A Theopoetic Introduction
Catherine Keller on the Queer Multiplicity of BecomingWatch the full video here: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/catherine-keller/
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Liberation theopoetics teach, in the words of Robert Williamson, that God "is more active in the margins of society than at its center." Those who are shaped by this idea seek, again in the words of Williamson in Forgotten Books of the Bible, to "decenter the center in order to receive the wisdom of those who have been treated as outsiders, pushed to the edges, and forgotten. When we take the time to listen, those forgotten voices can teach us profound things." [1]
Williamson's ideas are complemented by Catherine Keller's work. See her "The Queer Multiplicity of Becoming" in the talk on the left. Imagine that God is the very Eros of the universe, and that this Eros is at work in the world as a lure toward a multiplicity of genders. The need, then, is to listen to the voices of that multiplicity and welcome the spaces in which they emerge. Tara Transitory and Justyna Stasiowska can assist in the listening and space-making. (J. McD) |
electronically queer heterotopias
the electronic, experimental, and experiential
work of Tara Transitory and Justyna Stasiowska
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Tara Transitory Worldview 1: The celebration of masculinity is getting utterly boring – *yawn* 2: Things already existed before they were discovered. 3: Colonialism has been replaced by a multitude of euphemisms but its definitely alive and kicking, and I absolutely hate it. -- from interview with Tara Transitory in Digital in Berlin |
Tara Transitory and Justyna Stasiowska
Tara Transitory"Tara Transitory aka One Man Nation makes work which some consider art, some consider music and some consider trash. But clearly, it never quite fits into contemporary categories. She is trans, nomadic and is exploring the intersections of gender, noise and ritual through performance and the collective trance. She splits his time between asia<>europe where she directs the International //gender|o|noise\\ Underground and organizes the trans*queer themed Translæctica events."
-- Digital in Berlin "Tara Transitory creates spatial and bodily sonic relationships with the listeners to enable listening through various bodies: the self, space, machines, movement, the collective body and the ultimate body of reverie. She works with sounds to create various physical and material states of trance within and without the process of embodied listening. Through the process of arriving at and of being in, till falling out of a trance, the sounds of the various bodies may intersect. Thus they become one common body, a common body as a resonant space. In that sense, a singular body consisting of all forms of bodies becomes nodes of ethereal sources that Tara Transitory annexes to her own performance practice."
-- Savvy, Untraining the Ear) Tara Transitory with Nguyễn Baly
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Justyna StasiowskaJustyna Stasiowska is a theorist and researcher who creates collages from sonic readymades. Stasiowska is from Krakow, Poland. is now working on a dissertation, the working title of which is “Noise. Performativity of Sound Perception."
The sound collages created by Stasiowska are queer in that, as we listen, we are presented with sounds that detablize familiar habits of listening, and that simultaneous make space for new and more liberating way of imagining and being in the world, even if only for a moment. We are immersed in these moments. They are queer in that they are performances of what is other than the well-defined categories of a world insane with greed, hatred, and confusion, trapped in appeals for approval and binary oppositions. Thus they are truthful. They are electronic liberation theology: sonic ambassodors for the spirit of creative transformation at work in the world which (or who, take our pick) seeks freedom and freshness, love and justice, honesty and passion, for all. * In her PhD dissertation Stasiowska proposes that "frequencies don’t have a strictly programmed effect on the receiver and the way of experiencing sounds is determined by the frames or modes of perception, established by the situation and cognitive context." (from Sounding Out!) Her views resonate with the idea in process theology that everything we receive from the world is transmuted by our own subjective agency (self-creativity) in an act of concrescence, whereby the "many" of the world "become one" in our own experience, and then add something new to the world: the many become one and are increased by one. This means that the sounds offered by Stasiowska and the performances offered by Tara Transitory are themselves among the many that we ourselves receive as we see and listen; and it means that our own agency plays a role in how they are interpreted in the moment at hand. The interpretation is not merely conceptual; it is visceral and bodily. How we listen and see then becomes who we are, in that moment. At best, we experience a taste of heterotopia: that placeless place which eludes boundaries and freely roams, in the domain of the deep roaming. * The deep roaming is the receptable for all sounds and the lure toward creativity and compassion in human life. It is eminently queer in that it cannot be contained in binaries of us and them. Thus is it transnational and transreligious, in no need of receiving approval or being worshipped. And yet you can roam in it, if only for a moment. First you must untrain your ears and listen to the absurdities and enter into the deep listening where everthing -- the sounds of machines, of nature, of the human body, and the human voice -- becomes music. |
Sounds from Nguyễn+Transitory
The duo of Nguyễn Baly and Tara Transitory. Exploring sound,
synthesis, noise, rhythm and performance from a less colonial angle.
An Essay on the Art of Tara Transitory
by Justyna Stasiowska
"Transitory explores the body as a site of noise and disruption, working to disrupt the false narrative of unity pervasive in Western concepts of gender. Using cut-ups, noise, and ritual, Transitory exposes the falsehoods of gender norms and repositions the body as a locus of possibility that allows for transgression and what Angela Jones and Baran Germen have called 'queer heterotopias.'" (from the essay)
Extantation
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"We are a place for the extant, the forgotten, the marginalised, the uncategorised, the invisible, and for the ones in-between. Hence, we invite artists who are in a state of constant flux; who do not belong in well defined categories; experimental and ritual/folk performers; Women; trans* (as in gender), queer, working-class, artists/activists/writers/communities; people with disabilities; those who are dispossessed, disempowered and displaced: to create, perform, speak and dialogue at e x t a n t a t i o n." (Extantation, founded and co-directed by Tara Transitory)
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Sound Collages from Justyna Stasiowska
{1} Williamson Jr., Robert. The Forgotten Books of the Bible: Recovering the Five Scrolls for Today (Kindle Locations 93-96). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.