[00:00:00] Hi, Emily here. Thanks for joining us again at the Exhibitionist's podcast. This week,
[00:00:16] we're having a look at Aria Dean's Abattoir exhibition at the ICA in London. Aria Dean's
[00:00:22] an artist steeped in philosophy and architecture and how they intersect with blackness. She
[00:00:28] provides so much food for thought and I was introduced to a lot of work through her. For example, George
[00:00:34] Bataille, have you heard of him? He's a French philosopher from the early 20th century whose
[00:00:39] base materials theory perpetuated some pretty transgressive experiments in his own life,
[00:00:46] a bit shocking to be honest, but it was great to see how Dean incorporated it with her examination
[00:00:51] of blackness. It isn't a bold statement to say that Aria Dean will be an artist that will
[00:00:57] be considered for years to come. In this episode, you'll hear the menagerie that surrounds Joana and
[00:01:04] I while we record cats, dogs, even a sheep bleeding in the background. All part of the fun. Thanks
[00:01:11] again for joining. We're so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy the episode.
[00:01:19] Hi, welcome back to Exhibitionistas. On this podcast, we explore an artist through the lens
[00:01:24] of their solo exhibition. My name is Emily Harding. I'm an art lover, an exhibition goer.
[00:01:29] In this episode, we'll look at the exhibition Aventure USA exclamation point by Aria Dean at
[00:01:36] the ICA in London, which is on until the 5th of May. As this podcast title implies, we love
[00:01:43] exhibitions, the ideas, the beauty, the provocations and most of all the experience.
[00:01:49] So I was one of those people during the pandemic who thought, hey,
[00:01:52] secluding at home isn't so bad. What was I thinking going out so much before? I can just hang
[00:01:58] out here. Yeah, totally. Exactly. And exhibitions has been one of those things that I've come back
[00:02:07] to obviously in the past couple of years that remind me how wrong I was. I mean, of course,
[00:02:12] maybe I was right at the time, but kind of wrong in the long term. And this exhibition
[00:02:17] is no exception. It is an experience. Hello, and I am Joanna P. Arneves, the other exhibitionista.
[00:02:26] By the way, I noticed that on Apple podcasts, they have transcriptions of our episodes now,
[00:02:34] all episodes. Amazing. And my name is usually Joanna's Pyrenees. So I think that my name
[00:02:43] is unscrupable for AI, which I'm very proud. Nice. So here I am, Joanna Pyrenees. And I'm an
[00:02:51] independent writer and art curator and artistic director of Drawing Now Art Fair. I'm also working
[00:02:59] on a book actually titled Female Drawing Machines to be published in 2026. And it is about drawing
[00:03:05] as technology from a feminist perspective. And so now that you know all about me,
[00:03:11] Emily, how was your week in culture? Last night on another level, I saw Civil War
[00:03:17] at the movie theater. So I know this is like I was really not into some American,
[00:03:25] you know, I saw the preview. Really? No. Yeah. It's true. I know. I know. Shocking. No one could have told.
[00:03:32] But so I, you know, I saw the adverts and it looked like a Marvel movie take on a Civil War movie.
[00:03:43] Yeah, same. I was like, is this a joke? What the heck is this? Yeah, exactly. So I'm very curious to
[00:03:50] know what it was about and what you thought of it. Yeah. So I mean, it all looked a little
[00:03:55] bit too close to the bone, but then my husband really wanted to go see it. And then I found
[00:03:59] out it was directed and written by Alex Garland, who wrote the novel The Beach. If anybody remembers
[00:04:06] that. And lots of other screenplays for movies. So 28 Days Later. And a book or sorry, a movie
[00:04:13] that was based on one of my favorite books by Kazoo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go. Did you ever read
[00:04:20] that? Can I say I was never able to move past from the first page. I tried reading it so
[00:04:27] many times. I think it's me to quote Taylor Swift, which I don't listen to, the problem is me.
[00:04:35] But I think I chose the wrong time to read it. But each time I have it in my living room,
[00:04:42] like waiting for me. Yeah. Sometimes I pick it up and I'm like, I have no idea. I just am not
[00:04:48] it's not a fit. We are not meant to be together. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm sure
[00:04:52] the problem is me because everyone says it's amazing. So there's pace and timing with things,
[00:04:57] you know, sometimes books leap out at you. And sometimes they just hang out for a while.
[00:05:01] But yeah, it's not a read. So um, so the movie star is Kristen Dunst and a really brilliant
[00:05:09] cast alongside her. And the the brilliant part of it is that I made it, it just,
[00:05:16] there's a lot more nuance than you would be led to believe from the trailer. And it walks a really
[00:05:23] fine political line ideologically. So, you know, it's it's not trying to say,
[00:05:31] you know, explicitly about the politics of the day, you know, it's not trying to say, oh, well,
[00:05:37] surely this is right. And there's kind of one, you know, couple of kernels in there about it.
[00:05:44] Um, but it's clearly flagging that this is a future we do not want. You know, I mean,
[00:05:52] uh, and I don't know if you know, uh, Kristen Dunst's husband. Yes. Oh, yes. Me too. Jesse
[00:06:00] Plemons. Jesse Plemons. Exactly. It's good on the big screen. It's one of those,
[00:06:05] you know, I mean, there's maybe I'll go get it because I've been trying to see what could
[00:06:10] I watch on the big screen because I've been watching stuff at home, which is not great.
[00:06:16] Yeah, because my weekend culture was, I have to say, I'm really taken by this guy. He passed away
[00:06:24] on the 14th of March of this year. So I learned about him on Instagram, weirdly, you know,
[00:06:31] obviously, as he, you know, someone was announcing his death. I had no idea this man
[00:06:37] had existed before. So his name's Franz Deval. He was a Dutch primatologist and he wrote these
[00:06:45] amazing books. He's really interested in the continuity between human behavior and animal
[00:06:51] behavior, especially primates, but he talks about all animals in his books. And there's one that I
[00:06:57] really, really love, which is called the age of empathy. He talks about empathy and he
[00:07:04] deconstructs this idea that actually, we blame on Charles Darwin, but actually comes from an
[00:07:11] economist who's called Herbert Spencer. And he is the one who coined the phrase survival of the
[00:07:18] fittest. It was not Darwin at all. And so he based on really bad readings of Darwin, this whole
[00:07:25] notion of competition as the basis of society and in the age of empathy, Franz Deval talks a
[00:07:33] lot about this in relation to the United States. So I think it would interest you, it's really
[00:07:38] interesting. But it's all through the perspective of animals. And I also learned in his, because
[00:07:43] I've been like listening to talks, looking on YouTube, you know how obsessive I am. So I just
[00:07:48] started like looking into everything. And he talks about the fact that so I learned something
[00:07:55] this week through him that primates love and kiss. So usually people say that what separates us from
[00:08:05] the animal kingdom is that we love, but Simeon's love, he loves the lot actually. And he talks about
[00:08:14] being in his office and listening and hearing them laugh. And they also kiss. So Bonomo's
[00:08:20] apparently it's more sexual. The kissing, it's like he talks about this person who was minding
[00:08:25] the Bonomo community and who let one of them kiss him. And apparently there was immediate tongue.
[00:08:36] But they're like famous people, right? Bonobos are like famously horny. Is that?
[00:08:41] Yes. So the female Bonomos apparently they when like opposing groups start fighting,
[00:08:49] they go to the other side and they start having sex with the Bonomo females, the opponents,
[00:08:55] females and males. And they stop the wars like that. So there's so many interesting stories
[00:09:04] that I'm just fascinated. I'm still reading it. You know, I bought two books. There's another
[00:09:08] one which is Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? I mean, it's just
[00:09:13] another world. It's so nice. So he just died last month. But when was he writing like
[00:09:20] the age of empathy, when is that from? Well, he came into his profession in the 70s, 80s.
[00:09:31] So he said that that's really interesting because he actually said that basically
[00:09:39] primatology and animal behavior studies were male, mostly male, so mostly male scholars.
[00:09:47] And they were completely interested in conflict. That's what they were studying because they,
[00:09:53] you know, had this idea that animals were basically machines. They didn't have emotions or
[00:09:58] effects. And they just, you know, was studying the way they fought and they were territorial,
[00:10:05] etc. And then some female scholars started coming in and they were interested in care. They were
[00:10:10] interested in the way they structured their societies. And suddenly a few scholars started
[00:10:17] saying, well, you know what? This conflict thing is not the nature of these animals. We're only
[00:10:24] seeing these animals through a very narrow scope. And so he decided to study conflict resolution.
[00:10:31] And he has a lot of interesting things to say about that. It's really, really interesting because
[00:10:37] some things are very animal based and others, and that's what he says, we are very close to
[00:10:43] primates. Like we have the same psychology. He doesn't believe there are psychology and our
[00:10:48] social structures are that different, even our sexuality. And in that sense, it's really
[00:10:53] interesting, especially when you think about all these new tendencies of
[00:10:58] trying to incorporate Native American thinking and relationship to the planet into our own behavior.
[00:11:06] Say, for example, I think it was in New Zealand, where they finally accepted a river to be seen
[00:11:13] as a person. So you know, this Native American thinking of personalizing minerals, organic
[00:11:22] life, animals, you know, and that's really interesting, I think. And at the same time,
[00:11:28] he's a scientist. So he's not going to say things to please you. We've come to a point
[00:11:32] where we're finally understanding and opening up the scope on these issues. And it's
[00:11:38] fascinating to read him fascinating. So he talks about gender as well. And he says like
[00:11:44] one in 10 primates are sexually gender fluid. There's something that doesn't
[00:11:55] correspond neither to the female or the male gender, but mostly it's binary. But there's
[00:12:02] exceptions to that and very different kinds of exceptions like intersex, but also other behaviors.
[00:12:08] So it's really interesting. And he's very objective at the same time. He's not going to
[00:12:11] say, you know, the politically correct thing because that's not who he was. But I think he broke
[00:12:18] a lot of barriers. Not alone equals a lot of people in his books.
[00:12:22] So you think of science as just presenting the information, but of course it is infused with
[00:12:27] politics, you know, twas ever thus. It's fascinating. I'm going to check him out.
[00:12:32] Well, now that we've spoken about our weekend culture, really, really excited to hear you
[00:12:37] on this Emily and to exchange with you about Abattoir. Well, to be honest, I have the leaflet
[00:12:45] from the exhibition and it says Ariadine Abattoir. And on the website, the ICA says Ariadine Abattoir.
[00:12:52] And then in other places, it says Ariadine Abattoir USA exclamation point. So I don't know.
[00:12:58] It's kind of a fluid title, let's say. But first I'm really curious about Ariadine herself.
[00:13:04] I mean, basically she's a baby still. She's so, so young. Tell us a bit more about her.
[00:13:10] Yeah. So she's pretty new to the art world. So Ariadine was born in LA in 1993. Her parents
[00:13:17] worked in the entertainment industry, which is super common. I mean, for those of you who haven't
[00:13:21] been to LA, it is a company town by and large. It's hard to find someone there who isn't connected
[00:13:27] to the entertainment industry in some way, but is now based in New York and LA. She's a critic.
[00:13:34] She's a curator. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio, which stood out to me because I'm also
[00:13:41] from Midwest and they have a really formidable reputation for its progressive liberal values.
[00:13:47] So it was the first liberal arts college to go coeducational, the first to admit African Americans.
[00:13:54] It has the oldest continually run music conservatory. Lena Dunham, did you ever watch Girls?
[00:14:03] She's the creator of... Yeah. She went there. I mean, it's like super, super...
[00:14:08] Oh, so it's a very well... Does it connote like... Basically, let's put this in UK terms. Is it
[00:14:16] a posh school? Yeah. Yeah, it's a posh school. It is just as progressive as you can get and it has
[00:14:24] a huge arts culture as well. But anyway, I mean, I think... I'm mentioning that because it seems
[00:14:30] like a lot of her ideas were incubated there. I mean, one of her first pieces that's ironic,
[00:14:37] which is a column was based off of a bit of architecture that was on the campus.
[00:14:44] By Venturi. Yeah. Yeah. After obtaining a bachelor's degree in studio art at Oberlin College,
[00:14:51] she returned to Los Angeles taking a position as a social media strategist for the Museum of
[00:14:56] Contemporary Art. So in many respects, Dean's early engagement in the digital sphere of an
[00:15:03] institution prefigured the question she posed around blackness within the emergent internet culture.
[00:15:11] So she examined generative and gratuitous workings of online cultural production,
[00:15:18] of how the circulation of memes maps onto blackness and the visibility politics of selfies.
[00:15:27] So she really dug into the complexity of what social media is and what that means through
[00:15:36] the lens of blackness particularly. But I think, yeah, as we'll talk about, just
[00:15:44] her production of images and what that means and ownership certainly comes into her work.
[00:15:54] Well, she's an accomplished writer. I mean, I was so impressed by her because she decided to publish
[00:16:02] the writings or she was asked to publish the writings she did in her 20s. Yeah. It is so incredible.
[00:16:08] So Aria Dean is a young African-American artist who studied not only arts but also philosophy
[00:16:17] and architecture. So she's incredibly accomplished. She has a transdisciplinary education.
[00:16:23] So do you want to just, maybe the thing to do now is just to dig into the exhibition itself?
[00:16:31] Do you want to introduce that? Well, first of all about the exhibition, I'm vegan. So of course,
[00:16:36] when I read Abattoir which means slaughterhouse in French, I immediately thought my imagination
[00:16:43] started overworking and thinking, what is this about? Because vegetarianism and veganism.
[00:16:48] This is for me. I'm not sure. Yeah. Or maybe because my mind went immediately to the images of slaughterhouses
[00:16:56] that kind of propel people into veganism or vegetarianism. So I didn't really know what
[00:17:01] to expect and I really did wonder if she was vegan. And then I went onto her Instagram and
[00:17:08] I saw that her handle is LOL underscore prosciutto. And I thought maybe she's not and then who cares?
[00:17:16] Only me, honestly. Then who cares? Yeah. No one cares. It's really not important. Maybe she likes
[00:17:22] vegan prosciutto but vegan prosciutto is already taken. You never know. You never know.
[00:17:29] Yeah. It could be plant-based prosciutto. Who knows? Anyway, there's USA in the title. So I
[00:17:35] thought, oh, this is perhaps a criticism of North America. We'll see. We'll see. So the exhibition
[00:17:43] is very clever because it starts with a text that I have to say I read really quickly because I don't
[00:17:48] like reading text before experimenting the artwork. And then you open a strange, two strange looking
[00:17:58] doors between hospital doors and industrial food storage doors. And then you're faced with an empty
[00:18:06] room with a huge film projection. So the floor and walls replicate the atmosphere of the doors.
[00:18:15] And the floor is a black linoleum with little circular protuberances.
[00:18:22] And then the walls have a sort of human height strip of a sort of a non-descript color, like grayish,
[00:18:29] greenish color. And then the lighter color up to the ceiling after that strip. So it is not a
[00:18:37] projection room. You are not in a projection room. So you have this uncanny feeling of being
[00:18:43] both in the projection space and in a recreation space. And for some reason, what I'm saying is
[00:18:51] triggering Siri. So triggering in the psychological sense. So I'm going to put my phone away from me
[00:19:02] on airplane mode. And I apologize for that if you heard it. So...
[00:19:08] Siri is vegan too. She's really triggered by this.
[00:19:13] Exactly. So you're not really in a projection space. You're in a sort of recreation of a
[00:19:24] space that is non-descript at the same time, could be many things. So psychologically, it
[00:19:30] kind of creates a void so nowhere for your soul to be. But suddenly, personally, my
[00:19:36] consciousness was heightened because I was asking myself, where am I? What is this space that I'm in?
[00:19:45] And am I the one looking? Is someone looking at me? There is this uncanny feeling of a presence
[00:19:55] of some kind. It's really, really clever. Yeah. That room is really key. You wouldn't get the
[00:20:00] power of this film if you watched it on your laptop or your phone screen. Because, I mean,
[00:20:06] like you say, the industrial floor, the doors, they bring you into the film itself because you're
[00:20:13] looking at a similar structure on the screen. And then for me, so there's at the end of this room,
[00:20:21] so you walk in this room through these big double doors. You sit down on a bench at the back of
[00:20:28] the room. You're looking at the screen. And then off down to the right of the screen,
[00:20:33] there's this open doorway. Right, right. That's a lit from within. And it just feels mysterious.
[00:20:40] And as I was watching the film, it's like other people who'd been in the film before
[00:20:47] me kind of wandered back in there and then they came back out quite quickly.
[00:20:52] And it's like your mind starts going like, what's in there? Is it a broom closet or
[00:20:57] something that they just forgot to shut the door to or what? But I mean, that was like,
[00:21:02] that was also added to the level of what's going on in here. Yes. Feeling for me too. True. When I
[00:21:09] was there, these people went in and never came back. And I thought, okay, this, this, because
[00:21:16] I don't think the exhibition continues that far. You know, there's only two room, two pieces
[00:21:21] to watch. And I was, but maybe they kind of came back in, but I just didn't notice because I was so
[00:21:27] taken by the atmosphere. I don't know. But are you right? Yeah, you're like, it's a portal. They've
[00:21:34] gone to the next dimension. Yeah, there is that. Yeah, absolutely. Indeed. There's
[00:21:41] the portal like feeling and you'll see because going back to the video actually,
[00:21:47] and it is weird that we get to the video after really focusing on the atmosphere of the room.
[00:21:54] It's unusual. So the video is an empty slaughterhouse rendered through a 3D gaming software called
[00:22:05] Unreal Engine. So this also contributes to this uncanny feeling of being somehow part of the whole
[00:22:11] scenario because it's completely empty. There are no bodies whatsoever. So it confronts real
[00:22:19] space and virtual space because there's elements of the room that are repeated in the film and you
[00:22:26] somehow become the interface of it all, of this real space and this virtual space. And
[00:22:32] Aria Dean says something really interesting, which is that she thinks that only virtual
[00:22:37] spaces can talk about our real or can talk about reality or can do or produce reality in some ways.
[00:22:45] And she really makes you feel that. So the video takes you almost literally because it is this gaming
[00:22:52] software. So your mind clicks onto that atmosphere and you know you're supposed to play a role
[00:22:58] in it somehow in this kind of aesthetic created by Unreal Engine. So you go through a space with
[00:23:06] corridors until you see a bright light that kind of almost explodes in your eyes. It's really
[00:23:12] beautifully made as well. As if you went through a different dimension, like a portal. Of course it
[00:23:20] makes you think of death but nothing is specific in this experience. So you don't know. You're the
[00:23:26] one making decisions and interpreting and producing the meaning somehow along with the imagery,
[00:23:33] of course. So you get to another space with clearly, well with blood on the floor, there's the only
[00:23:39] person like or body like thing that you see. It looks like sticky. Is there blood on the floor?
[00:23:45] Yeah it looks like a sticky substance. I interpreted it as wet but I didn't interpret
[00:23:51] it as blood because it's like it covers the whole floor right? I mean which I guess I've
[00:23:56] never been to a slaughterhouse maybe blood does cover the entire floor. Oh this is fiction
[00:24:01] obviously. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So again you're right, you know who knows I saw it as blood but
[00:24:08] it's not said to be blood in any way it makes no sense because there's nothing there. It does have
[00:24:13] the apparatus of post-death for the slaughtered animal because it has the hooks that you hang
[00:24:19] the bodies on and the strange thing is that you realize at this point that you're the only
[00:24:25] living thing in this space and you're the spectator so you're powerless in some ways. You only have the
[00:24:33] power of imagination and of being taken into this quite manipulative thing like a video game can be
[00:24:41] but there's this weird sensation of also being in an architecture especially the corridor that
[00:24:49] leads you to that portal like impression of an explosion of light that made me think of
[00:24:55] an artist who just passed away rich at Sarah's sculptures you know the big iron sculptures
[00:25:00] that are. The only difference is that it's not as tilted as usual as the sculptures usually are
[00:25:05] but not all of them and you go I mean I've experienced a few of them and when you're in
[00:25:11] them you have this feeling of as if the walls were coming in and kind of pressing onto your
[00:25:18] personal space they're very strange sculpture very effective when you think it's just an iron
[00:25:24] basically an iron spiral for example really tall they're very big. So some moments of the video
[00:25:33] made me think specifically of certain artists but the whole but that was I didn't have a lot
[00:25:41] of thoughts about that you know it just made me think of the slaughterhouse especially the corridor
[00:25:47] because there's this autistic woman who you know thought of a way to build those corridors
[00:25:56] so that the animal wouldn't know what they were getting into and I thought so much effort why
[00:26:02] just not convince people not to kill animals like this at least no one liked this you know but
[00:26:07] anyway because it is obvious that the animals get really distressed because they understand
[00:26:12] what's going on and they see the previous ones you know the ones walking in front of them being killed
[00:26:17] so obviously it's a horrendous thing. Totally yeah yeah I know they can sense it for sure how could
[00:26:24] how could you not you know I mean they aren't they aren't born to be put through channels like
[00:26:31] this I mean they were born to go in graze on a bunch of grass you know I mean they
[00:26:36] they're not machines like people you know in this time thought they were like going back
[00:26:40] to France Val they're not machines and they understand that if an animal in front of them is
[00:26:45] screaming or making a certain kind of noise that means danger you know so yeah absolutely absolutely
[00:26:53] yeah and I mean it is a very clean aesthetic for a gruesome place and the way that the camera
[00:27:00] angle works is kind of in the beginning you're sort of looking around oh yeah you know
[00:27:05] up at the ceiling and there's sort of this beautiful Victorian glass ceiling and you think
[00:27:11] you know maybe the slaughterhouse was converted from like a huge greenhouse like they have it
[00:27:18] at Q Gardens or something like that for example it's a Victorian and there's lots of Victorian
[00:27:23] flourishes around so like it's there's some beauty to the building but you're sort of looking
[00:27:28] up at the ceiling and then you know the camera kind of pans down to this channel that the
[00:27:34] animal would have gone through you know and meets this violent end but you're seeing things primarily
[00:27:40] from the perspective of the animal which I think you know obviously any point of view of the camera
[00:27:47] the the viewer is going to have more sympathy with that point of view so it's you know I think
[00:27:53] that's part of what makes it so powerful um but yeah then you're kind of drifting through
[00:28:00] the slaughterhouse uh and and seeing it but that notion of you know her emphasis on architecture
[00:28:08] her emphasis on space and how that makes one feel is uh yeah definitely very uh profound
[00:28:17] profoundly felt in her work so there's also like you say I mean you see things from the
[00:28:23] perspective of the animal and I was being really literal and because the film is in the loop
[00:28:29] I'm not sure I we arrived at the beginning of the film so there's a moment like you say where you kind
[00:28:34] of up there's this beautiful light sunlight through this Victorian building a little bit
[00:28:40] like the crystal palace you know the sun rays go through the windows and you kind of have an aerial
[00:28:47] view of things and I thought oh it's the animal soul you know but it's not it's not you are in
[00:28:53] in the space where anything's possible she's really interested in cinema and cinema theory
[00:28:59] so you are in a space where you can float why not there's no rule so it's a game without rules so
[00:29:05] you don't know a game you're playing because you don't have a remote in your hand
[00:29:09] and or a controller and you you can't have an impact on the the motion of the camera so you're
[00:29:16] taken in a place where usually you you would be able to do something in this kind of aesthetic
[00:29:22] so it's really interesting because you have moments where it kind of disconnects you from the point
[00:29:28] of view of the animal it creates other meanings in some ways and it brings you back to your own
[00:29:33] identity as someone who is looking at a structure and Ariadine is interested in structures but
[00:29:41] maybe we'll talk about this a bit later on this time for a break isn't it Emily yeah definitely
[00:29:46] let's take a quick one back in a moment
[00:30:00] so
[00:30:16] welcome back everyone we've brought you in you're in this kind of 3d gaming software slaughterhouse
[00:30:23] i mean i have to say when i was watching it so i i worked in the west bank in Gaza for five years
[00:30:31] in a few years ago and going through that did have some reman rememberances and similarities to going
[00:30:40] through eras which is the crossing between Gaza and Israel kind of the north of Gaza and i mean
[00:30:49] obviously eras is not a slaughterhouse i'm not saying that it is a slaughterhouse by any stretch
[00:30:55] but when you're going through it's absolutely full of channels like this whether it's
[00:31:02] you know fencing on both sides and on top of you to direct you to a certain place
[00:31:11] you know and sometimes you know i mean there is a lot of concrete slabs used everywhere i mean
[00:31:18] it's it's an enormous complex that manages movement to the extreme i mean you feel confined you feel
[00:31:27] directed you feel monitored and that was coming back to me certainly as i was watching this piece
[00:31:35] by area dean i mean look you know people when they get to the other side of eras are not
[00:31:40] being executed so i'm not trying to make a similarity there but the similarity is certainly
[00:31:47] through the the amount of control of yeah exactly the structure the amount of control
[00:31:54] and surveillance um you know of people's bodies um yeah it is really and i mean you know obviously
[00:32:03] there's there's a lot that you know both Gazans and in Israelis would have to say about that
[00:32:10] but for me you know as a person i mean i remember going in you know and you know you kind of go
[00:32:17] through this long long corridor of you know kind of the fencing on both sides and above yeah
[00:32:23] and then you come in and you have to go through the metal detectors this is coming out of Gaza
[00:32:28] rather than going in although it's you know there's some similarities going in as well
[00:32:33] but um you get your metal detector and then you kind of go through this little bit of a labyrinth
[00:32:40] where they have tiger traps so it's like you go no um you go in you go in one door and then
[00:32:50] you're kind of held in a very small area that maybe three people side by side could fit in
[00:32:57] and then the next door is locked and it won't open until they sort of make whatever decisions
[00:33:06] they're making up in the control booth and you know at certain times you know i mean it has been
[00:33:12] where you get redirected to a different door that is locked and then opened when you get to it
[00:33:19] and i'm assuming you don't want to go into that door that's not yeah exactly that's where
[00:33:25] you get stripped searched yes that's the script search sure but yeah so i mean you know but
[00:33:32] you know i mean making light of it look israelis will say that's absolutely necessary for security and
[00:33:37] you know october 7th you know underscores that more than anything and there's an argument to be made
[00:33:43] that that is you know an intense amount of control to have over uh human bodies uh yeah exactly
[00:33:51] but yeah there is a there is you know not an exact simile but certainly some similarities there
[00:33:57] yeah i think this idea of the structure is really what interests aria dean i mean from
[00:34:02] what i've read from her and that compare the parallel you're making is is really interesting
[00:34:09] because it really is what she is focusing on because there are no bodies so the hint you have
[00:34:17] is that you're looking at a very specific kind of structure with a very specific orientation and
[00:34:23] ability to lead you somewhere and which is something that the image is also making you know the comparison
[00:34:30] with gaming is really interesting so to to bring matters to a bit of a it to a bit of a lighter
[00:34:37] you know perspective um yeah so one of my sons is wants to study game art and so we i went to a
[00:34:48] lecture to a game art lecture so the first question we were asked is what is a game and we
[00:34:55] had a hard time defining well first of all as parents were trying not to speak but
[00:34:59] then obviously we started raising our hands and so we got to a point where he was defining
[00:35:05] gaming as opposed to puzzles as opposed to toys and so the interactive element is really important
[00:35:13] but then what makes because you know if you're playing chess it's interactive so what's the
[00:35:18] difference between chess playing and gaming it was really interesting and then he got to define
[00:35:27] the fact that in a game you win so you have to win so you're interacting with some form of
[00:35:32] platform it can be other people it can be the computer can be AI can be bots can be whatever
[00:35:38] but there's a set of rules and you have to kind of overcome the hurdles that they're thrown at you
[00:35:46] can be a shooter it can be you know jumping and getting something it doesn't matter and it made
[00:35:52] me understand how controlled the narrative is and how you are controlled as a gamer but it also
[00:35:59] brought me back to a class um a literature class where the teacher had the bad idea of saying
[00:36:08] what makes a novel so the structure that every novel has to have and I remember that my soul
[00:36:16] fell to my feet and it completely broke my experience of fiction and I thought no no no no
[00:36:23] you know no no no and it's within the restraint that fiction happens um and that's really interesting
[00:36:30] because so Ariadne is really focused on a theory called afro pessimism and so afro pessimism
[00:36:39] bases their theory on the fact that black bodies through the invention of slavery and not
[00:36:46] only in america but way earlier before in the african continent were completely othered in as much as
[00:36:53] they couldn't belong to the ontological structures and so to be human meant to be not black
[00:37:01] so humanism is defined by the creation of these black bodies that could never attain the role
[00:37:07] of subjects and could never attain subjectivity and therefore societies built on those black
[00:37:13] bodies that render you human and the slaughterhouse the way she describes it goes back to biopolitics
[00:37:21] to fuqo's biopolitics in this idea that these structures these big industrial structures
[00:37:30] actually are saying not who gets to live but who has to die for you to exist and that's why
[00:37:39] the slaughterhouse comes in you know as a vegan that interests me yeah yeah no for sure and i mean
[00:37:45] i think that that relationship to what is human is that came out to me in watching her film because
[00:37:53] as you say there aren't any people in the film and there aren't any cattle or there aren't any
[00:37:59] animals going to slaughter either there's nothing but the structure is built as a liminal space
[00:38:05] to transfer cattle from being alive to dead but it's not a liminal space for people who work there
[00:38:13] you know and the whole space is set up for this function of killing animals for slaughtering them
[00:38:21] and you can't imagine people actually going there and working you know eight to ten hours a day
[00:38:28] i mean you know so i did some research in minnesota a few years ago i took a very late in life masters
[00:38:36] in comparative politics and i did some some work looking at did you do a geriatric masters
[00:38:44] i did yeah i was so old hd as well yeah yeah you're all you're the oldest everybody else
[00:38:52] was so young you know and it was just looking at their faces like unlined and fresh and optimistic
[00:39:00] and yeah i mean i mean really it was it was shocking i mean like buy a long chuck everybody
[00:39:06] else were they were plowbacks it was like they got done with their undergrad and they were plowing
[00:39:12] right back into doing a masters no there was none older than me you know i mean even
[00:39:17] through the professors it's like yeah i mean i had been being age-wise so went and did this
[00:39:24] masters focusing on how to govern divided societies but anyway i digress the research i did
[00:39:31] was looking at comparing Somali integration into rural towns in minnesota so minnesota has a huge
[00:39:39] population of the diaspora the Somali diaspora are in minnesota and you know so it was looking at
[00:39:48] kind of you know how they were treated in these two places but i mean so many of them came to work
[00:39:54] in slaughterhouses and meat packing plants and i mean you know and not just Somali immigrants
[00:39:59] obviously but i mean immigrants full stop i mean this was work that you know was intolerable for the
[00:40:08] white population who had lived there for a long time i talked to one of the small town mayors and
[00:40:15] he was he was really pro so this is kind of the main difference between the two towns was there
[00:40:21] was you know a very pro attitude towards immigration and integration in one and not the other and
[00:40:28] it didn't go on political lines which is really interesting but but he was you know he said that
[00:40:32] a lot too he's like you think some of the you know folks here who are you know say that they can't get
[00:40:39] a job they could get a job but it's going to be at the plants and that's going to be you know
[00:40:45] they're saying that that's unacceptable you know obviously that's you know there's
[00:40:50] exceptions to what he's saying but i mean that otherness you know we're not going to do that
[00:40:56] we're going to get you to do that yeah yeah absolutely that's exactly which talks about
[00:41:03] i also read somewhere that the suicide rates of slaughterhouses slaughterhouse workers is pretty
[00:41:08] high it's a really gruesome work they do for sure so you would say that you're a vegan that's
[00:41:15] vegan propaganda right there's a book called vegan propaganda which is absolutely incredible
[00:41:21] um so actually thinking about structures we have to talk about the architecture as well
[00:41:26] so the text of the entrance that i didn't pay much attention to but is in the leaflet as well
[00:41:32] is about the construction of this world and it clearly states that dean looked into the history
[00:41:37] of the buildings of slaughterhouse buildings specifically so back in the day like two or
[00:41:43] three centuries ago they used to be adorned with features and weren't very different
[00:41:48] from other buildings you know they were supposed to be beautiful and they were clearly
[00:41:53] marked as being slaughterhouses until napoleon so napoleon decided that architecture and
[00:42:01] ornament should be removed from these buildings which by the same token should be industrialized
[00:42:07] regulated but also taken away from sight so the idea is that this is removed from
[00:42:15] visual um from our visual relationship to society from existence really this interestingly
[00:42:22] this idea of not having any ornaments resonates very strongly with modernist tropes in terms of
[00:42:30] form and shape for buildings so she mentions adult flues who was a famous austrian check
[00:42:36] architect who wrote a book called ornament and crime published in 1913 which was a lecture
[00:42:42] before and then became a book stating that anything superfluous should not be undertaken
[00:42:49] so this was very specifically against art deco or amour so beauty for him was in the function
[00:42:56] of things which also resonates with Bauhaus and all of the modernism that then comes into play
[00:43:02] first in europe and then in america so this was rather exciting you know for many people when
[00:43:07] i was younger and artists including myself the issue is that these notions came and that's what
[00:43:13] she flags up in her texts so this came at so at the same time a standardized production for disem
[00:43:21] and i just learned that adult flues was into prepubescent or pubescent girls
[00:43:29] because their bodies were pre-ornament as was stuff clint and egan sheela so this was brought
[00:43:37] to my attention that's no surprise i mean but there's a whole group it was an organized group
[00:43:45] this this actually i learned about this from um an mf a thesis that i supervised and it really
[00:43:51] rocked me to my bones uh the name of the student is laura fischer she's also an artist
[00:43:56] and she did an amazing work like it was beautiful to work with her so dean here is amalgamating these
[00:44:03] references um in a really interesting way echoing afro pessimism so this idea that obviously
[00:44:11] these regulations were brought about for hygiene reasons but this also means that there's a
[00:44:18] dismissal of a ritualistic part of life that suddenly is taken away from society in terms of structure
[00:44:27] and so the video echoes these different architectures across time another mark of the film for me
[00:44:34] was this incredible score like it has great sound i mean you're sort of surrounded by sound
[00:44:42] which adds to that feeling you talked about at the beginning of of true you know yeah what this room
[00:44:49] is and what's going to happen and there's a really incredible score that goes along with it and at a
[00:44:55] certain point so when the when you're at the end of the channel and the light is flashing and then
[00:45:03] you transcend to the other side of the flashing light there is a rendition of i think we're
[00:45:10] alone now by tiffany which i mean yeah
[00:45:19] i mean and it is so good i mean my teenage self was a huge tiffani van did she kind of
[00:45:26] penetrate portugal oh yes did she yeah did she penetrate oh yeah absolutely yeah it was a big deal
[00:45:35] yeah yeah but an unusual choice right i mean i guess it's like if that's when the animal dies
[00:45:43] yeah the animal is then alone in there wherever animal spirits any spirit goes
[00:45:51] the like that was the ultimate make out song right it's like you know your parents have left the
[00:45:57] house you're there with your boyfriend and kind of make out on the couch i mean that's sort of like
[00:46:03] the alone that i think tiffani yeah it's pointing to of course but when you take when you take the
[00:46:11] you know because i think we're alone now yeah so we so it's like the viewer and the
[00:46:19] the cow spirit or what have you i mean i guess we're alone now and if you read the interview
[00:46:27] she has this really really interesting interview with the afro pessimists theorists frank b will
[00:46:34] listen the third in the book it's right in the middle of the book and this idea that i think
[00:46:38] we're alone now really speaks to any community but i think afro pessimism has something that
[00:46:46] really you know made me feel my made me position myself very clearly because the black community
[00:46:59] is placing themselves so specifically as being completely alone and you not being part of their
[00:47:06] condition you will never be part of this condition as a white person and that was incredibly powerful
[00:47:13] to read because they bring it home in a way that really explains this context of having been the
[00:47:23] slave even before the slave ships that the pochise started to as a trend you know my people uh
[00:47:32] they started to to organize you know to to bring to other colonies particularly you know the what is
[00:47:38] now the usa but that the slavery thing was already happening before that so this otherness of the slave
[00:47:49] and that body that is so objects that it will always reinforce your privilege or your existence as an
[00:47:58] existence that creates the structure is so powerful that when i you know was reading these texts
[00:48:05] that she wrote and was reading the interview i didn't understand everything it's very dense theory
[00:48:10] and it's a theory that also criticizes representation which is something that is very
[00:48:18] controversial i think within you know communities that are excluded not only the black community but
[00:48:23] in art nowadays we're talking a lot about representation it was a big deal when the
[00:48:28] portraits of barak obama and the show obama were made by i forget the name of the artist but
[00:48:33] this black artist who painted these painted the first black president and the first black first lady
[00:48:41] and that was all about you know having black bodies represented in the museum doors not as slaves but
[00:48:47] as powerful people and afro pessimism kind of interrogates this and there's even the passage
[00:48:54] where he talks about what 12 years a slave and how the whipping of that character he thinks does
[00:49:00] not do what steve mcqueen thinks it's doing it's actually reinforcing the trope of black suffering
[00:49:05] bodies i think we're alone now you know is not specifically there uh and i think that's why
[00:49:13] it's so clever because you are asking yourself who is this we you know and according to the
[00:49:20] spectators background identity color of their skin you're gonna feel differently because they
[00:49:26] even afro pessimism and that's what really astounded me is that they separate their thinking
[00:49:34] from lgbt qia plus issues for example from female white female issues for example they
[00:49:41] really construct a territory that is impenetrable one of the authors they mentioned is of course
[00:49:47] james boldwin and they reject the humanism and james boldwin because he says i love james
[00:49:53] boldwin until the end of the books and the end of the books he reconnects with humanism and humanism
[00:49:58] is built on our backs and it we don't belong there and i mean you know i guess sort of in that room
[00:50:05] we have the we're in the slaughterhouse in that room and then there's that doorway at the end
[00:50:12] we haven't visited the whole exhibition yet so the second room has these vitrines that look
[00:50:18] archaeological or kind of typical of like old historical exhibition spaces the surface of the
[00:50:25] table is covered with red velvet with the word vitrine on them with an asterisk if i'm not and
[00:50:32] then they're covered by these huge glass boxes so it's their vitrines but they're empty and
[00:50:37] they're they're they're rectangular as well yes so they look a bit coffin like yes they do they
[00:50:45] do yes yeah yeah and there's a poem on the wall that says vitrine as a sort of asterisk as a sort of
[00:50:55] title and so aria dean says that this was her speaking you know about her own experience
[00:51:02] and so it says captured air that details an undermining trickery is against oneself
[00:51:10] it is revealed that the melancholic sap or lover of history or singer of lament
[00:51:17] felled by wars not fought and hollered by specter of life she did not live forget herself and the
[00:51:24] muck at her ankles favoring instead the scent of the theft of the wind from over the inverted horizon
[00:51:33] so i love this book i love the idea of the horizon yeah yeah no i know i thought i thought it was nice
[00:51:40] too that it was like you know the text could have easily been here's what i was thinking and it's
[00:51:46] obviously kind of a continuation of her examination of structures and all that but she didn't
[00:51:53] you know she put this you know kind of strange branding vitrine alongside a poem
[00:52:01] for you to make of what you'd like to yeah we're kind of in the beginning i was like oh well i get it
[00:52:08] you know empty vitrines i get it you know fine but then i was reminded of a story that a friend told
[00:52:17] me this portuguese artist um joanne chival she went to the united states for some reason
[00:52:24] and she ended up going to one of the museums there maybe the met i don't know and she interviewed
[00:52:35] a person responsible for some sort of collection the hit the story is very vague was years ago
[00:52:41] but the important bit of the story is that this museum curator told her that they had these
[00:52:49] um headdresses from native americans still existing still alive and practicing the rituals in the united
[00:53:00] states as exhibition items and because there's now a culture of giving back these are artifact
[00:53:07] they contacted um the chief of of this particular community native american people
[00:53:14] and so the person came and they took out the headdress from this vault at a certain temperature
[00:53:25] they opened the boxes really carefully with gloved hands they put them on the table
[00:53:33] and then the dude just took the headdress put it in the sports bag put it in his back just left
[00:53:39] what because it's an everyday thing for these people yeah for the white people it was something
[00:53:48] yeah precious of the past right but for them it's a living thing it's a thing they use i mean i'd love
[00:53:55] that because it's like you know that there's always that pushback you know around the benine
[00:53:59] bronzes and stuff it's like oh well or any of it it's like oh well if we gave it back they sell
[00:54:04] it on or it's like yeah go for it they can it's theirs it's they can do what they would like
[00:54:12] yeah exactly i mean it's in this idea of representation you know what what do you bring
[00:54:19] to the exhibition space and she said something really and she says that she's not interested in
[00:54:24] what art expresses she's interested in what art is doing you know that's where my head that's
[00:54:31] where i was in seeing this because you know immediately my mind is trying to make sense of the
[00:54:38] film and my mind is trying to make sense of these empty clear boxes coffin like boxes
[00:54:47] with the red velvet branding on it and you know i think so the second i watched the film twice
[00:54:55] and when i watched it the second time i sort of let my mind relax and just be taken through
[00:55:02] and then it then it kind of got quite emotional and that's when kind of some of the similes with
[00:55:08] eras crossing and other ways that people and movement is confined and monitored and controlled
[00:55:19] to such a high degree and the ways that we build structures to do that you know i felt like
[00:55:26] the second viewing was sort of when that started to sink in and then when i went to the when i went
[00:55:32] to the the second room you know yeah my my media it was like okay so i'm not sure what i'm supposed
[00:55:39] to make it is but then it's like after you leave and you're sort of absorbing and amalgamating
[00:55:46] both things it's you know it's it's it's the idea presented in another way i mean just that
[00:55:54] trappedness that invisibility too the invisibility of the trapness it's the error that's trapped
[00:56:01] we don't even see it we don't even see the error being trapped you know and how profound
[00:56:07] you know that is so aria dean is not shy about naming george bettie as a huge influence for her
[00:56:18] i mean she has one of her essays in her book bad infinity that is in fact called
[00:56:28] black but black but tie yeah it's written in 2021 um and it looks and if you look at any of her
[00:56:37] stuff online some of her lectures etc she is bound to reference him and joanna i know that you
[00:56:44] know more about bettie than i did because you studied philosophy and he and he was brand new
[00:56:49] to me i literally had never heard of him but wow wow does he make an impression oh my gosh i mean
[00:56:57] essentially i mean really really strange guy like made some very strange life choices
[00:57:06] but the essentially he developed this theory of base materialism and he posited that base matter
[00:57:14] is in everything and disrupts the division between high and low matter this counters the idea
[00:57:23] that matter is a thing in its own right so i read this article by evan jack in medium
[00:57:29] that was published in september last year and it gives an example about about what he means
[00:57:36] that's based on capitalism so there's the bourgeois and the middle class that is high
[00:57:44] material high matter rather and they want to keep the working class separate so they want to
[00:57:51] keep low matter separate so there might be a theory that says that you know high matter is a thing in
[00:58:00] and of itself that is its own thing but what bettie would say is that it's impossible to separate
[00:58:06] high and low so that in the high there is the lows so the working class isn't separable
[00:58:13] from the bourgeois and the middle class which of course we all know in economy it is and
[00:58:19] certainly in capitalism it is so the thing with bettie is that this is all transgressive
[00:58:28] this is a transgressive thought so jack in this article also writes that it's only when one goes
[00:58:36] towards the limit then transgresses it does one quote unquote follow bettie and this explains
[00:58:46] the human sacrifice stuff because yes this is a guy this is a guy bettie who was into that he was
[00:58:56] interested in you know transgressing that line and he had a club of people that were like hey
[00:59:03] we'd be up to be the subjects of human sacrifice and they tried to get someone
[00:59:10] who would be up for being the executioner for this group called asifal yeah the group was called
[00:59:17] asifal so a cephalus which means without a head so someone would have fucked the head somehow
[00:59:24] and it is really an ethos of transgression if one may use this oxymoron it is uh yeah
[00:59:34] it's a literature of transgression and he was indeed a strange dude who was practicing strange stuff
[00:59:40] at the time this is alleged so i don't know to what extent this is real or not but no wonder you know
[00:59:48] there was some rumors about you know bettie because he also wrote histoire de l'oeil so i don't know how
[00:59:54] it is translated the history of the eye maybe which is all about transgressive sexualities and
[01:00:02] sexual imaginaries and actions and gestures um and i've i have this thing where you know when you
[01:00:10] tell me something i believe you you know is it may worse that's when people tell you who they are
[01:00:15] believe them i i believe him i think he was this transgressive dude and there were many places
[01:00:22] and still are in society where you know you practice transgression and you can practice
[01:00:29] transgression by and it's interesting because what is transgression i think that's what the question
[01:00:37] in that's why area where ariah dean enters because you know if you're um a Mormon
[01:00:44] is it Mormons who can be married to lots of women i don't know yeah yeah right that's okay
[01:00:50] it's part of a religious structure so it's part of the structure so it's okay but then if someone's
[01:00:57] in the thrupple and they decide to and they hold hands the three of them and kiss each other in public
[01:01:02] then oh that's not good that's not good that will not happen in society so this what is transgression
[01:01:10] and what is the structure of society he went very very far he goes into mutilation and to all
[01:01:15] sorts of things um that are quite you know for lack of a better word very very creepy to me but
[01:01:25] he does come from and he did in founts foo co and like and all of these people
[01:01:31] i think also materialism is something that interests aria dean and as opposed to symbolism
[01:01:37] so again this idea of the the fact that everything is active in society is an active agent so
[01:01:46] it's real and it's you know it's it's act it acts upon society and it acts upon structures or
[01:01:52] is structural rather than you know expression and symbolism you know art as being something that kind
[01:01:58] of stays away from the real uh from reality um which um uh nabokov always said you when you
[01:02:06] write reality you have to put it into um between um quotes because why everything is what he was
[01:02:17] probably a materialist as well there's no such thing as reality we're in it this is it you know and um
[01:02:23] and so she's you know and she wrote this famous text called um uh poor meme rich meme is that it
[01:02:31] let me check i have the book right here yeah that's one of the very early ones yeah 2016
[01:02:37] and she was talking about these um black uh youths who were using social media so memes
[01:02:43] of course are now a forgotten thing or almost prehistoric back in 2016 it was a thing that was
[01:02:50] happening and everyone was using them and black people were creating it black young people
[01:02:56] and she talks about how instantly those creative processes from these black people were incorporated
[01:03:05] in something that is corporate that is an entity that immediately owns whatever they produce
[01:03:12] so they're caught in this loop in this bad infinity let's say where they're immediately
[01:03:17] dispossessed and this possession is something that's really interesting for her and she mentions this
[01:03:23] in um a situation that happened at the Whitney Biennial I think it was the 2017 Whitney
[01:03:29] Biennial where Dana Schuetz yeah who's an incredibly successful painter decide and a white woman
[01:03:36] decided to paint the image of the poor 14 year old boy Amatill who was brutally viciously murdered
[01:03:46] because a white woman said that accused him of harassing her like winking at her or something
[01:03:53] was it a wink really you know oh it was like it was really it was a like a small gesture from
[01:04:00] from memory and it wasn't even true anyone she the the woman who accused him finally admitted in the end
[01:04:07] that he didn't even do it but anyway so he was brutalized brutally murdered and there's an image
[01:04:15] of him in his casket I think um and completely disfigured and she painted this image
[01:04:23] and Hannah Black particularly this British um black artist said that the painting should not
[01:04:29] be there it should be removed because um that was not you know her story to take and uh Dana Schuetz
[01:04:39] replied that the painting was not for sale it would never be for sale but there was a big uproar
[01:04:44] and Ariadne participated in this uproar and in a conference she said well I was on the side of
[01:04:52] Hannah Black I was one of those people you know full disclosure who was not happy
[01:04:57] with this painting being at the Whitney Biennial um but then it kind of got away this became a huge
[01:05:04] discussion about can a white woman paint a black child which is not the thing that interested me
[01:05:11] so what interested her was the notion of dispossession and the notion that as you know a black person
[01:05:21] who inherited this history and he was a victim of this history maybe not a victim but subjected
[01:05:27] to in their own bodies in in your own body you are dispossessed somehow of that story
[01:05:37] and it is difficult to understand this and I kept thinking about this um you know I have to be
[01:05:44] honest you know it's not these things are not easy to understand it's important to talk about them
[01:05:48] and I think we may get some things right here wrong here and while we talk but you know it is
[01:05:54] important to understand this experience and I the only parallel I could come to was that a friend of
[01:05:59] mine a very close friend very dear friend is responsible for this football team and he sent me a logo
[01:06:06] he was designing a logo for the football team and it was a dog a female dog a bitch you call them
[01:06:14] being um uh breastfeeding uh it's her little her little um cubs and I looked at that image
[01:06:24] and I was so enraged and we have this huge what's up fight um I mean exchange of views and I said like
[01:06:31] I'm so sick of men appropriating breastfeeding as a sort of wholesome image is dispossessing me
[01:06:39] of my experience and the politics of breastfeeding which are so incredibly
[01:06:45] vicious you know at the moment and so we had this huge discussion and it was I mean
[01:06:50] it's the only thing that I can again you know thinking of Afro pessimism as a white feminist
[01:06:57] I this is not the same you know it's not the same experience yeah but in trying to understand
[01:07:02] what this possession means and that's that's what I found interesting about that um that
[01:07:09] lecture where she talks about this was exactly what you're saying the notion of you know not
[01:07:15] trying to say who has the rightful property to represent what you know uh but you know she made
[01:07:25] the point that look we're at the Whitney we're at the biennial not just anyone can show here
[01:07:32] but white people more so you know and uh you know and that's that's part of the issue here is
[01:07:39] the fact of you know that black artists are not represented in these spaces as much so therefore
[01:07:48] a white woman takes this you know emitill uh image and and when they are represented they are tokenized
[01:07:58] and I think that's the issue is that even now as a curator you have to think am I do I have
[01:08:05] trans bodies do I have you know trans experiences do I have female experiences do I have black
[01:08:10] experiences I have latin experience I have asian experiences but it takes a long time as a curator
[01:08:16] myself to represent not to represent but to present uh different experiences as artists
[01:08:24] you have to take time and listen and see what that experience is and the thing now with the
[01:08:29] art world is that no yeah you do have black artists in exhibitions but they're immediately
[01:08:33] tokenized there's maybe some self-tokenization which I think is what the um theorist she interviews
[01:08:40] alluded to when they he was talking about 12 years a slave that's how I understood it
[01:08:46] I don't know I don't think that's my place to say he doesn't say it like that but that's
[01:08:50] kind of how I interpreted it I may be wrong anyway sorry go on yeah no no that's I mean
[01:08:57] I just think that that juxtaposition between who has the right to represent something
[01:09:04] and what is the space to represent was kind of that's the that's where the rubber meets the
[01:09:12] road and and I think that's a really helpful nuance because of course a painter can paint
[01:09:18] whatever they want right we don't want to start policing what someone can put down on canvas
[01:09:25] and I from what I understood of Aria Dean's commentary that's exactly where she is too as
[01:09:31] you've as you've mentioned but it's more about you know who has the opportunity to and and if
[01:09:36] it were a level playing field and there was just as many black artists at the Whitney biennial
[01:09:42] and most biennials and in the establishment different story perhaps but uh but yeah but yeah
[01:09:50] no I thought that was a really I you know I am you know in the polarized politics of the day
[01:09:57] you know it's really nice to hear her work that through in a way that that yeah just felt
[01:10:06] more engaged in nuance than it very easily could have been. I don't know if that's
[01:10:13] she's nuanced you know when you read her you see that she is so extreme that's why
[01:10:19] that's what I enjoyed in her work I think she's just precise she's precise in what she's saying
[01:10:29] but in the interview um Frank B. Wilderson III does say why are people happy when we complain
[01:10:42] but then they're not happy when we're violent you know and that's a question you know we're
[01:10:48] not happy when we claim a space for ourselves you know there's this discomfort you know when
[01:10:55] you claim a space for yourself because you cannot exist otherwise and it's again I know but they
[01:11:01] would hate the parallel I'm making but you know I'm trying to understand you know there's um
[01:11:07] in Hampstead Heath there's the swimming pools for uh men yeah swimming pools for women and then
[01:11:13] the mixed one and I remember going to the women the women one kind of grumpy and thinking off wow my
[01:11:19] what is this segregation you know but it was the closest one to the male one so part of the family
[01:11:24] went to the male one and my daughter and I went to the female one and it was the most delightful
[01:11:30] experience ever the behavior was different the way you presented your body was different it was such
[01:11:38] a good space you know and now I'm completely for it and I wasn't you know it was like the cool girl
[01:11:45] you know we can all be together but actually it is sometimes really important to just behave in
[01:11:52] a different way and of course there's a lot of desire there's a lot of lesbians there
[01:11:56] it's not about desire it's not it's more complex than that and I love that she goes into that
[01:12:01] complexity I think she's gonna change a lot her mind's so young I'm really curious to see
[01:12:06] where she's going looking at the essays and looking how much she's developed her thinking
[01:12:12] in these you know in the in the span of the essays which I think is like five six years
[01:12:17] or something like that and imagining where she's gonna go from there and I really I really liked
[01:12:23] you know I mean obviously we're talking about the piece as an Aria Dean piece the video which
[01:12:28] of course it is but all of the artists that were involved in it as well I mean the the game software
[01:12:37] developers the composer I mean it was just such a collaborative effort as well all right so
[01:12:46] this is a wrap isn't it we've come to the end of it I think much more could have been said
[01:12:53] but because she has so much written work you know I mean it's it's she has visual stuff but obviously
[01:12:59] a lot of yeah written work and then I mean a lot of she references a lot of other folks like George
[01:13:07] Bataille you know and Robert Morris who is another huge influence of hers so I felt like
[01:13:15] you know you're kind of getting to know her but you're also spinning off into all these
[01:13:19] different directions which was great I mean it was sort of feed that into the fertile mind you know
[01:13:25] it was it was good. Ah question to you all this theory did it affect your experience of the
[01:13:30] exhibition? That's a good question I don't think it did. I had a I had I think a profound experience
[01:13:37] at the watching the film because of you know my own experiences and you know just kind of
[01:13:46] turning off the um turning off my brain as it were trying to figure it out and what it is and what
[01:13:54] she's trying to do with it but I don't know if it maybe if I went back maybe if I went back and saw
[01:14:00] the video again it would be it would inform a different experience but I think because I saw it
[01:14:07] before all of that and I had you know quite a you know I had an experience in and of itself
[01:14:16] without without all of the theory um I'm not sure I'm not sure it changes that experience.
[01:14:22] I think people are a bit weary of artists who are theorists as well you write
[01:14:28] theorize and I think that's the strong point of her work is that the theory is the theory
[01:14:35] the writing is the writing and the experience of the artwork is the experience of the artwork
[01:14:41] and she produces these experiences that are separate from her writing if you haven't read
[01:14:48] you know her thoughts on materialism versus symbolism you know all of those things you still
[01:14:56] have an incredible experience that is not too far away from where she places and positions
[01:15:01] herself so it's an effective artistic creative work that will not be explained by whatever you
[01:15:11] read from her and therefore resolved. So we've come to the end of our episode and our next episode
[01:15:18] is going to be focusing on the solo show of Zaynab Saleh at the Tate Britain.
[01:15:27] The exhibition is open until the 23rd of June so you have a lot of time to visit it still. Leave us
[01:15:32] a review we have a couple but maybe more would be of use you know that helps you know believe it or
[01:15:40] not it really helps to support the podcast and you know this season which will be over
[01:15:46] at the end of July but we will come back in September is season two so that also depends on you
[01:15:53] leave us a review or at least rate us of course five stars minimum you know you can go up to six
[01:15:59] if you want but yeah just support us that's that really means a lot to us. All right thank you
[01:16:07] thanks Joanna have a great week and see you next time. See you next time Emily always a pleasure
[01:16:13] take care bye bye