DIY: 2013 – Jesse Darling ‘Our Bodies, Our Selfies’

RETURN TO ALL PROJECTS

Jesse Darling
Our Bodies, Our Selfies
with Abandon Normal Devices
Reclaiming Overshare for Its Revolutionary Potential: a three-day experimental groupworkshop in radical show (& no-show) & tell (& don’t tell).

Project Summary:
Everyone’s a performance artist on social media. It’s not just what you share, it’s how you share it: you’re the art director of your own life, and the critical distance you assume in deciding what will make the cut can be a mechanism of survival or it can be a source of anxiety. This workshop will help us [attempt to] take control of our bodies and our selfies in the age of identity production. Does this mean sharing less? Sharing more? Sharing differently? During our time together we will look at examples in art and performance history that utilize these practices and compare them to our own. We will think about the socio-economic context of the platforms we use to propagate our work and our selfhood online (Facebook et al). We will look at how we might align (or distance) our offline selves to our Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr profiles. Through the combined processes of trial and error, show and tell – and stand and deliver – we will attempt to get post-virtual together and find out how it feels.

Dates, times and location(s):

3-4 October, AND Festival, Liverpool
5 October, Liverpool Sun & Air Naturist Club (nudity not mandatory)
Participants will need to arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodation. Meals and snacks are provided (please advise of any dietary needs ahead of time).

Application Procedure: 
This workshop is for anyone (writers, artists, performers at any level of experience, and/or people who identify as none of these) who can relate to any of the statements above, and/or who actively maintain a persona in virtuality (online or in their work). It’s also for people who want to opt out of virtual performativity, or who feel anxious about the pressure to [over]share. Spaces are limited. If you would like to apply, please email a short description of who you are, what you do, why you’re interested, and what you hope to get out of this.

The Artist:
Jesse Darling is an artist and occasional essayist based in London. S/he comes from a background in performance and now works in participatory sculpture, installation and digital media, thinking a lot about analogs to the body in virtuality and the theatrical object of “queer materiality.” JD teaches neutral mask technique and has led similar workshops at Bold Tendencies in Peckham and at Fierce Festival (with Lucky PDF’s School of Global Art). JD prefers contingency, immediacy and gesture over authority, engineering and form, but likes it all ok.

This DIY is supported by Abandon Normal Devices.