A lecture performance by Amy Ireland and Maya B. Kronic that dramatises why cuteness is so powerful, and what is it doing to us? Amy and Maya will explore the symptomatology, aetiology, epidemiology, history, biology, etymology, topology, and even embryology of Cute, burrowing down into its natural, cultural, sensory, sexual, subjective, erotic, and semiotic dimensions in order to sound out the latent spaces of this Thing that has an irresistible hold on contemporary culture. Subsequently Maya and Amy will present their publication Cute Accelerationism (Urbanomic, 2024).
Amy Ireland is a writer and theorist best known for her work with the technomaterialist transfeminist collective, Laboria Cuboniks, whose Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation (Verso, 2018) has been translated into 18 languages. She is an editor and translator for Urbanomic. Maya B. Kronic is the agent, patient, and product of an ongoing research project on hyperstition, gender accelerationism, and cuteness. They are currently co-director of research and development at Urbanomic.
*The lecture will be held in English.