"It–subject" published by Jacket2.org

I'm very happy to say that last week my long poem "It–subject" (2018) was published in the poetry and poetics journal Jacket2. It appears in a feature called "Extreme texts," curated and edited by Divya Victor.

The introduction to my piece and a link to download it as a PDF, appear here: http://jacket2.org/poems/it-subject.

From my intro:
"The unpredictable repetition creates a stuttering effect that disrupts traditional reading technique by explicating nonconsensual syntax. My desire while composing 'It—subject' was that it become possible for me to read through or across these four essays simultaneously, in order that the affect I mention above become apparent [...] Everything contained by 'It—subject' is latent in the original source — what is most interesting to me is how the results of this procedure make a subtext (subjectivity) manifest that 'belongs' to no one. [...] What is 'extreme' within such a neurotic system is precisely how it could be apprehended as a mild symptom and not the defining paradigm of writing."



You can read the preface and access links to the full contents here. I hope you will have time to read "It–subject" and explore this exciting feature on extremity in twenty-first-century poetics!

Residency @ ISELP, April-July 2019

I am artist-in-residence at ISELP (Institut Supérieur pour l'Étude du Langage Plastique) in Brussels from 15 April through end of July 2019.

Eleanor Ivory Weber (Australie) occupe l’espace de résidence de l’ISELP durant le printemps 2019. Elle profite de cette période de recherche et de création pour développer son projet « Sub Text Labour » qui se décline en différents protocoles d'édition de textes existants.

Dans ce contexte, l’artiste établit des systèmes avant de les appliquer à des ouvrages sélectionnés à dessein, parce que leur contenu véhicule un aspect de la langue ou de l’oralité lié à ses recherches. Elle travaille le texte originel en l’analysant, le découpant, l’empruntant et le réagençant au sein d’un nouveau texte, lu par une ou plusieurs voix durant une performance.

Le hasard occupe une place importante au sein de ces techniques d’écriture conceptuelles. Subordonné aux préoccupations de l’artiste, cependant, il permet une fine remise en question des conceptions traditionnelles de la paternité des idées, et sonde notre rapport à la langue à titre de matière corporelle et sociale.

-- Mélanie Rainville, mai 2019



More information (French only) here!

Laxlan Petras, Gala Day (2014-18)

In 2018, I was commissioned by Berlin-based artist Laxlan Petras to write about his work Gala Day. I had written a review for frieze of the 2015 exhibition of the same name, held at West Space, Melbourne, which led to my collaboration with Petras on the more recent Städelschule, Frankfurt iteration of the work.



Description from Petras' website: "Gala Day (2018) explores the Yugoslavian civil wars as a subtext in the sport of football and immigration policy in Australia in the early 2000's. The work centres on the moment in May 2001, when footballer Bobby Despotovski became notorious for signing the tri-prsta. During 2014–15, Petras made appearances for Despotovski’s former clubs in the Belgrade zone league and Serbian premier division, reworking the narrative of Despotovski’s life."



To read the text in English and Serbian (translated by Sandra Stojanović), please follow the link:
http://www.laxlanpetras.com/wp-content/uploads/Eleanor_Ivory_Weber_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%80_%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B8_2017.pdf

To read the text in German (translated by Sonia Knop), please follow the link: http://www.laxlanpetras.com/wp-content/uploads/Gala-Tag-Defacto-Nummer-Eins-Deustch-tr.-Sonia-Knop-2018.pdf



Many thanks to Laxlan.

Tonight (15 May 2018), because I really think someone needed to say something (or nothing, as it were), it's a draft, actually written tonight

Written in response to Camilla Wills' solo exhibition Tonight, Gaudel de Stampa, Paris, 21 March – 18 May 2018

The possibility of a life not governed by the logic of repair ... How, in the absence of wanting to repair, could one possibly go on? … Would living with negativity entail the death of the optimism that animates desire and energizes politics?*

Something in warmth lacking – so: cold – reflects light, contains darkness. That is, another definition for “structure”; emptiness.

Emptiness can only be identified through its limits (what it is not): description gives what is not (there) form. This form, therefore, can only be shell, a demonstration of what is inside. An absence with edges (cuts) that are suggestions. This is seriously optimistic.

The fireplaces, mantles, hearths, are such demonstrations. They describe that which could have been a shelter, how it remains an image. Cold and evocative. The bourgeoisie.

To sit with that image is to describe the constitutive emptiness of fire, contained. Fire, which burns itself up in what looks like passion, what feels like heat, what represents wholesomeness – at a certain scale only.

It is seriously optimistic that such an element “looks back”. As if to project passion yet again – “add insult to injury” – a negative doubling. What does it see? Prosperity, fashionable feet and boxes in boxes in boxes. A duplication of its own shell-like housing. An absent, dead Napoleon meets an absent, doubled Wills as worm, cut, placed inside her own box-structure-cum-hearth.

An interior revealed shows: nothing (but the cut, the act of showing). The worm is not a demonstration.

The fuel of the fire can be otherwise called “the reductant”. What is reduced? What is reduced when there is nothing to burn? When nothing, is burning.

Now Fire, the name we give to the image of energy being reduced, emptied, begs the question: "What is the scale of human warmth?"

Of course there is no answer, only more description.

(That blue will never be found; will never reply.)

Any fullness of meaning is in what cannot fully express, what constitutively lacks, what combusts, expires.

And, if it is anywhere, warmth is there where reduction no longer burns like debasement, and no longer needs to have its passion made image.

-- Eleanor Ivory Weber

*Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman, Sex, or the Unbearable, Duke University Press, Durham/London 2014, p. xv

Stenography for Marie Lund, Juan de la Cosa/John of the Thing @ Bureau des Réalités, Brussels

I worked as stenographer for artist Marie Lund's reading of Hip Height, presented as the third edition of Spoken Word Gallery on 9 September 2018 in Brussels, curated by Juan de la Cosa/John of the Thing.

Juan de la Cosa/John of the Thing were invited by Lilou Vidal/Bureau des Réalités to present A table made again for the first time, "a project structured around three events, each one focusing on a potential take on the idea of translation, both on the written page and the exhibition space."

The events included contributions by Kate Briggs, Alain Cavalier, Jesper List Thomsen and Lund. More info: http://www.johnofthething.net/eventseventos#/juan-de-la-cosa-at-bureau-des-re/

You can read an excerpt from my live transcript here.



Many thanks to Marie Lund, Francesco Pedraglio, Tania Pérez Córdova and Lilou Vidal. Image courtesy of Juan de la Cosa/John of the Thing.

Epimethean caesuras, or, Seven ways to speak of silence (2018) for Julia McInerney's The Garden

I was commissioned by artist Julia McInerney and curator Toby Chapman to produce an essay on McInerney's work for her solo show The Garden, held at ACE Open, Adelaide, Australia from 28 July - 15 September 2018.




My essay is titled Epimethean caesuras, or, Seven ways to speak of silence and can be read here and downloaded here.



Thank you to Julia McInerney. Images courtesy of the artist.

Unspecified Involvements #1, Brussels

I read my text Why I Hate Translation, or, Reading Lisa Robertson Through Another (originally published in How To Become A Body Double, The Cheapest University 2017) for the first edition of Unspecified Involvements, held at Artist Commons in Brussels on 16 May 2018.

In addition to my own, the evening comprised readings by Thomas Dupal, Janine Harrington, James Hogan and Júlia Rocha.



More information on subsequent editions here.

Posts Paris Ass x Paris Ass Book Fair 2018

I was invited by Berlin-based curator Joel Mu to participate in his project space M.I/mi1glissé's contribution to the 2018 edition of the Paris Ass Book Fair, which ran 16-18 March 2018 at Palais de Tokyo, Paris.



Mu's stand held publications, zines, editions from the following artists:

Tommy Camerno
Eleanor Ivory Weber
Sarah M Harrison
Sarah Montet
Trnsgndr/VHS
Felix Maritaud
Christophe de Rohan Chabot
Cédric Rivrain & Rodrigue Fondeviolle
Fatma Wicca
Andres Komatsu
Garrett Nelson
Ella CB
Alex Chalmers
Adam Fearon
Waldo Pardon
Misa Harz & Marc Elsner
Navot Miller
Henning Schlüter
Julian-Jakob Kneer
Maren Karlson
Anna Solal

For the book fair, I produced a limited edition A4 zine Minus 4 vox, or: without four wordsmiths (2018), which comprised prints of the text works Disnccrnring thr strnight mind: ‘this mny or dnngrrous’ and List of good words, as well as a full-colour poster cover in collaboration with artist Camilla Wills.



Many thanks to Joel Mu and Camilla Wills.

Livres Parlés 2018 @ Erg, Brussels

I was invited by typographer Ludi Loiseau to participate in the annual "Livres Parlés" (Spoken Books/Books Speaking) event at Erg (école de recherche graphique) in Brussels, Belgium.



The event presents the yearly "most beautiful Swiss books" and a selection of recent titles in comics. Loiseau writes: “The principle is: teachers and external speakers are invited through a book to introduce it to the public. This moment opens the publications to a space-time of exchange looking for other views on the book object and trying to reconnect it with the practice.”

On 8 March 2018, I presented US artist Shannon Ebner's A Public Character (Roma Publications). The book was published following Ebner's eponymous exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, USA, and very broadly speaking deals with the recurrence of the letter "A" in public space.

To present this book's textual and photographic nature, as well as to reflect on Ebner's work, I read out loud, from cover forwards, every photographed letter “A” and every word in the written texts that contains that letter, sequentially. I timed myself and stopped when the timer announced 20’00”, which was the suggested duration of each speaker's contribution.

Many thanks to Ludi Loiseau, Marie-Christophe Lambert, Frédéric Dupont and Marnie Slater.

Quote of the day, yay!

"A writer who had found his own voice presented a viewpoint. Created meaning. The writer took a certain amount of language, verbal material, forced that language to stop radiating in multiple, even unnumerable directions, to radiate in only one direction so there could be his meaning.

The writer's voice wasn't exactly this meaning. The writer's voice was a process, how he had forced the language to obey him, his will. The writer's voice is the voice of the writer-as-God.

Writer thought, Don't want to be God; have never wanted to be God. All these male poets want to be the top poet, as if, since they can't be a dictator in the political realm, can be dictator of this world.

Want to play. Be left alone to play. Want to be a sailor who journeys at every edge and even into the unknown. See strange sights, see. If I can't keep on seeing wonders, I'm in prison. Claustrophobia's sister to my worst nightmare: lobotomy, the total loss of perceptual power, of seeing new. If had to force language to be uni-directional, I'd be helping my own prison to be constructed.

There are enough prisons outside, outside language.

Decided, no. Decided that to find her own voice would be negotiating against her joy. That's what the culture seemed to be trying to tell her to do.

Wanted only to write. Was writing. Would keep on writing without finding 'her own voice'. To hell with the Black Mountain poets even though they had taught her a lot.

Decided that since what she wanted to do was just to write, not to find her own voice, could and would write by using anyone's voice, anyone's text, whatever materials she wanted to use."

-- Kathy Acker, "Dead Doll Humility", Postmodern Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, September 1990.

Aftertaste @ Établissement d'en face

I was invited by Margaux Schwarz to participate in the 24-hour overnight event Aftertaste, held from 6pm to 6pm at Établissement d'en face, Brussels, 16-17 February 2018.

Aftertaste featured work by Samuel Fouracre, Brendan Michal Heshka, Eleanor Ivory Weber, neither, Lorde Selys, Elise van Mourik.

For Aftertaste, I presented three new Sub Text Labours across the 24 hours:

1. Smog I: Welcome speech for the guard (2018-), a midnight solo reading of Peter Sloterdijk's Terror From the Air (2009, 112 pages, The MIT Press) in its entirety, with microphone, approximately 3'45", one toilet break.



2. Smog II: The Guard (2018), a work of performative naming in view of the necessity to guard the establishment in the wee hours, and to make a living; black smog mask worn by guard, approximately 5'00", including breaks where necessary; invited by Margaux Schwarz, performed by Elena Betros López.



3. Smog III: Glossolalien Missive (2018-), scored listening exercise for four-voice text composition (words of Anne Carson, Michel de Certeau, Amy Ireland, Cornelia Vismann), paper scrolls, anti-pollution masks, artichoke stamp, approximately 40"; performed by Camille Gérenton, Karl Lydahl, Eleanor Weber, Camilla Wills.









Many, many thanks to Margaux for her support, to all the performers, and to Henry Andersen, Lendl Barcelos and Eunkyung Jeong. Thanks especially to Alex Chalmers for reading-listening the whole of Smog I with me.

Images: Elena Betros López, Pia Louwerens, Margaux Schwarz, myself.

Excerpt of Smog III: Glossolalien Missive (2018-) visible here:

EFFE presents... Lit

Back in October 2017, EFFE (myself and artist-designer Ella Sutherland) launched the curated exhibition Lit, featuring the work of four Australian artists: Athena Thebus, Del Lumanta, Elena Betros, Frances Sharp.

Here is “Lit”.

Let it flick through your tongue behind your teeth and forward in your mouth, this little abbreviative single syllable.

Like in literature and litany, litmus and clitoris, slit, flit, littoral and liturgy, the L-I-T sound often makes for a tasty word. Beyond its sound, you can think of “alt-lit”, “chick-lit”, “lit up”, and the past participle of “light”.

>>>>https://effefe.net/Lit<<<<



Individual links:

Athena Thebus,
Doggy, 2017, text

Del Lumanta,
Untitled, 2017, video synthesis, silent, 6'02"

Frances Sharp,
1. Hot Piss and the Endless Sea (snake pit), 2016, pencil on paper, 38 x 49 cm
2. Glory Mask, 2016, pencil on paper, 30 x 21 cm
3. Glory Mask, 2016, pencil on paper, 21 x 30 cm

Elena Betros,
Is she talking to herself most of the time?
Often.
Often?, 2016, HD video, sound, loop

Essay: https://files.persona.co/64419/Lit.pdf

A million thanks to Ella as always and to the artists, as well as to Judy Annear and Camilla Wills for their feedback on my text, and to Hamishi Farah for starting it all.

The Pots of Établissement 2017

My first art prize, on 2 February 2018 I was awarded a "Pot" for the annual event "The Pots of Établissement" - the Établissement d'en face board's selection of favourite works from the preceding year (2017)!

The piece in question was a reading of my text Joan of Arc (2016), simultaneously translated into the French by Jessica, at the invitation of Roxanne Maillet for Cave Club #3, Brussels.





Many thanks to Margaux Schwarz for her beautiful text in response (see above photo).

See more pictures of the Pots and the other awardees here. The pots are painted by Hugo Dïner.

For more info on the Cave Club reading, see here.

"Cuz Words" @ feeelings/Triangle France, Marseille

Last year I was invited by the Brussels project space feeelings (artists Camille Gérenton & Anouchka Oler) to contribute to their event "Cuz Words", hosted at Triangle France, Marseille.



The event occurred throughout the day of Saturday 18 November 2017 and featured the work of Simon Asencio, Jane Fawcett, Cave Club w/ Eugénie Zely, and myself, plus graphic design by Roxanne Maillet.

The event occurred in two parts, the afternoon session (Zély and Fawcett) was held at Plage des Catalans and the evening session at Friche La Belle de Mai (Asencio and me). There is more information about "Cuz Words" on the Marseille Expos website: http://www.marseilleexpos.com/blog/2017/10/03/cuz-words-par-feelings/.

I presented a reading of a reworking of Walter J. Ong's Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982), as published in the Bâtard festival reader. I spoke with a microphone; I moved around the space where the audience were seated or stood, I sat or stood. The delivery took over 45 minutes, people left, or came and went, as needed; and at a certain point I pressed play on a phased and repeated version of the track "Choked by the Invisible Hand" by IITF, continuing to read alongside it.



For more documentation of the event, please see here: https://feeelings.hotglue.me/?cuzwords.

Merci mille fois Camille, Anouchka, et Simon.

Bâtard: Into the Pores of the Brain (2017)

I was invited to contribute a text to the 2017 Bâtard festival reader, "Into the Pores of the Brain".



Held at Beursschouwburg, Brussels, and running 31 October through 4 November 2017, the annual Bâtard festival presents the work of emerging artists.

Edited by Henry Andersen, Eva Decaesstecker, Hannes Dereere, Bryana Fritz, and Hana Miletić, the accompanying reader includes commissioned contributions by Lietje Bauwens, Pamina de Coulon, Stefan Govaart, Ibrahim Khayar, Ogutu Muraya, and myself, alongside reprints of texts by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and M. Nourbese Philip.



Many thanks to the editors for the invitation, and the chance to publish this experimental text.

Dissect Journal #3 artist pages

I contributed some artist pages to the third issue of the Narrm (Melbourne)-based journal Dissect, which was launched way back on 6 April 2017 at Gertrude Contemporary.



This 300-page special issue was edited by Audrey Schmidt, Chloe Sugden and Zoe Theodore and designed by Clare Wohlnick. It focuses on subjectivity and the body as a site of production. Contributors include:

Philip Auslander, Dodie Bellamy, Eva Birch, Body by Body, Katherine Botten, Cristine Brache, Ramsay Burt, Travis Chamberlain, Amy Charlesworth, Hana Earles, James Ferraro, Karen Finley, Andrea Fraser, Tim Gentles, Isabelle Graw, Amelia Groom, Aurelia Guo, Callan Bradley Hales, K8 Hardy, Anastasia Klose, Chris Kraus, Natasha Madden, Quintessa Matranga, Monica’s Gallery, Ruth O’Leary, Tanja Ostojić, Carol Que, Rare Candy, Ander Rennick, Phebe Schmidt, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Katie West, Amelia Winata, Jarrod Zlatic.

I finally got my hands on some copies and looking good!





Leading up to the journal launch, Audrey Schmidt curated the exhibition Tell Me What You Have and I Will Know What You Are in an Airbnb, occurring across the same dates as the 2016 Spring 1883 contemporary art fair. I contributed a text piece to this group show, documentation of which can be found here.

For more info on Dissect and to purchase a copy, visit their shop!

FORMER WEST: Art and the Contemporary after 1989, BAK/MIT Press, 2016

I worked as copy editor on this crucial reference book for post-Cold War art and politics, Former West: Art and the Contemporary after 1989.

What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? After the tripartite division of the world into first, second, and third has been superseded? Why hasn’t the West simply become “former,” like its supposed counterpart, the “former East”?

Released 10 March 2017, the publication is the culmination of an eight-year research project (2008-16) of the same name initiated and developed by BAK (basis voor actuele kunst), Utrecht, The Netherlands.

[Shelly Silver, Former East/Former West, 1994. German with English subtitles, 16 mm transfer to video, 62 min]

Edited by Maria Hlavajova and Simon Sheikh, the volume includes contributions by: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, Eyal Weizman.



Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836

For more information and to purchase: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/former-west

Thanks go to Maria Hlavajova, contributing editor Tom Clark for his generosity, and especially to managing editor Wietske Maas for her superb organisation and communication. Thanks, too, to all the writers for their amazing ideas.

How To Become A Body Double #1

On 12 September 2017, the latest How To Become magazine, published by DQ Press, was launched at The Cheapest University, Carreau du Temple, Paris.

At the invitation of editor Sabrina Soyer, I contributed a text titled "Why I Hate Translation, or, Reading Lisa Robertson Through Another", which you can read here.



To order How To Become A Body Double or the preceding and inaugural issue How To Become A Lesbian #0, as well as for more information, visit: http://thecheapestuniversity.org/publication/how-to-become-a-body-double/.

Reading As Community: Cave Club #3

At the invitation of Roxanne Maillet, on Tuesday 11 April 2017 I read 'Joan of Arc' at the third Cave Club, "Reading As Community", with simultaneous translation into French by Jessica.



Roxanne invites writers to read their work to an audience of listeners. She records this reading, transcribes and uses it as the basis for a unique "editorial object", where voice rather than word is the graphic source-material. Other invited readers have included Anouchka Oler, Gabrielle Smith & Jacqueline Aubenas, and Aline & Quentin Goujout.



You can get more info and purchase the text-objects at CaveClub.cc!



Many thanks to Roxanne Maillet and to Simon Asencio.

Quote of the day, yay!

'... this understanding of the working subject as a commoditised object stems from the experiences associated with proleterianisation; not being owner of the means of production, the worker has no choice but to present himself as the “owner” of his labour-power, as if it were a commodity. His specific situation is defined by the fact that his labour-power is his only possession. His fate is typical of society as a whole in that this self-objectification, this transformation of a human function into a commodity reveals in all its starkness the dehumanised and dehumanising function of the commodity relation.'

-- Helen Hester, "Towards a Theory of Thing-Women", Living In The Future, Issue 4, 2017.

Georgia Kaw: There Must Be A Rainbow Somewhere - Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2017

I was commissioned to write an essay for the catalogue of HERE&NOW17: New Photography, an exhibition of contemporary non-Indigenous West Australian photography practices, held at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery in Perth from 29 April to 8 July 2017 and curated by Chelsea Hopper.

I wrote about the work of Leipzig- and Perth-based artist Georgia Kaw, which you can read here:

https://www.academia.edu/33898092/Georgia_Kaw_There_Must_Be_A_Rainbow_Somewhere_New_Photography_Lawrence_Wilson_Art_Gallery_Perth_2017



Many thanks to Georgia.

"Critic's Choice" - Art Collector #80

For the 80th issue of Australia's Art Collector magazine, to acknowledge the 35th anniversary of Art Brussels, I wrote five short texts on the work of the following artists:

Simon Asencio, Omar Chowdhury, Sean Crossley, Katja Mater, Margaux Schwarz.



You can read the article here: https://www.academia.edu/33813412/Critics_Choice_Art_Collector_80_Sydney_Australia

No Private Problems @ M.I/mi1glissé

In 2016, I had an exhibition at Berlin-based curator-run space M.I/mi1glissé.

The opening was Wednesday 24 February and the show ran through Saturday 5 March 2016 at Auguststraße 10, D-10117 Berlin.

For documentation, please visit:

http://mi1glisse.com/multi/no-private-problems/eleanor-weber/



Many thanks to curator Joel Mu. Huge thanks to designer Ella Sutherland, whose commissioned typeface Re:[Scan], and overall aid and expertise, was invaluable to this project. I also thank Elena Betros and Susan Gibb for their support.

Lastly, aqnb.com did a write-up before the show opened, which is here:
http://www.aqnb.com/2016/02/24/eleanor-weber-m-i-opening-feb-24/

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/817876078340453/

Nuno da Luz @ Kunstraum Botschaft-Portugal, Berlin

I wrote a text titled "vacant lot half dozen" for Portuguese artist Nuno da Luz's solo exhibition RWSNK ECHOS at Kunstraum Botschaft-Portugal in Berlin, Germany.



The exhibition opened on Friday 28 April and runs through Friday 16 June 2017 at the Portuguese embassy on Zimmerstraße 55, Berlin. Three connected events occur under the title The Forest is the School during June, at a vacant lot owned by the embassy on Hiroshimastraße, Berlin.

You can read my text here (in English and the German translation):

https://www.academia.edu/33051733/Vacant_lot_half_dozen_RWSNK_ECHOS_Nuno_da_Luz_Kunstraum_Botschaft-Portugal_Berlin_2017

Many thanks to Nuno.

Quote of the day, yay!

"This should not surprise us, given that the Feuerbachian project of humanist essentialism proceeds by installing Man in God’s place but otherwise leaving its conceptual foundation in place. Like the Roman conquerors who replaced the heads on local totems with the visage of Caesar while leaving local rituals intact, the religion of humanism preserves the inherited, social relations of truth as it found them. Instead of an implacable, Abrahamic God, the symbolic effects of embodied, socially situated, and culturally lived subjectivity are now collapsed directly into sheer data, as the basis for a new regime of truth.

Ultimately, the universal, unconscious material paranoia of the data harvesters is reflected in the particular, oversensitive mania of the data providers. The imaginative faculty, its aptitude, is reduced to a claustrophobic sense that the world is already predetermined and that there exists a sacred code by which everything is connected, but in a way that can only be guessed at using mere cues and proxies. In such a scenario, artificial intelligence is often paranoically perceived as a kind of a new, self-governing Behemoth, which is, as we know from Schreber, merely the same old God of voluntary servitude to, and dependency on, phantasms of power and domination."

-- Antonia Majaca, "Little Daniel Before the Law: Algorithmic Extimacy and the Rise of the Paranoid Apparatus", e-flux Journal #75, September 2016.



Thanks to artist Brian Fuata for directing me to this.

Ueinzz Theatre Company @ If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part of Your Revolution, Amsterdam

In early December 2016, I was in Amsterdam for part of the finale of If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part of Your Revolution's Edition VI "Event and Duration". I attended, among other things, the Brazilian Ueinzz Theatre Company's performance Zero Gravity, Episode V: Spaces, twice. First at Badhuistheater on Thursday 8 December, and second at Plantage Dok on Saturday 10 December 2016.

I was asked to write a visitor account for If I Can't Dance's "In Rear View" publication, reflecting on Uenizz's piece. The published version, titled "At Least Twice: 1986/2061" can be read here or at the following link:

https://www.academia.edu/32292534/At_Least_Twice_1986_2061_Visitor_Account_of_Ueinzz_Theatre_Company_s_Zero_Gravity_Episode_V_Spaces_If_I_Cant_Dance_I_Dont_Want_To_Be_Part_of_Your_Revolution_Amsterdam_2017



Thanks to Janine Armin, Frédérique Bergholtz, Susan Gibb, and Giulia Tognon.

“What’s Your Favourite Conspiracy Theory?” @ Buenos Tiempos, Int./Mophradat, Brussels

The Brussels launch of curator Francis McKee's book How to Know What’s Really Happening was held on Monday 20 February 2017, from 7pm, hosted by Buenos Tiempos, Int. and Mophradat at Quai des Charbonnages 34, 1080 Molenbeek-Saint-Jean.



Edited by Maha Maamoun & Ala Younis, with Mai Abu ElDahab, and published by Kayfa ta, Mophradat, and Sternberg Press in late 2016, McKee's essay is the third in the Kayfa ta ("how to") series, which "respond to some of today’s perceived needs; be they the development of skills, tools, thoughts, or sensibilities."

The launch featured a track by artist and musician Geo Wyeth, a talk by McKee himself about some of his favourite conspiracies, one by artist Sven Augustijnen, and a reading by me about the figure of Christine Villemin. All this occurred within a décor made by artist Laurie Charles.



Designed by Julie Peeters and Valerie Arif, the book is available in two editions (English and Arabic):

2016
9.6 x 14.8 cm, 56 pages, softcover
ISBN 978-3-95679-272-4 (English)
ISBN 978-3-95679-296-0 (Arabic)
€6.00

Many thanks to Alberto García del Castillo and Marnie Slater for the invitation to present my work in this context, and to Joel Mu for his ongoing support.

Photos by Laurie Charles.