⛓️ The catacombs beneath the Center of Experimental Theatre are this time transformed into a hermeneutic organ that shall process and produce uncanny encounters. Inside this organ that digests its visitors, the artworks will serve as guides to navigate the site-specific exhibition project.
⛓️ The sculptures of Julie Villard and Simon Brossard are the first and most obvious extensions of the systemic imaginary created in the catacombs. Their works are the tangible representation through which we shall navigate this space in the making. In this space, we will also find Judita Levitnerová´s installation works that transgress their dimensional limitations and muck into another dimension through artificial digestive fluids. Between this dimensions, the works of Frank Yunker show us the delicate outline of a possible existence between the realm of anthropomorphism and the spaciotemporal continuum. Further down that uncanny valley we will encounter the radical industrialist-core impressions by SAON and a more nightmarish and openly dystopian position in the works of Daniela Ponomarevová. Finally, the deconstructed images of gore into different screens by Jose Eduardo Barajas segment the inverted intestine and provide a horizon from where we can observe and perceive the recursive inversion that Spooky Butt is trying to create throughout its chapters.
⛓️ For the purpose of expanding these notions, we will host a one-day conversational program with Vít Bohal and Lenka Veselá from the Prague based Diffractions Collective, artist talk Jose Eduardo Barajas and a concert performance by Pope Sangreta (music project by artist Chin Tsao), who exhibited in Spooky Butt 1.
The accompanying program to the exhibition will take place on 5/8 int he CED Katakomby.
Program:
𝓙𝓸𝓼𝓮 𝓔𝓭𝓾𝓪𝓻𝓭𝓸 𝓑𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓳𝓪𝓼 (MX) / artist talk
Barajas(Mx) will give an artist talk presenting his exhibited piece 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 and provide a short overview of his artistic work. Barajas’ practice consists on the investigation of the visuality through the experimentation with different techniques. His work combines his personal experiences, iconography of popular culture and elements from different pictorial traditions. Popular motifs intermingle with technical processes ranging from conventional drawing and painting to abstraction and experimen- tation with new materials. In this way, Barajas’ work is presented as a visual language that challenges the perception and memory of the viewer.
𝓥𝓲́𝓽 𝓑𝓸𝓱𝓪𝓵 (CZ) & 𝓛𝓮𝓷𝓴𝓪 𝓥𝓮𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓪́ (CZ) / lecture
“Synthetic becoming” references bodies emerging by synthesis — designating posthuman understanding of bodies as interdependent more-than-human assemblages while also affirming “artificiality” or “unnaturalness” of those deemed to be “against nature”. Drawing on research of an international collective of artists, activists and feminist technoscience researchers that I am part of, Bohal will discuss posthuman mutability and cyborg becoming with technologies and technologically transformed environments in relation to sex hormones and hormone-mimicking chemicals. What does life re-assembled by industrial, pharmaceutical and more-than-human production of hormonally active molecules look and feel like? And in what ways can decolonial, feminist and queer ecological perspectives help us put forward critical but hopeful visions of synthetic becoming with hormones and hormonally active chemicals that facilitate caring relations and allow us to envision and enact hopeful futures with these peculiar material-discursive agents?
𝓟𝓸𝓹𝓮 𝓢𝓪𝓷𝓰𝓻𝓮𝓽𝓪 (TW/AT) / music performance
Pope Sangreta is a Vienna based musician and performer. Since 2019, ze has been hosting a series event 𝘌𝘗𝘏𝘌𝘔𝘌𝘙𝘖𝘚. The event aims to develop the experimental dialogue of emerging multidisciplinary artists and to provide an intimate platform for artistic intervention with divided communities. Ze is currently working on a series of video projects “The Land of Promise”, which uses music video as a speculative-fictional narrative to respond to the issue of digital cultures.
More information can be found on the web or facebook.