Cinema Cummodification: Two Documentaries and a Q&A

About

Hyper Masculinity on the Dance Floor (Emre Busse and Selin Devasse, 2016) Duration: 50 minutes

Landlords: SM Apartments in Berlin (Emre Busse and Ceven Knowles, 2016) Duration: 40 min. 24 sec.

Busse will attend a Q&A session after the screening.

Hyper Masculinity on the Dance Floor is about the club economy of seeing and being seen. Hyper masculine bodies and bodily enactments not only communicate a certain idealized muscled aesthetic but also employ and reflect cultural notions of gender, sexuality, desire, race and class. The film asks questions like does hyper-masculine gay men undermine the dominant hetero-patriarchal values around gender and sexuality by showing masculinity to be performative rather than some form of essential identity attainable only by heterosexual men? Or does it reinforce the dominant values of hetero-patriarchy by placing a higher value on masculinity over femininity and a heterosexual gender expression over a homosexual or queer one? In relation to the hyper femininity of drag queens, to what degree is camp and irony involved in the performance of hyper masculinity? This video takes the dancing body on the homo-social dance floor as a research site and aims to wander through the spectrum of hyper masculinity and its expressions, cultural origins and political implications.

Landlords: SM Apartments in Berlin takes us behind the culture of S&M apartment rentals in Berlin in search of the answers to the questions: who owns them, how are they designed, to whom and how they are marketed, and how do hey fit into their niche market within the cities well-known sex tourism trade?"Homeownership fetish" broke out as an American Dream in the beginning of 1900's, and its historical variation on today’s social predicaments like globalization, immigration issues and gentrification. Berlin -the fetish capitol of Europe- creates a new area of criticism in the homosocial environment which can be associated with commodity fetishism, also provided by more than five fetish housing companies. This documentary, intends to explore the relationship between supply and demand in this niche of the sex community in order to understand and imagine other new possible applications within the non-commercial gay and queer marketplaces.

This programme is part of a wider series of events entitled Turkish Delight which will take place between 17-22 March. Turkish Delight is curated by Queer Art Projects in partnership with CUNTemporary and supported by Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants, the Mountain of Arts Research (MARs) and Centre of Feminist Research at Goldsmiths College, Live Art Development Agency (LADA) and Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (BGWMC). For other events please check our website at www.queerartprojects.co.uk