Speakers: Birgitta Hosea | Dr. Paula Callus | Jake Elwes
Demo Artists: Peju Alatise | James Nasmyth | Ro Greengrass | Drucilla Burrell | Paul Kindersley
Media arts question boundaries and definitions of societal concepts, including notions and conceptions of gender. Gender*uck presents a next generation of artists investigating boundaries of gender concepts. These young artists investigate gender fluid representation in diverse media: Where does technology empower, where does it limit our conceptions of self and other? How can we look beyond binary forms of representations in the context of the binary and digital in new media. In a tech-centric world of media abundance, what roles can artists play in questioning gender norms, gender representations and gender normativity?
Paul Kindersley looks at gender normalisations in youtube make-up tutorials. Drucilla Burrell investigates esthetics beyond gender definitions through her fine art photography series. Media artist Birgitta Hosea discusses gender in her animation and performance practice. Paula Callus is presenting her work with Nigerian women artists from an anthropological angle focusing upon the culturally located experiences of gender. James Nasmyth will present a photobooth that subverts gender conceptions. Artist Jake Elwes explores alternative gender representations in the context of machine learning algorithms: What happens when computers try to find patterns of beauty beyond gender concepts and their mathematical confinements. Last but not least, Ro Greenberg’s investigates non-binary concepts through their art and music creation. Talks by Birgitta Hosea, Jake Elwes and Paula Callus will be presenting their work through talks will be contextualised by artist demos.
Together these artists discuss limitations, possibilities and the future of technology for art forms beyond gender in the context of New Media - in an evening curated by Art in Flux Co-founder Olive Gingrich.
Paul Kindersley looks at gender normalisations in youtube make-up tutorials. Drucilla Burrell investigates esthetics beyond gender definitions through her fine art photography series. Media artist Birgitta Hosea discusses gender in her animation and performance practice. Paula Callus is presenting her work with Nigerian women artists from an anthropological angle focusing upon the culturally located experiences of gender. James Nasmyth will present a photobooth that subverts gender conceptions. Artist Jake Elwes explores alternative gender representations in the context of machine learning algorithms: What happens when computers try to find patterns of beauty beyond gender concepts and their mathematical confinements. Last but not least, Ro Greenberg’s investigates non-binary concepts through their art and music creation. Talks by Birgitta Hosea, Jake Elwes and Paula Callus will be presenting their work through talks will be contextualised by artist demos.
Together these artists discuss limitations, possibilities and the future of technology for art forms beyond gender in the context of New Media - in an evening curated by Art in Flux Co-founder Olive Gingrich.
About the Curator:
Olive Gingrich: Artist, Curator and Co-founder of Art in Flux London
Oliver Gingrich, is artist, creative director at MDH Hologram (musion.com), and producer at the collective Analema Group. Holding a doctorate in Digital Media from Centre of Digital Entertainment, and a MA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, his art focuses on the concept of ‘presence’ - transformative experiences that go beyond media. As creative director, he conjures the illusion of presence through holographic projection.
Oliver Gingrich displays across a range of different media, photography, digital art, acrylic on canvas and holographic projection. With the collective Analema Group, invisible phenomena are experienced visually, sensually, sonically resulting in immersive experiences for their audiences. In his photography series, the artist explores the themes of changing identities, spatial transformation and transcendence. https://olivergingrich.com/ |
About the Speakers:
Dr. Paula Callus: Researcher / National Centre for Computer Animation
Paula Callus is an associate professor at the National Centre for Computer Animation, Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. Her research expertise is in Sub-Saharan African animation. Callus is currently leading the AHRC research ArtoP: The Visual Articulations of Politics in Nigeria, that seeks to document and archive evidence of art as political discourse in Nigeria over the course of 18 months. She has worked as a consultant and educator on the UNESCO Africa Animated projects in Kenya and South Africa, leading teams of artists to collaborate together to make animated shorts. She has conducted participant-observer fieldwork in the DRC, Zimbabwe and Kenya on animation and related artistic practices in the Sub-Saharan region resulting in publications on aspects of African animation such as subversive animation and politics in Kenya, remediated documentary through African animation and new technologies and animation in Morocco. She was BFX Conference director for two years and was part of an AHRC Network for Development grant, e-Voices, that was looking at marginalization and the use of digital technologies. She was co-responsible for the sub-theme; Arts, Activism and Marginalization that took place in Nairobi, Kenya and consisted of curating an exhibition, workshops with artists, and focus groups with activists.
This talk emerges from ongoing research into articulations of politics in the arts in Nigeria. It focuses upon contemporary women artists from Nigeria who are engaging with political discourse through their work in gendered ways, and invites people to consider the culturally located experiences of gender and the challenges that these present to these different artists. The artists that will be looked at are emerging and established in the Nigerian contemporary art scene and use a range of different media, from digital photography to performance. https://artop.bmth.ac.uk/ |
Jake Elwes: Artist
Jake is an artist living and working in London. His recent works have looked at machine learning and artificial intelligence research, exploring the code, philosophy and ethics behind it. In his art Jake engages with both the history and tropes of fine art and the possibilities and consequences of digital technology. He graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL), London in 2017.
Jake's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; TANK Museum, Shanghai; Today Art Museum, Beijing; CyFest, Venice; Edinburgh Futures Institute, UK; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany; New Contemporaries 2017, UK; Ars Electronica 2017, Austria; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; LABoral Centro, Spain; Nature Morte, Delhi, India and the Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), UK. Jake’s recent project Zizi plays with the idea of ‘queering the dataset’, by tackling head-on the lack of representation in the training datasets often used by facial recognition systems. Zizi disrupts these systems by retraining them with the addition of drag and gender fluidity. Other projects include A.I. marsh birds and getting different machine learning algorithms to converse with each other. https://www.jakeelwes.com/ |
Birgitta Hosea: Artist / University of Creative Arts
Birgitta Hosea is a time-based media artist who combines animation, performance, installation and drawing to engage with themes arising from the female condition including sexuality - Hot Pussy (1993), performing ‘femme’ identity - Dog Betty (2007), confronting the voyeuristic male gaze – Out There in the Dark (2008), feminism and the spirit world – Medium (2012), visualising domestic labour - Erasure (2018) and reclaiming the night - dotdot dash (2018). Recent exhibitions include Venice & Karachi Biennales; Oaxaca & Chengdu Museums of Contemporary Art; InspiralLondon and Hanmi Gallery, Seoul. Included in the Tate Britain and Centre d’Arte Contemporain archives, she received an Adobe Impact Award, a MAMA Award for Holographic Arts and honorary fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts. Reader in Moving Image at the University for the Creative Arts, she was previously Head of Animation at the Royal College of Art and prior to that at Central Saint Martins, where she gained her practice-based PhD.
Talk: Performativity and the Line In this presentation, Birgitta Hosea will talk about how queer theorist Judith Butler has influenced her to produce works that combine media to explore performance and identity. She will give specific examples of live art projects she has created that incorporate electronic drawing. http://www.birgittahosea.co.uk/ |
About the Demo Artists:
Paul Kindersley: Artist
Paul Kindersley is a London based artist working across performance, film, drawing and storytelling who has exhibited widely including recently at the Hayward Gallery London, Charleston House, Glasgow International Festival, Nottingham Contemporary, Galerie Sultana Paris, Kettles Yard Cambridge, Kunsthall Oslo and MACVAL Museum Paris. He is represented by Belmacz Gallery, London. His latest work is a horror feature film called The Burning Baby, a surreal psychological fairytale that investigates our relationship to landscape, identity, family, sexuality and death.
Paul Kindersley will talk about the trilogy of feature films that he developed over the last few years. They take on a communal performance art method of filmmaking that references classic and experimental cinema and theatre. They comprise a familial vampire drama 'Das Spiel Der Hoffnung' 2017 www.imdb.com/title/tt9908636/ . 'The Image' (originally commissioned by Charleston Trust in response to Virginia Woolf's Orlando) 2018 www.imdb.com/title/tt9421442/ and 'The Burning Baby' 2020 due for release this year - www.imdb.com/title/tt11807300/ Paul Kindersley’s work frequently references classic masterpieces including references to the National Gallery. Stills and setups in the film reference classical artworks from the Pieta to Vermeer to dutch still life, also interested in Tableau Vivant in recreating classical or historical images etc. Das Spiel Der Hoffnung trailer: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8awSU369Tk The Burning Baby trailer here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gASeCg9DIPo also www.TheBurningBaby.com |
James Nasmyth: Artist / Curator / Researcher
James Nasmyth is a curator, researcher (Central Saint Martins, MA Art & Science) and creative, primarily interested in the power of unimportant things; those small moments of silliness, unexpected sensuality, and ennui which inform and create informal networks of friendship and kinship between us.
‘The Dark Room’ is an interactive installation in which people can take, exhibit and share intimate photographs. Designed to inhabit nightlife spaces it is a human-centred response to the heteronormative, sometimes racist and/or sexist algorithms built into our digital networks, which censor and control the content we share. |
Drucilla Burrell: Photographer / Moustached / Dandy / Curator
Drucilla Burrell is a multi-disciplinary artist using non-conformity and dandyism as a method of Queering and play. Their work explores identity representation and gender expression using surface costumery and photography. By pulling the surreal and non-normative into the everyday they ask gentle questions of the viewer’s ‘norm’ and social conformity as a whole.
Queer (adj.) - deviating from the expected or normal; strange: a queer situation Queer (adj ) - odd or unconventional, as in behavior; eccentric Queer (adj.) - of a questionable nature or character; suspicious. In this short demo we will talk through a new body of work created in lockdown with collaborator Magdalene Celeste. The series consists of playful historical ‘vistas’ which challenge and explore identity representation and gender expression throughout history. http://www.drucillaburrell.com/ |
Ro Greengrass: Artist / Musician / Filmmaker
Ro Greengrass [He/They] is a non-binary Artist, Musician and Filmmaker based in London, exploring Queer identity and technology through sound art and film. Their work seeks to depict lbgt+ experience in abstracting the details of everyday life, a close up of a dress sequin, the sound of voices, your chosen family calling for you in a crowded room.
Being both a transgender man and a singer creates conflict. Starting hormone replacement therapy lowers the voice and may damage singing abilities permanently. In order to transition medically as a trans vocalist, you must make a choice and take risk. Your voice, or your comfort. Down there the sea folk live, a film about gender transition and singing voices, is a Poetic Documentary from Director Stan Greengrass with Cinematography by Maddy James. Offering a subversion of trans narratives, the film explores the experience of trans masculine performers and their complicated relationships with their voices and stage personas. Visually captivating and enchanting, seafolk takes the audience on a journey through the many facets of the trans-masculine community, from drag performances to live music. The film provides an intimate insight into the lives of trans men struggling with the sacrifices that gender transition present - and why it’s worth it. Trailer: https://youtu.be/EfmFfjQ9JcI Film: https://youtu.be/AzzaWxz2-kw Soupacomputer i woke up a computer i'm breathing through the walls the screen is made of velvet we're waiting for your call... a laundry cycle takes thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to stare into the spinning drum and think about the grey space that occupies your insides. in midnight_laundry, supercomputer's debut album, they aim to capture that feeling of the tumble, buttons on metal, a penny that falls through the slats and into the void of the algorhythm. Layered vocals, intertwined rhythms and sparkling synths merge together to form a soft blanket of audio-uncertainty. just something to listen to while the clothes are drying. https://soupacomputer.bandcamp.com/track/wave-machine |