Virtual Embrace symposium

About

Performances: Annabelle Craven-Jones, Elizabeth Mputu | Screenings: Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowicz, Shu Lea Cheang, Ayesha Tan Jones | 
Speakers: Victoria Sin, Helen Hester, Chair: Nina Wakeford

Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz’s 1980 public communication sculpture ‘Hole In Space’ connected pedestrians on the streets of NYC and LA via life-size transmitted video projections of themselves in a strangely intimate science fiction fantasy. Nearly 40 years later what we are now familiar with as a ‘live feed’ thanks to the ubiquity of Wi-Fi, Skype and FaceTime, is invariably interrupted by the friction of imperfect technology. Jittering, rather than flowing from source to mouth, the fantasy of the encrypted liquid body is interrupted and awkwardly jerks one back to the material lack of physical proximity.  

Virtual Embrace has been developed by Res. from research carried out in the archive of media art curator Kathy Rae Huffman. The archive is formed of a collection of catalogues, videos and rare books on cyberfeminism, broadcasting, net.art, and early New Media Art from the 1980s to early ‘00s. For the past 12 months with Goldsmiths Library, Res. have been working on a programme of practice-based research events and commissions using these materials as a starting point.

Schedule:

4.00-4.15pm   Screening: A Hole A Space (1980) by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz 

4.15-4.30pm   Introduction by Res. curators Sarah Jury, Helen Kaplinsky and Lucy A. Sames

4.30-5.00pm   Screening: Satelite Arts and other projects 1975-1995 (1995) by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz

5.00-5.25pm   Screening: Skype D8 w/ UNA jynXX (2013) and Whychcraft? (2017) by Ayesha Tan Jones 

5.25-5.55pm   BREAK + Live stream: [floating hands floating minds] by Annabelle Craven-Jones 

5.55-6.10pm   Live stream opening ritual: <title><LIVING><b>REATHING</b><HUMANS><COMPOST><SYSTEM></title> by Elizabeth Mputu*

6.10-6.35pm   Screening: Those Fluttering Objects of Desire (1992) by Shu Lea Cheang 

6.35-6.55pm   Response to Shu Lea Cheang by Victoria Sin

6.55-7.15pm   Keynote: After the Future: n Hypotheses of Post-Cyber Feminism by Helen Hester 

7.15-8.00pm   Panel: Helen Hester & Victoria Sin, chaired by Nina Wakeford

8.00-10.00pm Drinks with music from Chloe Frieda (Alien Jams)

*Live streamed performance <title><LIVING><b>REATHING</b><HUMANS> <COMPOST><SYSTEM></title> by Elizabeth Mputu will continue be exhibited until 8.30pm 

A selection of books and catalogues from the archive is installed at Res. and will be available to browse during the Virtual Embrace event. Alternatively you can make an appointment to visit at any time.

New texts by Helen Hester, Legacy Russell and Linda Stupart, written in response to materials and themes within the Kathy Rea Huffman Archive, will be released over the next three weeks on beingres.org

For further information on Virtual Embrace or to visit the Kathy Rae Huffman Archive, please send us an email contact@beingres.org

Tickets for Virtual Embrace are priced on a sliding scale - please select the price you can afford, booking is essential. Res. is a not for profit organisation.

Booking essential, tickets £0-5