Cosmic Pessimism
Eugene Thacker
A performed lecture concerned with Renaissance occult (musical) thinkers of the cosmic who put forward the notion of the “disharmony of the world”
Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
A performed lecture concerned with Renaissance occult (musical) thinkers of the cosmic who put forward the notion of the “disharmony of the world”
Heat-mapped bodies, found porn films, Korean psyche-folk, creepy police intrusion and self-defence.
What is the radical concept at the core of ‘rhythm’, expanded from simply musical or mathematical notions to encompass personal, social, collective rhythms?
INSTAL’s third outing saw performances by AMM, Cosmos (Sachiko M & Ami Yoshida), Voreboms, Vibracathedral Orchestra with Matthew Bower and John Godbert, Paragon Ensemble, Merzbow and Ryoji Ikeda.
Thought and action, writing and protesting. A chat with Nat Raha, KUCHENGA and Jackie Wang asking what can be learnt from writing across genres by agitators, activists and abolitionists?
Out of a dark haze, shafts of light emerge, as the emulsion is scratched from the surface of the film. Simultaneously, out of the black silence, noise and audible scratches bloom into a bright drone.
Three speakers play back pre-recorded sounds, Marc listens and responds: “What is played is the imperfect witness of what I listen to (or maybe better, how I listen).”
What to do about a telethon other than fuck it up? Poet, tarotist, artist, and librarian Cyrée Jarelle Johnson returns to IWBWYE to read the 1980s and ’90s for what those decades were: practice for now.
The Cube is a 6 hour performed installation in which sound and image are treated as independent but equal, where musicians and filmmakers sit alongside each other, improvise to and feed off both projected image and amplified and acoustic sound.
A queer black operatic requiem for piano and voice that asks us to stay in the hold of the slave ship, that tries to understand the connection from the slave ship to the prison.
The final iteration of Arika’s INSTAL festivals, the 2010 edition was an experimental festival of experimental music – 3 days of events at the Tramway that explored un-average ideas about sound and music.
Can we use sound, repetition and difference to personally and collectively engage with space, time and labour?