London's Somerset House Studios will host a return of its Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy series in January focusing on health and well-being in the face of technological and ecological change.
This edition's theme investigating how virtual spaces have reshaped our experiences of sex and desire will be shaped by the new Channel film commission by Sidsel Meineche Hansen titled Grumpy.
The series will run from Tuesday, January 28th to Saturday, February February 1st featuring Alex Quicho, Four Chamber’s Vex Ashley, Sophie Cundale, Shu Lea Cheang, SWARM Collective, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Kate Cooper, Candela Capitan, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Black Venus, Jao and Marissa Malik (Manuka Honey).
The programme invites audiences to engage with lived experiences and radical ideas, to shape a healthier fairer future, against the shifting landscapes of love, relationships, and intimacy online and beyond.
Danish artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s work provides the conceptual framework for the broader series with Grumpy, a new commission for Somerset House’s online platform Channel premiering at the opening event of the series titled Bodies and the Industrial Complex.
The artwork combines melodic voice recordings, CGI animation, and ceroplastic—an eighteenth-century technique for casting anatomical wax models from dissected bodies.
The accompanying film is a chilling echo of the porn industry’s production of silicone bodies for automated use is conflated with the figure of the Anatomical Venus, who is cut open to eroticize the function of the reproductive and sexual organs.
The film will be screened at Bodies and the Industrial Complex on Tuesday, January 28th followed by an 'in-conversation’ talk between writer Alex Quicho and actor and head of Four Chambers, Vex Ashley. The pair will interrogate the systems that shape how sex is seen, experienced, and exchanged, chaired by Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University, Feona Attwood.
The event will conclude with a screening of A Cyborg Manifesto by Four Chambers, a visual essay and personal exploration of a life spent online.
On Thursday, January 30th, Future Fantasies: Intimacy and Fiction will explore how technology is transforming the erotic, and how fiction can empower individuals while challenging enduring stigmas.
The evening will start with a performative reading of Guinea Pig by artist Sophie Cundale, who will then be joined in conversation with SWARM Collective, a sex-worker-led initiative and Helen Hester, author of Xenofeminism and Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex.
The evening will conclude with the screening of Virus Becoming by Shu Lea Cheung.
The final event of the series, A New Love: Machines and Love on Saturday, February 1st will be a day-long event of discussions and performances that interrogates Artificial Intelligence and how it has reshaped relationships.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley will present the film TRANS-PORT ME and afterwards will be in conversation with artist Kate Cooper, chaired by philosopher Johnny Golding.
The talk will end with the screening of Infection Divers by Kate Cooper.
Performances will be presented by Candela Capitan, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Black Venus in Furs, Jao and a DJ set by Marissa Malik (Manuka Honey).
This edition's theme investigating how virtual spaces have reshaped our experiences of sex and desire will be shaped by the new Channel film commission by Sidsel Meineche Hansen titled Grumpy.
The series will run from Tuesday, January 28th to Saturday, February February 1st featuring Alex Quicho, Four Chamber’s Vex Ashley, Sophie Cundale, Shu Lea Cheang, SWARM Collective, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Kate Cooper, Candela Capitan, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Black Venus, Jao and Marissa Malik (Manuka Honey).
The programme invites audiences to engage with lived experiences and radical ideas, to shape a healthier fairer future, against the shifting landscapes of love, relationships, and intimacy online and beyond.
Danish artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s work provides the conceptual framework for the broader series with Grumpy, a new commission for Somerset House’s online platform Channel premiering at the opening event of the series titled Bodies and the Industrial Complex.
The artwork combines melodic voice recordings, CGI animation, and ceroplastic—an eighteenth-century technique for casting anatomical wax models from dissected bodies.
The accompanying film is a chilling echo of the porn industry’s production of silicone bodies for automated use is conflated with the figure of the Anatomical Venus, who is cut open to eroticize the function of the reproductive and sexual organs.
The film will be screened at Bodies and the Industrial Complex on Tuesday, January 28th followed by an 'in-conversation’ talk between writer Alex Quicho and actor and head of Four Chambers, Vex Ashley. The pair will interrogate the systems that shape how sex is seen, experienced, and exchanged, chaired by Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University, Feona Attwood.
The event will conclude with a screening of A Cyborg Manifesto by Four Chambers, a visual essay and personal exploration of a life spent online.
On Thursday, January 30th, Future Fantasies: Intimacy and Fiction will explore how technology is transforming the erotic, and how fiction can empower individuals while challenging enduring stigmas.
The evening will start with a performative reading of Guinea Pig by artist Sophie Cundale, who will then be joined in conversation with SWARM Collective, a sex-worker-led initiative and Helen Hester, author of Xenofeminism and Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex.
The evening will conclude with the screening of Virus Becoming by Shu Lea Cheung.
The final event of the series, A New Love: Machines and Love on Saturday, February 1st will be a day-long event of discussions and performances that interrogates Artificial Intelligence and how it has reshaped relationships.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley will present the film TRANS-PORT ME and afterwards will be in conversation with artist Kate Cooper, chaired by philosopher Johnny Golding.
The talk will end with the screening of Infection Divers by Kate Cooper.
Performances will be presented by Candela Capitan, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Black Venus in Furs, Jao and a DJ set by Marissa Malik (Manuka Honey).
For details go to somersethouse.org.uk.
Grumpy still, courtesy of Sidsel Meineche Hansen