Soulnessless – Introduction
Terre Thaemlitz
“I am truly without faith. In a media marketplace that demands soulness, I can only offer soulnessless.”
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.
“I am truly without faith. In a media marketplace that demands soulness, I can only offer soulnessless.”
In many ways, this Episode is our attempt to engage with Fred’s incredible writing: with his proposal that all black performance (culture, politics, sexuality, identity, and blackness itself) is improvisation.
Ellis’s processional, precessional cessation and continuation of movement and music comes to us via his forthcoming release Aster of Ceremonies (Milkweed Editions, 2023)
Simon Morris is joined by Nick Thurston as they attempt to read aloud whilst peddling on exercise bikes.
Veterans of the psych-infused UK free noise scene, the Vibracathedral Orchestra is a hypnotic ur-drone group hailing from Leeds.
An audio/ video, lecture/ performance exploring the queer and companionly inter-activity of human-animal relations.
Stripping back the domesticated ‘meaning’ of (everyday, mundane, kitchen) tools to reveal “a lexicon of rage and frustration.” Plus an allegorical use of mundane, everyday things as an examination of how meaning is constructed in film.
A discussion about what is at stake in the performance of realness and the practice of passing, and how they are both acts of survival and resistance.
A workshop inviting participants to enact a series of scores that explore witnessing, testimony, grief and mourning, facilitated by Mezna and Sadia, and accompanied by Sakina Ali.
A meditation on how all of us perform — sometimes reinforcing, sometimes subverting — the shifting categories of gender, sexuality and race.
Individual experience separated by physical boundaries (of space, time or ability) suggested as communities of collective experience by (perhaps voyeuristic) artists.
A full-blooded, emotional attempt to reinvigorate improvisation from a musically inclined philosopher and two philosophically inclined improvisers.