Creating Empathy: screening/performances by XEN
- Doors: 16:00
- Start time: 16:30
- Entrance: free
XEN will present/perform an expanded occasion incorporating sound, film, discussion, and alternative ways of being-together. In Queer Temporalities: Raving Architectonics, XEN will introduce the historical yet topical idea of “rave” as a site for emancipation and community-building, drawing links between this and queer temporality.
"It is ostensibly funny how power plants and factories have assumed a function — the club — diametrically opposed to their original use: dissipating excess energy through physical and affective work without obvious utility, such as dancing, the chemically accelerated depletion of dopamine and serotonin stocks, and non-reproductive sex." – Martti Kalliala
We will discuss supporting excerpts from José Esteban Muñoz, Helen Hester, Martti Kalliala, Ashkan Sepahvand, and Paul B. Preciado, digressing into how spaces, architecture, and environment can have utopian potential, and questioning the problematics of the (queer) utopia.
Suggested reading:
- José Esteban Muñoz’s “Take Ecstasy with Me” (2009)
- Helen Hester’s Xenofeminism (2018)
- Martti Kalliala’s “Club Ruins” (2016)
- Ashkan Sepahvand’s Everything I learned about technocapitalism, I learned at Berghain (2015)
- Paul B. Preciado’s Pornotopia (2014)
PROGRAM
- Yann Gonzalez, Nous ne serons plus jamais seuls (2016, 10′)
- 3voor12 extra, Body in Revolt - ADE18 (2018, 4′)
Performance and curation by Zander Porter and Pedro Marum for SPEKTRUM in collaboration with TRANSMEDIALE. Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
About XEN
XenoEntities Network (XEN) is a platform for discussion and experimentation focusing on intersections of queer, gender, and feminist studies with digital technologies, initiated by Pedro Marum and expanded to a collective including Lou Drago, Rita Macedo, and Zander Porter. The XEN-curated programs comprise events with performances, screenings, and panels. Programs revolve around contemporary art and philosophical-theoretical themes such as posthumanism, xenofeminism, cyborgs and prosthetics, surveillance technologies, virtual reality, amongst others.
