16.11.2016
Panel Queer Ecologies, Annual Theme 2016/17: Hybrid Ecologies
Panel “Queer Ecologies”, cx lecture series “Hybrid Ecologies”
cx centre for interdisciplinary studies, Academy of Fine Arts Munich
The performance with the title Orgies of Algorithms & Other Desires + Distractions by the artist Elly Clarke alias #Sergina addresses the mediating practices of new media technologies in regard of the queer subject and a queer identity. In a demonstration of the algorithmic proliferation of the mediated self – a kind of constantly increasing and self-referential media ecology of queerness #Sergina reflects the intermedial spaces and the merging of sex and gender, the carnal and the mediated self, the virtual and the real, the individual and the technological network. We witness an enactment of the computation of the self and its digital linking and absorption in a technological network.
Elly Clarke is an artist and researcher. The focus of her multimedia-based artistic work lies on the transformation of the physical body in an increasingly digitally-mediated and experienced world, which she explores though performance, video, photography, music, curated and community-based projects. And through #Sergina, a Drag Princess alter ego, who performs songs online and offline about love, lust and loneliness in the age of digitalism. Performances take place usually in more than one place at once, with #Sergina played by different people simultaneously, linked up by Google Hangout and broadcasted live via YouTube. In this format, #Sergina (plural) has performed in museums, galleries, in queer and theatre contexts in several cities in the UK, in Europe and the USA, including The Lowry Centre, Salford Quays; Marlborough Theatre, Brighton; Kulturni Centar GRAD, Belgrade; Monster Ronson’s, Berlin, BOM, Birmingham; Secret Project Art Experiment, Brooklyn and The Island, Bristol. Other work has been shown at mac birmingham; Milton Keynes Gallery; Franklin Furnace, New York; Kiasma, Helsinki; ONCA, Brighton and Galerie Wedding, Berlin. Clarke has a BA in History of Art from Leeds University, a Masters in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College, London, and is a current CHASE funded PhD scholar at Goldsmiths, London, exploring the drag of physicality in the digital age. Elly has been collaborating with Vladimir Bjeličić on the #Sergina project since 2015. ellyclarke.com