Episode 4: Freedom is a Constant Struggle
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
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.
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
A 3-day exploration – through performance, screenings and discussion – of the art and politics of wayward communities who refuse to be bound by the fictions of race and sex.
As opposed to suggesting soundtrack’s to Brakhage’s works [which are almost entirely silent] Text of Light use his works to stimulate improvisation, enveloping them into the structure of the group much like an additional musician.
Audio signals pass through light bulbs, causing the filaments of the bulbs to sing and crackle in a chorus of electronic static.
A voice that can vault from an elegantly whispered insinuation to asphyxiated and murderous barks or squalls in a heartbeat.
A short chat about what we (Arika) might be trying to do with our program for the Biennial.
Work that focuses in on the static hiss and background noise of recording and pushes it to the fore.
The Truth and Lies book project emerges as part of a rising tide of sex worker art and organised struggle to end criminalisation and stigmatisation of sex work.
4 days of performances, discussions, workshops, screenings with mutant dancers, prison abolitionist poets, transfeminist revolutionaries, haunted noise, science fiction, sex worker resistance, crip erotics, radical pornography and militant fiction.
Formed as a means to realise William Bennett’s goal of “a sound that could bludgeon an audience into submission”
Post consideration and post rationalisation… How do we think about experimental music and film after the performance?
A performance for dry ice and four specially constructed steel tables, each one heated by a single candle until searingly hot.