Aurelia Guo

Entangling uncoded realities with the Codette-presented HOLONS night of readings in New York, Jul 6

6 July 2017

Codette presents HOLONS at New York’s 854 Wyckoff Ave 1st Floor on July 6. 

The night will begin at 8 pm and present readings by Cristine Brache, Anton Haugen, Justin Caguiat, Devin Kenny, Lora Nouk and Aurelia Guo.

Codette is a publishing house who release books, poetry, sound and other downloadable works, as well as an annual journal featuring essays and interviews by artists and poets who “embody, untangle and entangle uncoded realities and manifest their practice online.”

They recently released E. Jane‘s ‘NOPE (a manifesto)‘ (2016) and their most recent journal features work by Olia Lialina, Alexx Marie Valencia, Buffy Cain, Larissa Pham, Sofya Glebovna, Anna Zett, Lora Nouk, Nanna Juul Lanng, Guerrilla Girls, Anton Haugen, Emily Brown and Bogna M. Konior.

See the Codette website for details.**

T-shirt by #CristineBrache. Ty @x_______tine ⭐️

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“Everything dies: a pimple, a flower, a big company.” New poetry by Anna Crews

13 April 2017

Ultimate Fighting Championship

Every fan and fighter is Uniquely Fucking Crazy
Me? I am sitting back, enjoying the view.

Courtesy Anna Crews

Powerful AKC

I crossed paths with a litigious little loser
She’d already won one case that was written up in the newspaper and she could sue me too
As I did wrong by her on several occasions.
She also did wrong by me and many others. I was very mad about it.
I thought about asking the others to join in on a class action counterclaim with me.

Ultimately, I didn’t think it was worth it, because I have only half a law degree and don’t know the ins and outs of the legal system. My potential co-defendants had lives to live and participated in time-consuming hobbies. One was a dancer and one made films. We had no proof in writing and no real evidence. But nothing could stop me fantasising about my day in court.

There are many half-finished law degrees out there. If I could only bend the rules and partner with someone who also had half a law degree to form a whole lawyer, I’d be fine. I would like to be half a lawyer, only wearing one professional shoe, leaving room for the other foot to wear something else.
I would only have to wear half a suit and work half the day.
Some people might prefer to have two ‘half-lawyers’ in the same way they prefer a ‘half-n-half pizza’.
Also, clients could automatically get a second professional opinion without paying for it.

On the first day of law school, the Dean told us to look to our right, look to our left, look at yourself. Dean said “only one out of three will survive this degree.”

Courtesy Anna Crews

After thinking of the time I met Australia’s Justice Kirby and noting his name’s resemblance to the video game franchise character ‘Kirby,’ I was lead to question how many video game characters share their name with judges.
There is no research into this. For all I know, this is the only time in history that a judge and a video game character have shared the same name.

On my last day of law school, I travelled one hour each way to a catered prestigious scholarship presentation. I didn’t know at the time that this would be my last day of law school, I made the decision to leave during the holiday break that followed, and I can technically resume my study at any time.

The Australian Fulbright representative was looking for “excellent extroverts. Not a nerd who locks themselves away in their room.”
I met an old Rhodes Scholar who, despite everything, still hadn’t done particularly well for themselves.

On this same day, my dog died at age 14.
Everything dies: a pimple, a flower, a big company.
I bought tissues to comfort myself but couldn’t break my handkerchief habit. It was comforting to put all snot together.

Hellman

I am so smart that my head is hurting physically
I am not the smartest in Melbourne, although I wrote that I was in a 2015 self-published book
I am the only person like me in Melbourne, and perhaps the world
I am smart in a unique way that is not yet apparent to me but may reveal itself later
Who knows how I would score in an IQ test?
I am not going to take an IQ test unless I become a TV presenter filming a documentary on Mensa
I am curious and sincerely respect anyone who questions the elite and Bohemian Grove
I am fascinated by the idea of repeating an IQ test over and over and by mass satanic rituals
I am feeling both possessed and possessive
Everything seems very eerie, eek!

Courtesy Anna Crews

I do not feel as though I am in my own self… Malfunctioning… Now I have been programmed to inform you that Coco Chanel was the founding member of the global elite as we know it today… Don’t ask me what that’s about, don’t make me explain it. You think you are high but you can always be higher.**

 

 

Anna Crews lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her work was most recently included in The Fanzine’s Late Winter Poetry Edition, edited by Aurelia Guo.

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mummy has the bends again @ The Community, Nov 24

22 November 2016

The mummy has the bends again event is on at Paris’s The Community on November 24. 

“is the bends the one where you go down deep underwater for a long time and when you surface, you feel funny?”

Exhibition space Centre for Style and independent publishing house 3-ply‘s new artist book and fashion magazine HEROES are is launching with an evening of a performance titled ‘The Banquet’ by Jessie Kiely and by transient curatorial project Monica’s Gallery. The garments will be enacted by fashion stylist Hali Christou. 

HEROES takes its name from a ‘hero look’ which is a designer’s signature style and is often “the most conceptually-driven moment of the runway.” Bringing together a range of contributors, the magazine/book assembles a range of practices that responded to the caricature of personal style. This issue features contributions by Anna-Sophie Berger, Aurelia Guo and Caley Feeney, among many others. 

See the FB event page for details.**

'HEROES' p. 48-49: LHS Image courtesy Grace Anderson + RHS image by Kate Meakin.
‘HEROES’ p. 48-49: LHS Image courtesy Grace Anderson + RHS image by Kate Meakin.
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Gathering Place 2 @ The Advisory, Aug 28

26 August 2016

The Gathering Place 2 group reading is on at London’s The Advisory on August 28.

Hosted by East London gallery ANDOR —where the first Gathering Place happened in February and aqnb reviewed here —is organised as part of a series of bank holiday events organised by Caspar Heinemann, Simon Pomery, and George Unsworth.

The press release comes accompanied by a sparsely punctuated text unravelling a softly anxious stream-of-consciousness, from a state of sleep into wakefulness along with all the worries of the world, and lists Heinemann, Holly Childs, Aurelia Guo, Hestia Peppe, and Lawrence Uziell as invited readers:

“…It’s the slumped up future it’s the eager past it’s geographical specificity it’s the circle of life and stolen bikes it’s trying to get my tongue so deep into my cheek that it reaches my heart…”

See the FB event page for details.**

Caspar Heinemann @ Gathering Place (2016). Courtesy the artist and ANDOR, London.
Caspar Heinemann @ Gathering Place (2016). Courtesy the artist and ANDOR, London.

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Apprehension poetry readings @ Slade School, Jun 16

15 June 2016

An evening of poetry, ‘Apprehension: come back for another look’ is on at London’s Slade School of Art on June 16.

Performing are a group of artists and writers whose work could be said to deal with subjectivity, poetry, voices, being online and representation, including Cassandre GreenbergCristine Brache —organisers of recent ICA event No Screening —Ulijona Odišarija and Christopher Kirubi, all of whom are current Slade students.

The evening coincides with the MA degree show that runs until June 19.

Reading via Skype and on a smartphone from New York will be writer and editor Steph Kretowicz whose forthcoming book, Somewhere I’ve Never Been will publish later this year via Pool.

Artist and poet Penny Goring and Aurelia Guo whose PDF, ‘black mUJI notebook‘ was recently shared online and contains Guo’s eloquent musings and stark thoughts, will also both feature in this evening of ‘Apprehension’.

See the FB event page for more details.**

Aurelia Guo, t-shirt for Interstate Projects 5 Year Anniversary Benefit (2016). Courtesy the artist
Aurelia Guo, ‘t-shirt for Interstate Projects 5 Year Anniversary Benefit’ (2016). Courtesy the artist.
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there is a party @ DIY Space, Feb 16

15 February 2016

London’s DIY Space will host an event of readings titled there is a party on the evening of February 16.

Reading will be Jesse Darling, Rachel Benson, London-based Angela Shier who runs The Mall magazine, Christopher Kirubi, producer VÏSTAAurelia Guo –via iMessage if she’s awake, according to the FB Event page, and poet and video artist Steve Roggenbuck.

Roggenbuck is currently on tour and is also giving an artist’s tour at Goldsmiths on February 15.

See DIY Space event page for (limited) details**

Rachel Benson, Just Did It (2013) Courtesy the artist
Rachel Benson, ‘Just Did It’ (2013). Courtesy the artist.

 

 

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‘home school’ reading #1 online, Jan 10

8 January 2016

Pop-up art school home school is hosting a reading series to launch online and from Portland, Oregon, on January 10.

The first reading will feature what the press release calls four ‘makers’ working “in a slippage between art and poetry”. Those include Melbourne-based artist and poet Aurelia Guo, Harlem-based writer and performer Sophia Le Fraga, as well as manuel arturo abreu and Jamondria Marnice Harris based in Portland.

A press release written by Hamishi Farah elaborates on a quote from Sianne Ngai and the apparent powerlessness of poetry in commodity society, going on to draw a link between “the problem of poetry” and global white supremacy, “unless it comes from the mouth of whoever cannot speak. Is that the shadow of poetry?”

See the home school website for details.**

Header image: Quisqueya Henriquez, ‘Helado de Agua de Mar Caribe (Caribbean Seawater Ice Cream)’ (2002).

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Hamishi Farah, Jailbait (For Us By Us) (2015) exhibition photos

14 September 2015

A reference to the US clothing and hip hop brand FUBU, Hamishi Farah‘s solo exhibition Jailbait (For Us By Us), running at Brussel’s Mon Chéri June 11 to July 18, points to structural racism both in and outside the art world. The Somali-Australian artist uses miscellaneous cultural signifiers –Uniqlo leggings, a Foot Locker tall tee, Chinese characters, international water, and possibly unclaimed recovered stolen artwork –relating to the artist’s personal experience and a projected global capitalist police-state.

“Everyone wants to be a nigga but no one wants to be a nigga (sic) (tru) watches whole first season of The wire in room alone”, writes Aurelia Guo in an exhibition text that teases the viewer with fragmented insight into the loose narrative that ties the Jailbait together. There are many new thought-provoking works by Farah, namely a poem simply called ‘Wifi poem’ (2015), made up of five wi-fi extenders and an Australian power box that reveals itself when one attempts to connect to wi-fi in the gallery using a smart device. When prompted to choose a network on a smartphone the options are as follows: 1 who let / 2 the hood / 3 into / 4 the / 5 gallery.

Hamishi Farah, 'Dog Heaven' (2015) Install view. Photo by Hugard & Vanoverschelde. Courtesy the artist and monCHERI, Bruxelles.
Hamishi Farah, ‘Dog Heaven’ (2015) Install view. Photo by Hugard & Vanoverschelde. Courtesy the artist and monCHERI, Bruxelles.

‘Only god can judge me (Untitled)’ (2015), is a beautiful yet drab carpet that rests quietly between a doorway, oversized for its location with the phrase “Only God Can Judge Me” burned into it, the title of a well-known song by deceased rapper Tupac Shakur, whose portrait is found on a whiteboard in another piece called ‘No Title’ (2015). References to a dog recur throughout the exhibition with ‘Retroactive pet passport & travel docs for unnamed canine survivor of sea venture shipwreck’ (2015)–a pet import application installed into a mould on a wall–and ‘Dog Heaven’ (2015)–a sculpture made from a table, fountain, pump, and filled with two litres of collected international water diluted with Brussels tap water. The fountain has a dog’s head affixed to one side, its tail on opposite one. International water is something outside of any nation’s jurisdiction, something untouchable that cannot be judged. It’s a poetic place where race and capital cannot impose any state of being onto any individual, yet is also isolated and outside of any society, always restricted from acceptance. **

Exhibition photos, top right.

Hamishi Farah’s Jailbait (For Us By Us) was on at Brussel’s Mon Chéri, opening June 11 and running to July 18, 2015.

Header image: Hamishi Farah, Jailbait (For Us By Us) (2015). Exhibition view. Photo by Hugard & Vanoverschelde. Courtesy the artist and monCHERI, Bruxelles.

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