Archaia Futurae 
Pandemic in the city

background:

 

The project is being developed by Theatre Deli and Dark Yellow Dot and engages 10 different artists/groups of artists to showcase their work. My proposal idea was accepted among other 9 artists.

The work that is planned to be presented to the public in July 2021, converses with the pandemic through two main concepts:

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1. POST-pandemic, POST-human, POST-gender

The idea of post- is deeply connected with my academic research and the fieldwork that was carried out in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia. The research examines a fairly new drag scene in the two cities in Serbia. The collected ethnographic material such as video recordings, interviews, notes are the main resource for writing up the thesis. However, a large part of my experience I found impossible to academically frame and put in words. For this reason, I decided to resource to artistic research and via this project. The body memory, the field notes taken by my muscles, bones, fluids and inner organs are impossible to be put on paper and yet they are as trustworthy as any other data. This curatorial project takes on a journey into the world we are yet to encounter. The world reshaped by the pandemic and the restrictions can no longer accommodate human as we know it. Our bodies must metamorphose, our community reinvent itself, our gods resurrect. How is the widespread deconstruction of the human, that had started even before the pandemic, being enhanced by the enforced restrictions and the fight against an invisible enemy?

How can we look back at cities as a heritage monument of the past from the future?

What happens to our social constructs with this shift? Where will we place gender if it still exists? With the rise of technology and scientific enhancement of human bodies, does gender still have purpose? Can we leave the binary behind and do we have that choice at all?

 

2. Viral body

Critical posthumanism aims to deconstruct the notion of human as the centre of the world. The need is to reposition ourselves towards the nonhuman others including viruses and develop trans-species communication. Is heritage only human or do all the species create their own? Can we reach and comprehend posthuman heritage? Can we build a community with those we can’t see with our eyes? Can we deconstruct anthropocentric views and respectfully co-habit with what many think of as enemies we must destroy? Can the viral body be acknowledged as a form of life striving to survive in the same way the human flesh and bones do?

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References:

• Francesca Ferrando, Philosophical Posthumanism, 2019

• Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman, 2013

• Stefan Herbrechter, Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis, 2013

• Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, 1990 

• Comte de Lautréamont, Les Chants de Maldoror, 1868

• Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, 1977