“When I say virtuality is a cultural perception, I do not mean that it is merely a psychological phenomenon. It is instantiated in an array of powerful technologies. The perception of virtuality facilitates the development of virtual technologies, and the technologies reinforce the perception.”
(Ch1, p14 – How We Became Posthuman (1999) – N. Katherine Hayles)
Queer Lisboa and Queer Porto invite a selection of artistic objects whose queer expression finds its place through and with technology. In a context where the virtual and the physical materialize in their overlap, this program extends beyond the venues of the festivals and exists only online. Other Systems is a selection of works that find their preferential host in the digital world where the myriad of possibilities is countless. The same way queer practices presuppose the instability of the systems this alternative archive drawn from a topology of new practices that aim at building, through the imagination of new possibilities, activatable narratives according to a new perception of the world. Relational models which through audio&visual format express the undeniable relation between humans and machines. Used as a tool or as the space of development to host/transform the content, technology is manipulated to create experiences which challenge classification. They invite our attention to explore a queer temporality and spatiality producing alternative meanings that question the structure and logic of heteronormative politics.
H.O.R.I.Z.O.N (The Institute of Queer Ecology) #computergame (Windows / Apple)
[https://queerecology.org/H-O-R-I-Z-O-N]
While high-tech and online, H.O.R.I.Z.O.N. (Habitat One: Regenerative Interactive Zone of Nurture) is neither a neutral platform nor boundless. As with any community, a commune has a flavor and a carrying capacity. First seeded by the Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO), their invited collaborators, and Guggenheim contributors, and then limited to one hundred inhabitants at a time, H.O.R.I.Z.O.N. is an intentional digital space that aims to assemble a playbook for an online and offline world more attuned to the intelligence of ecology, queerness, and sovereign living.
Produced by the Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO) for the Guggenheim Museum.
The game is accessible through the link of the project (above). Or also via Guggenheim.org
Bottoms Up (Mo Cohen) #mobilegame (Android)
[https://www.queermo.games/bottoms-up]
“Inspired by archival materials at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles, ‘Bottoms Up’ is a game about owning a queer bar in the 1920s and avoiding police surveillance while forming a queer community.” (Ch 2 – ‘Queer Indie Game-Making: An Interview with Mo Cohen by Bonnie Ruberg’ - Indie Games in the Digital Age (2020) M.J. Clarke & Cynthia Wang, Editors)
The game is available through the link of the project (above). Or via Googleplay.
The Zizi Show (Jake Elwes) #interactiveperformance
‘The Zizi Show’ is a deepfake drag cabaret, a virtual online stage hosting a groundbreaking new show with a twist. It features acts that have been constructed using deepfake technology, learning how to do drag by watching a diverse group of human performers. The Zizi Show dissects one of the dominant myths about AI, the notion that 'an AI' is a thing we might mistake for a person.
‘The Zizi Show’ is part of The New Real, an initiative by Edinburgh Futures Institute - University of Edinburgh.
The show is available through the link of the project (above).
More information about the project: https://www.jakeelwes.com/project-zizi-show.html and: https://newreal.cc/zizi
Pest to Power (Natasha Tontey) #webexperience
[http://pesttopower.schloss-post.com/]
Natasha Tontey explores the present and future of non/human networks in ‘Pest to Power / Hama Memberkati’. The web experience centers around the cosmos of the cockroach, an animal from which humans have much to learn. As a species that has and will survive extinction events and epochal transformations, Tontey's work introduces the cockroach as a rich source of alternative concepts of nonhuman intelligence and knowledge systems. Her quasi-science-fictional quest celebrates the idea of an ecocentric kinship urging humans to an act of unlearning in the process of thinking and modeling the (AI) systems of our future.
This project is featured at Planetary Glitch part of the Web Residencies series by Solitude and ZKM.
The web experience is available through the link of the project (above).
More info on the project: https://tontey.org/works/pest-to-power-2019/
and: https://schloss-post.com/from-pest-to-power/
Queering the Map (Lucas LaRochelle) #mappingplatform
[https://www.queeringthemap.com/]
‘Queering the Map’ is a community generated counter-mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space. The platform provides an interface to collaboratively record the cartography of queer life—from park benches to the middle of the ocean—in order to preserve our histories and unfolding realities, which continue to be invalidated, contested, and erased.
Through mapping LGBTQ2IA+ experience in its intersectional permutations, the project works to generate affinities across difference and beyond borders—revealing the ways in which we are intimately connected.
Access the map and more information through the link of the project (above).
We Dwell in Possibility (Robert Yang and Eleanor Davis) #onlinegame
[https://virtual-factory.co.uk/]
For ‘We Dwell in Possibility’, Robert Yang and Eleanor Davis subvert the heteronormative crowd simulations used by architects and city planners to create their own improvised landscape. This free online experience invites the player to plant suggestively shaped objects, flowers and trees amongst an interactive crowd of naked simulated AI characters - illustrated with randomly generated sexual body parts.
Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival.
The experience is available through the link of the project (above).
More information through Robert Yang’s website: https://debacle.us/
and at Manchester International Festival website: https://mif.co.uk/whats-on/we-dwell-in-possibility/
Festinha 360º (Puta da Silva) #vr #musicvideo
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvHCiKuTVQg]
Premiered first in early 2021 in the context of Festival Política, multiartist Puta da Silva develops this 360º experience where Lisbon night becomes the stage for the representation of transgender bodies (racialized and immigrants). As part of the audio visual album E.P.I Travesti the music video allows for full immersion in the important questions that remain important to discuss regarding identitary/racial issues.
The video is available through the link of the project (above). For a better experience the use a VR headset is recommended.
/ More Informations
Thank you note: for this program we would like to thank the artists for their kindness in sharing their work and accepting for them to be featured in this selection. We would also like to thank the collaboration of Isabelle Arvers on the research and for pointing out important references. Finally, all the institutions/organizations which are actively fostering the development and inclusion of such works in their programs.