <i>What if Women Ruled the World?</i> (2017) and the <i>Rights of Nature Tribunals</i>. Palast der Republik evoked a social space for audiences to move freely between discussion, debate, leisure and entertainment; interweaving different moods and expressions. By deconstructing of the ‘lost dream of postcommunism’ as the preconditions for its reconstitution, Immersion staged what one audience member called ‘practical experiences’ of democracy. Rather than the participatory distractions of post-truth ‘democratism’ it is in the herstorical play of the people’s house that the stirrings of a community yet-to-come are most strongly felt.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-40506533792416643572019-03-30T07:52:00.003-03:002021-08-17T13:30:40.897-03:00‘A problem of the middle class (a belated letter from São Paulo)’, un Projects, March 2019.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Installation
view with <i>Days of being free </i>(2018), Wura-Natasha Ogunji. Credit: Sivanesan.</div>
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SP33 occurred during a time of intense political upheaval in Brazil.<span style="color: #00000a;"> </span>The impeachment of popularly elected president Dilma Roussef of the Workers Party in 2016 set the scene for the then-minor conservative politician Jair Bolsonaro to rise as a populist right-wing presidential candidate. Often dubbed the ‘Trump of the Tropics’ for his nationalist stance and divisive rhetoric, Bolsonaro is better understood as a product of Brazil’s military, representing the interests of its former dictatorship (1964 – 1985). Many fear that his recent ascent to the Presidency marks the return of that regime.<br />
The build-up to the October election saw significant protests in Brazil’s major cities. The <i>#EleNão</i> (Not Him) campaign brought millions into the streets protesting Bolsonaro’s stance on Black people, Indigenous people, women and gender non-conforming people, propelled by anguish and anger over the assassination of queer Black councilor Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro in March of 2018. Earlier this year, investigators disclosed that employees close to Bolsonaro’s family have been linked to her killing (Ramalho, 2019).<br />
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Further fueling the mood of disaffection, a fire in Rio de Janeiro’s Museo Nacional on 2 September 2018 destroyed much of its collection, just days before the Bienal opened. It remains an enormous tragedy that many argue could have been prevented if the museum were properly funded and managed. Events that followed were tainted with a sense of this loss; what Brazilians might call <i>saudade</i>.<br />
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Over several attempts to review this Bienal, I found myself swinging between poles of <i>schadenfreude</i> and <i>saudade</i>. It irked me to discuss the staging, production and consumption of contemporary art as I came to grips with ingrained divisions of race and class and intense social inequalities in Brazil, all the while as an authoritarian government was ushered in.<br />
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More in <a href="https://unprojects.org.au/article/a-problem-of-the-middle-class-a-belated-letter-from-sao-paulo/">un</a>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2308502619175194372.post-48865529594186462342019-02-03T09:36:00.000-02:002021-11-16T17:14:19.172-03:00Transmediale 2019: ‘What Moves You?’<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The <a href="https://transmediale.de/content/what-moves-you-1">festival closing panel</a> with Carolina García Cataño, Donatella Della Ratta, Geert Lovink, Fernanda Monteiro
Moderated by Sumugan Sivanesan.<br />
Transmediale 2019, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Sunday 03 February 2019.<br /> <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0