They Say We’re Sick – photos from performance
They Say We’re Sick, part of my Femme Disturbance series was performed at the Institute of Multimedia Literacy in Los Angeles and at the Creatie Activism in the Age of Digital Technologies Symposium at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU on Friday March 30th, 2012, 1:30PM PST / 4:30PM EST. Claire Viele was my collaborator for some of the photos used in the performance and fashion hacking. These documentation photos of the performance are by Veronica Paredes.
They Say We’re Sick is a live performance of theory, poetry and media from my personal archive. Using a feminist aesthetic of focusing on everyday experiences that are autobiographical and deeply personal, I discuss the intersections of transgender and disability, by way of the most important femmes in my life. The media in the performance will be photos and videos taken mostly with my cell phone of events in my life. This marks a new direction in my work, an attempt to integrate my practices of philosophical writing, poetic writing and performance into one experience.
The Femme Disturbance series considers the possibilities for queer femme affect to disturb rationalist traditions that give rise to capitalism, heterosexism, ableism, racism and other forms of exclusion. This performance explores the way in which a femme attraction, between a genderqueer transgender person and a queer woman, can create a sense of solidarity for different forms of embodiment deemed excessive: the femme, the mentally ill, the differently abled and the gender non conforming.
They Say We’re Sick: Performance Friday, March 30th in LA and NYC
Come see They Say We’re Sick, part of my Femme Disturbance series at the Institute of Multimedia Literacy in Los Angeles and at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU on Friday March 30th, 2012, 1:30PM PST / 4:30PM EST.
They Say We’re Sick is a live performance of theory, poetry and media from my personal archive. Using a feminist aesthetic of focusing on everyday experiences that are autobiographical and deeply personal, I will discuss the intersections of transgender and disability, by way of the most important femmes in my life. The media in the performance will be photos and videos taken mostly with my cell phone of events in my life. This marks a new direction in my work, an attempt to integrate my practices of philosophical writing, poetic writing and performance into one experience.
The Femme Disturbance series considers the possibilities for queer femme affect to disturb rationalist traditions that give rise to capitalism, heterosexism, ableism, racism and other forms of exclusion. This performance will explore the way in which a femme attraction, between a genderqueer transgender person and a queer woman, can create a sense of solidarity for different forms of embodiment deemed excessive: the femme, the mentally ill, the differently abled and the gender non conforming.
Digital Humanities: Creative Activism in the Age of Digital Technologies
Digital technologies have offered scholars, artists, and activists new strategies to address a broad array of social problems, enabling powerful new connections between artistic production, political action, and humanities scholarship. This symposium will explore the relationship between creativity, activism and digital technologies, and examine the new forms of political intervention, collaboration, and corporalities which these have enabled.
The event will include presentations by Faye Ginsburg (NYU), Jacques Servin (The Yes Men/NYU), and Aaron Bady (UC Berkeley), a digital performance by Micha Cardenas (USC), and responses from Diana Taylor (NYU), Michael Stoller (NYU), Tavia Nyong’o (NYU),Nicholas Mirzoeff (NYU), and Debra Levine (NYU).
Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics
20 Cooper Sq, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Free, photo ID required. Reception to follow.
This event is co-sponsored by The Digital Humanities Working Research Group, a project of the Humanities Initiative led by Diana Taylor (University Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish, and Director of the Hemispheric Institute) and Michael Stoller (Director of Collections and Research Services, New York University Libraries) that brings together a broad range of humanists and technologists from across NYU to discuss the role and implication of digital technologies in the Humanities.
The Transreal: Book Party at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives
Come and join me to celebrate the release of my new book The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives!
There will be a introduction by Jordan Crandall and Jack Halberstam and then I’ll do a brief reading from the book.
Thursday, April 5th, 2012
6pm-7:30pm
909 W. Adams Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90007
Wine and light refreshments will be served outside in the garden area.
Get your copy online from Amazon:
The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities explores the use of multiple simultaneous realities as a medium in contemporary art, including mixed reality, augmented reality and alternate reality approaches. Building on the notion of “trans” from transgender, signifying the crossing of boundaries, the book proposes that transreal aesthetics cross the boundaries created by a proliferation of conceptions of reality that occurred as a result of postmodern theory and emerging technologies.
Proposing three operations for dealing with multiple realities, The Transreal discusses artists and art collectives including Blast Theory, mez breeze, Reza Negarestani, Ricardo Dominguez and Zach Blas. Through these artists’ work and Cárdenas’ own artwork, including Becoming Dragon and collaborations with Elle Mehrmand Becoming Transreal, technésexual and virus.circus, The Transreal demonstrates that transreal aesthetics have broad implications across new media, performance art and electronic literature. The book spans a wide range of genres including theoretical analyses of artworks, poetry, source code, photos of performances and wearable electronics, and discussions with leading thinkers in new media and performance art including Stelarc, Allucquére Rosanne Stone and Ricardo Dominguez.
Thanks to the ONE Archives for hosting this event! http://
Audio of Queer Viral Practices Panel at SXSW
The audio recording of our panel from this year’s SXSW Interactive is up. You can listen here:
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP100223
Enjoy.
Queer Viral Practices at SXSW Interactive
I’m so happy about my first ever SXSW presentation. I’ll be performing part of my new book, The Transreal, co-written with many of my favorite artists, so don’t miss it!
reposting with slight edits from zachblas.info…
On March 9th, Zach Blas, Pinar Yoldas, and myself will give artist talks on the Queer Viral Practices in New Media Art and Theory panel at South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. Please come join us if you’ll be around!
Thanks to Rhizome.org for recommending our panel!
Queer Viral Practices in New Media Art and Theory
#sxsw #queerviral
In this panel, we will focus on queer new media art and philosophy that uses and intervenes into the viral to form a radical politics of revolt and utopia. Viral will be engaged with technically, philosophically, artistically, biologically, and effectively. Our aim is to show that while viral rhetoric and discourses have marginalized and controlled queer populations, the viral remains an allusive, volatile potential that can be experimented with toward creating new queer politics and worlds. Cárdenas will discuss her collaboration with Elle Mehrmand, virus.cirus, an episodic series of performances using wearable electronics and live audio to bridge virtual and physical spaces that explores queer futures of latex sexuality amidst a speculative world of virus hysteria and DIY medicine. Blas will speak on new works from his ongoing Queer Technologies project that attempt to formulate a viral aesthetics based on a replicating difference of never-being-the-sameness against capital’s own modulating structure.
The Transreal book is now available!
The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities is now available on Amazon.com. I am so thrilled to say that my new book was released in February 2012. I hope you enjoy it and if you write a review, please let me know! Or if you know of a university or bookstore that would like to host an event, please comment on this post and I’ll get back to you via email. Thank you!
From the back cover:
“In this daring and poetic study, Micha Cárdenas guides us through the world of the transexual, the transgenerational, the transpolitical, the transborder. The transreal is both a multilayered space and an existential condition. Brilliant.”
Diana Taylor, University Professor, Performance Studies and Spanish, New York University
“The book itself, a provocative combination of theory, art, and autobiography, is at once a field guide, operating manual, and diary that embodies the mobile, mixed realities that it activates and describes, bringing together erotics and ethics within its calls to action.”
Jordan Crandall, Associate Professor, Visual Arts, UC San Diego
“Micha Cárdenas and her playmates are ontological guerrillas who know that blowing up the dominant order of power/knowledge is only the first step towards real revolution. The crucial next step is materializing virtual possibilities immanent in our current situation.”
Susan Stryker, Associate Professor, University of Arizona