Chooc Ly Tan

Rewriting reality for an alternate tomorrow at Décalé’s first event of sound + visual performances at DIY Space, Feb 2

1 February 2018

Décalé presents their first event Décalé  #1 at London’s DIY Space on February 2.

Organised by Chooc Ly Tan and A—Z (Anne Duffau), Décalé is a new platform that puts on evenings of “experimental, collapsing and flawless sounds/visuals” and means: ‘Being displaced in space and time.’

The first night will feature performances by Chooc Ly, Sami BahaTERRIBILIS, XANA, ALPHA, and videos by Zinzi Minott and Victoria Sin with a collective aim to “re-write reality for an alternate tomorrow.”

Visit the FB event page for details.**

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An evolving wormhole of syncopated rhythm + hybridity. Andrew Sunderland’s Infinite Diegesis with a mix

27 November 2017

Andrew Sunderland presented Infinite Diegesis at London’s Gossamer Fog which opened October 27 and is running to December 10.

The installation presents a mix of sound works played through a sculpture described as an ‘evolving wormhole’ and includes contributions by over 30 artists and musicians including Carl Gent, Brood Ma, Choc Ly Tan, Endgame, Sarah Duffy, Joey Holder, Pacific Drift and Sophie Hoyle among many others (see below for full track-listing). The circular structure has undergone a process of layering, stretching and melting together of various materials including fabrics and plastic.

Stretched and layered to “reveal syncopated rhythms and melodies,” the sound is removed from its original context and morphed into one that is hybrid. The press release is a text by Sunderland; a poetic manifesto or sorts on how to attain Infinite Diegesis: “I have this strange feeling that I can’t put into words. The feeling of rhythm, or lack of. My body feels strange; out of sync…”

‘Infinite Diegesis’ refers to the ‘motion of narration’ and how it relates to sound in narrative cinema, exploring the potential of a “fluid, infinitely evolving narrative, one that can never be fully experienced in its entirety.”**

TRACK LISTING:

Chooc Ly Tan – intergalactic Positioning System
Joey Holder – Hippocampus
Eloise Bonneviot – Shades
Katharine Fry – d.a.n.c.e. f.o.r. y.o.u.r. d.a.d.d.y
Justin Fitzpatrick – Giraffes
Endgame – Shadow Riddim
Joey Holder – SELACHIMORPHA
Carl Gent – Sky Burial Symposium (audio)
Edward Herring – Content 2
Joey Holder – Lament of Ur
Tex Royale – DEMON TOKOLOSHE
Ben Jeans Houghton – Individuation
AJA – Rattles
Brood Ma – CreoT3
Endgame – Shadow Riddim
Sophie Hoyle – Circular
Recsund – Chickens Fish
Jim Woodall – Scrunched Rock
Dylan Spencer-Davidson – Mood
Joey Holder – Ophiuchus
Perple Celotape – Skull Inside
Matthew De Kersaint Giraudeau – Freedom
Brood Ma – CreoT6
Abri de Swardt– Ridder Thirst
Katharine Fry – I would tell you everything but there’s no room
Sarah Duffy – Song to the Siren
Brood Ma – CreoT6
Dane Sutherland – A Momentary Lapse of Drudgery
Pacific Drift – SEC SLOW
Endgame – Shadow Riddim
Anastasia Vikhornova / Carlos Monleon Gendal / Patchfinder  – Body is a Circuit
Derzu Campos – La Caverna
Maria Gorodeckaya – Drumming Piece
Justin Fitzpatrick – White Noise
Sophie Hoyle – We Cannot Unsee
Ian Law – unknown
Brood Ma – CreoT3
Nicholas Cheveldave – Frankie Chef
Endgame – Shadow Riddim
Alexis Milne – EVTV9_SCRAB
Emily Rosamund – What is a Mess
Tex Royale – DEMON TOKOLOSHE DEMO 18 vox set 02
Brood Ma – CreoT6/T3
Pacific Drift – Johnny Jungle
MBJ Wetware – Intelligent Assistance Poetry
Iain Ball – Prasodymium intracrine signal [[[cloaked]]
Brood Ma – CreoT3 Bass
Pacific Drift – Medieval Ha!
Anastasia Vikhornova / Carlos Monleon Gendal  – Cruise Life
Anastasia Vikhornova / Carlos Monleon Gendal / Patchfinder– Body is circuit Neurowork
Alison Ballance– Audio from “This Mess” performance
Brood Ma – CreoT3 Bass
Edward Herring – Content 1
Seth Guy ft NX Panther – Phat Cat Raw Mix
Saemundur Thor Helgason – 1d20170922153826p 3544421000
Anne De Boar – Rustic_Monolith__Let_There_Be_Self_Defence
Tex Royale – DEMON TOKOLOSHE DEMO 18 vox set 02
Paul Good & Kirsty Wood – Shadows
Brood Ma – CreoT3

Andrew Sunderland’s Infinite Diegesis at London’s Gossamer Fog opened October 27 to December 10, 2017.

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Cultural Producer Anne Duffau introduces us to A—Z + StudioRCA Riverlight with a mood board + picks of the present

15 August 2017

London-based curator Anne Duffau introduces us to her platform A- – -Z as well as StudioRCA Riverlight. Working on the programme for this coming year, the series will be looking at the notion of the ‘other’, bodies and public spaces, cybernetic/women and technology, exploring the possible changes to questioning and rethinking our future as well as our past. 

Chooc Ly Tan, ‘Disobey to the Dance of Time Dusk #5’ (2016). Courtesy StudioRCA Riverlight + A—Z, London.

“Embrace diversity.
Unite—
Or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.”

― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower, 1993

I have been running an exploratory curatorial platform named A- – -Z  for the past five years. One of the main aims is to push boundaries in what an exhibition could be, as well as what curating means – (I sometimes prefer the word cultural producer). Playing on language and words, A- – -Z is a morphic entity, it infiltrates unusual spheres, a bit like a virus. Flexible in its format, it offers a platform for practitioners to trigger experiments – looking at what’s happening in art, speculative design, music, ecology and more.

Thinking on how a narrative is often used as a way to address socio-political concerns, A- – -Z started with a screening A– -Apocalypse at V22, with works by Anri Sala, Benedict Drew, Katja Davar, Chris Cunningham, Alicja Rogalska, The Otolith Group and many more.

Otolith Group, The Radiant. Film Still.
Otolith Group, The Radiant. Film Still.

This first event set the tone for an interest in sci-fi and fiction in order to address current issues. A- – -Z disseminates works through printed matter to create alternative distribution streams, using formats such as postcards, B—Beyond with Jon Rafman or a calendar Days of the Nones with 12 artists including Emma Hart, Markus Water, Alix Marie, Tai Shani and Doggerland, or a newspaper with the fashion designer Dinu Bodiciu and Kabukimono.

The platform also operates online with projects such as Status Quo – where I commissioned artists to make gifs in relation to their current concerns or moods, including Evan Ifekoya, Martha Rosler, Mark Leckey, Matt Calderwood, Keep it complex – make it clear, Patrick Staff and Erica Scourti

For the past year, A- – -Z has been based in Nine Elms in a space called StudioRCA Riverlight, at the bottom of apartment towers close to Vauxhall. Exhibitions, discussions, and performances including DJ-ing, large-format video projections and dance have been taking place throughout. From May 2016 to September 2017, A- – -Z presented the Dusk Exhibition Series with Ifekoya, Daniel ShankenRehana ZamanChooc Ly Tan, Heather McCalden, Imran PerrettaJohann Arens, Karolina Lebek and Susannah Stark. The invited artists showed newly commissioned videos and installations for a month each, to be experienced from outside the gallery space – fully visible only during the dark hours, and shown for the first time in London. A performance and/or talk introduced the project and focused on themes including transgender, sci-fi and the post-human.

Imran Perretta, ‘DESH’ (HD video still), 2016.

Another series I’m working on is an ongoing curatorial collaboration with the artist Tai Shani called Dark Water. So far we made two large-scale events at CGP Gallery/Dilston Grove named ‘Dark Water’ and ‘Dark Water: The Dead of Night’ – these were designed to present evenings of performances and screenings around Sci-Fi, gender, the contemporary gothic and extending our ongoing research into the notions of amorphous body through technology and inner space.

A- – -Z has made a special selection for AQNB of what it’s been currently listening to and interested in – a mood board of the instant / picks of the present:

1. Jlin, ‘Unknown Tongues’ (2017)

Jlin is a singular musician to follow, listen, and play on and on – her new album, Black Origami, is strong and powerful.

2. ‘Define Gender: Victoria Sin’ (2017) by Amrou Al-Kadhi

Victoria Sin is doing something unique and they explain their aims so poetically and clearly that this video should be played on public transports and in pubs: “The labour of femininity isn’t only the performance, it’s perseverance in the face of our ascribed and inscribed precarity. It’s the struggle to be respected and have our agencies recognized. When I decide to take up space it is often seen as rude to those who are used to be making myself small.”

3. Angela Davis and Judith Butler 

This talk with Angela Davis and Judith Butler on inequality moderated by Ramona Naddaff is very current and urgent – it also shows how much work is to be done in terms of including people with impairments and disabilities to public events.

4. Aaliyah x Rihanna mash up

Two of the greatest in Amorphous magical mash up – delightful.

5. Valleyz, Tessellated, & Amindi K. Fro$t – Pine & Ginger

A tale of sorrow and escaping in sweet vices – produced by Valleyz, and performed by Tessellated and Amindi K. Fro$t

6. Bjork 

Bjork – and this video from what is her best album (to me), Vespertine, directed by the fashion designer Ekio Ishioka (Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

7. Spike Jonze ‘I’m Here’ 

Beautifully shot and because we all need a good robot love story

8. DJ Rachel 

DJ Rachel is part of the East African collective called Santuri – I love the fact that they include a page called ‘femme electronic’ on their website.**

Karolina Lebek + Susannah Stark’s Unnatural Wealth is on at London’s StudioRCA Riverlight, running July 27 to September 7. 

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“Spreading like a slow virus”: parasitizing the commercial web with Cosmos Carl

21 March 2017

“What would be the most efficient and effortless way of facilitating art online?” is a question Cosmos Carl –  Platform Parasite asked themselves before their website began in 2014. In a chat over email, artists and co-founders Frederique Pisuisse and Saemundur Thor Helgason explain the motivation behind their interest in “reclaiming (commercial) online platforms.” Through an accumulation of hyperlinks, visitors are re-directed to artists projects that are “parasitically hosted” on the internet elsewhere.

Joseph Ridgeon, ‘DIY Future-Proof Water-sports’ (2017). Courtesy the artist Cosmos Carl, London.

Inhabiting spaces like Google Earth, Airnbnb, Tumblr, Pinterest, eBay and many more, artists are encouraged to make work that could be ‘stumbled upon’ in a variety of spaces online. In this vein, the works have taken on many forms, with recent projects including Chooc Ly Tan‘s ‘Decolonized X Eard Em Say’ (2017) video on Tumblr,  Jack Fisher‘s ‘We Are One dropbox link, an Instagram account by Nora Hansen and an intervention on Casting Call Pro by Sophie Hoyle, among many others. Joseph Ridgeon is the newest resident, who presented project ‘DIY Future-Proof Water-sports on March 17.

AQNB spoke with the Cosmos Carl founders about disrupting regular traffic and the potential for hijacking certain platforms in a way that is both ‘lazy & efficient.’ Describing their project as “spreading like a slow virus,” Pissuise and Helgason discuss parasitizing the commercial web and the simultaneous protest and acceptance of the global stage.

** How did the project come about?

Cosmos Carl: We were watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage ​at the time, and we got inspired by the way that Sagan would swiftly take his audience to different parts of the cosmos; in a capsule traveling effortlessly through time and space. At the time, online platforms were mainly used as noticeboards pointing toward art offline. The artist website, together with video hosting platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo, were monopolies when it came to displaying art online. Free commercial platforms were popping up like corn in a pot of melting butter, and we saw a potential for hijacking these platforms that were not intended for displaying art. We were excited about the idea of artists incorporating the inherent logic of online platforms not intentionally designed for displaying art.

Our general working ethic was summarized by our ever-changing Facebook slogan ‘lazy & efficient’. We started by commissioning artists to produce a work based upon our framework, but more recently artists approach us with ideas of works that already incorporate this logic. Since our first launch in October 2014, featuring a work by the Icelandic artist Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson​, we have released a new link every other Friday.

Chooc Ly Tan, ‘Decolonized X Eard Em Say’ (2017). Film still. Courtesy the artist + Cosmos Carl.

** Do you have a curatorial aim ? Are you trying to collate anything in particular, or archive ?

CC: We do not really consider what we do curating. We simply invite artists and curators whom we think are able to respond interestingly to, and produce a work based on, the framework of Cosmos Carl. That is, the work being hosted on an existing platform with its regular traffic and community. We like to think of the accumulation of links on our website as forming a cross-section of artworks parasitically hosted on various platforms. If we think of the diversity of platforms and points of view online, it seems irrelevant to limit the project to a curated programme or interest. Visitors of the platforms that are not redirected through the Cosmos Carl website, stumble upon the works; not necessarily viewing it as art. The work ‘DIY Future-Proof Water-sports’ by artist Joseph Ridgeon, for example, is hosted on the amateur porn site Xtube.com. The work consists of a series of instructional videos, on how to bypass a new anti-normative porn law, that forbids golden showers, visible whip-marks and menstrual blood in porn. Before the link to the work was published on Cosmos Carl, the videos were already viewed over 1,600 times by regular Xtube visitors.

Concerning the archive: Over time we have found that the choice of platform predetermines the lifespan of the link. Links that are hosted on commercial platforms usually stay online longer than artists’ websites (sloppy artists don’t pay). Works on Google Drive, for example, will just sit there ‘forever,’ whilst privately hosted hyperlinks eventually fossilize. So far, we have simply archived the works through the Internet Archive (WayBack Machine). The archive of Cosmos Carl has the potential to become a monumental collection of links to artworks produced and displayed online. But the question remains: ‘isn’t the fleeting nature of the internet inherent to this particular archive?’

** You describe your project as “reclaim[ing] (commercial) online platforms,” which feels political, in a way. What are your thoughts on passivity online?

Jonas Lund, ‘Pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will’ (2017). Screenshot of online project. Courtesy the artist + Cosmos Carl.

CC: We are especially interested in the public domain of the web. Every nook and cranny of the internet is privately-owned and state controlled. Therefore, there is no such thing as public online space. Cosmos Carl utilizes the web’s privately-owned infrastructures as carriers for artworks on public display. Critique of privately-owned art is inherent to the ideology of early net art. Cosmos Carl artworks are not necessarily political, but by utilizing platforms for the display of art, the contributions disrupt the platforms’ usual traffic. In that way, the works potentially protest global platforms like Google and Facebook, even though they simultaneously accept their terms and conditions.

** Your project reminds me of Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek where he stresses the need for an online public space. Do you see Cosmos Carl as a way of thinking toward facilitating such a space?

CC: Absolutely! We share his concerns with the lack of an online public space. Although, technically not a platform, Cosmos Carl emerged as a non-commercial and non-profit online space for redirecting visitors to art. The website does not harvest or sell data about the visitors, but leeches on to commercial platforms that are busy with this. However, these platforms do not have access to our collection of links. As a result, they have no access to the valuable data of individual users and they cannot group and profile our visitors. Our visitors are redirected traffic and do not necessarily behave like regular users of the platforms. Their data is therefore obscured and useless.

** With each of you being artists, is this project a performative work in some way?

CC: The context of the viewing of a Cosmos Carl work, is the everlasting, neurotic dance on computers and phones of switching between tabs, apps and websites. Through the act of hyperlinking, the performative aspect is embedded in the experience of the visitor.

 ** Will Cosmos Carl stay as it is, or are there plans for it to move in other directions?

CC: We have recently updated our website; incorporating the about-text of the projects on our website instead of hosting it on Facebook. This was quite a change, as we no longer only host links which is part of our conceptual framework. We realised that not including additional information about the contributions would be a loss of opportunity, because not everyone is a citizen of Facebook. We aim to expand the programme and invite curators to programme a series of exhibitions based on the framework of Cosmos Carl. Next to that, we are looking into ways of connecting to larger networks of publishing. At the moment we have a niche public, but we plan to expand our online reach; within art and non-art circles. A network’s size determines its usability and power. Cosmos Carl is spreading like a slow virus. It is a subtle project and we believe that it is a useful testing ground for the potential of networks parasitizing the commercial web.**

The online platform can be found at cosmoscarl.co.uk.

Header image courtesy Aapo Nikkanen + Cosmos Carl.

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Chooc Ly Tan @ StudioRCA Riverlight, Sep 14 – Nov 1

12 September 2016

Chooc Ly Tan is presenting a new video installation ‘Disobey to the Dance of Time’ at London’s StudioRCA Riverlight, opening September 14 and running to November 1.

The London-based, French-born artist and DJ’s video work features an Akira Phase music visualizer moving to a 148 bpm-trance track, Terbium Energy Catalyst by Goch, “a 3D representation of Africa hovering in space-time, and the artist dancing to a hidden track coming from deep space”.

The installation —that carries on Tan’s practice which seeks to understand  and subvert the logic of the world through its systems and tools in an effort to realise alternative realities— opens with an evening of performance at Battersea Barge next to Studio RCA. Live acts include Alexis Milne, back to back DJ set by Tan’s Spacer Woman project and Evan Ifekoya, who also features as part of the Dusk programme with ‘Okun Song‘ in May, along with Rehana ZamanDaniel Shanken and Benjamin Orlow.

See the StudioRCA Riverlight website for details.**

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Kathy Rae Huffman archive @ Res. Jun 28 – Aug 6

27 June 2016

The archive of video art collector and curator, Kathy Rae Huffman will be coming to London’s Res. this summer, opening June 28 and running by appointment through to August 6.

Selected from the Goldsmiths University Kathy Rae Huffman Media Library and installed in the Reading Room at Res. will be books, videos, documentation of shows and her work at Long Beach Museum of Art set up by Huffman in the 70s, and collections of artists names that make up, for example, ‘Face Settings’ an all-female mailing list of media specialists.

The exhibition also incorporates several events, such as Legacies of Cyberfeminism III: Networks, Collaborations and Forms Labour where attendees will read from Huffman texts as well as others, a set by DJ Spacer Woman (Chooc Ly Tan) and later on in the summer an evening of screenings commissioned and curated by Huffman herself.

See the FB event for further details.**

Max Almy, Leaving the 21st Century (1982). Courtesy the artist.
Max Almy, Leaving the 21st Century (1982). Courtesy the artist.
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DIY Culture 2015 @ Rich Mix, May 24

20 May 2015

DIY Culture 2015 kicks off this week with a screening and talk titled Zines, Comics and Alternatives and taking place at London’s Rich Mix on May 24.

This year’s themes include women & technology, video art & science, DIY experiments, hacking and coding, biology and theoretical physics, and the democraticising of lab science. Chaired by Helena Wee (the co-curator of DIY Cultures), the event will bring in a handful of speakers, including London Biohackspace, a UK community biolab based around open-source principles and community access.

Other speakers include Blackgirltech discussing teaching computer coding to ethnic minority women, multi-disciplinary artist Chooc Ly Tan screening her art and science videos, and Breaking the Frame / Gail Chester on Ludditism and Gender and Technology. 

See the FB event page for details. **

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Introducing Artyčok.tv

22 April 2015

Curated by Hana Janečková,  I turn the images of my voice in my head is a monthly critical programme of recent feminist moving image practices (selected exhibition photos, top right), hosted by Czech-run online contemporary art platform Artyčok.tv and established by the Academy of Visual Arts, Prague. The series follows a resurgence in interest in Feminism and offers a space to showcase work by artists with diverse perspectives on the subject. Allowing for what Janečková herself describes as a “sharing of feminist strategies across cultural contexts”, the artists and their output already exhibited on the site follow ideas around “technology, language, labour and identity”. They include the likes of Julia Tcharfas and  Chooc Ly Tan‘s Wild Nature, along with the latter’s application to the possibilities within the chaos of ‘Oubilism’ in her ‘New Materials in the Reading of the World‘ (2011) work, as well as Jennifer Chan and Cadence Kinsey‘s Next Time Baby, I’ll be #Bulletproof (2015).

Running since November last year, the I turn the images of my voice in my head programme presents its  fifth online exhibition, called Gentle Triggers and featuring work by London-based artist and S.A.L.T. editor Jala Wahid and artist Nicole Morris. Their practices examine the body through moving image and its materiality behind a screen that’s described as “an unconscious fetishist object”, and “a space for imaginary tactile encounters”. Hence, Wahid’s ‘Let Me Touch You, Make You Feel Really Nice’ (2013) presents long-nailed fingers brushing a horse-saddles mane and prods the viscous brown goo of makeup and facial sponges, as an ASMR-sounding voiceover whispers, “…always fingering your hair as if it’s delicate”.  Morris’ ‘Soft Power’, meanwhile, presents its protagonist’s view through the red and blue lenses of disposable 3D glasses to an IRL London as well as its Google Maps equivalent.”Women are constantly confronted with their ability to produce affect and are well versed in using it pragmatically”, writes Rebecca Carson in an accompanying text to a presentation that questions “the role of affective labour within capitalism”.

Other works shown in the I turn the images of my voice in my head series include Jenna Bliss‘s Letters to ‘Dad the Analyst’, ‘Grandma’ and ‘Osama Bin Laden’, and  Rehana Zaman‘s multi-channel video – a fictional soap opera examining the worker within globalisation – ‘Some Women, Other Women and all the Bittermen’ (2014). These are exhibitions showcased for a month, along with texts commissioned as online ‘artefacts’, that are freely accessible via the Artyčok online archive, alongside video extracts and images, which Janečková describes as follows:

“While the body has been central to feminist critique, in these works narrative, voice and language are seen as its extension. In the presented works Jenna Bliss, Chooc Ly Tan, Rehana Zaman and Jennifer Chan employ strategies of technological mediation, language play and re-narrativisation , actively seeking to unfold and re-imagine the dynamics of patriarchy, allowing for new perspectives and positions of critique.” **

Exhibition photos, top right.

Jala Wahid and Nicole Morris’ Gentle Triggers is on at Artyčok.tv, running April 22 to May 22, 2015.

Header image: By Jennifer Chan. Courtesy Artyčok.tv.

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