queer

Wir möchten auf folgende Lecture Series aufmerksam machen:

The lecture, discussion and film series ‘Talking Eyes’ wants to encourage the use of ‘curious’ eyes by providing a platform to foreground marginalised discourses. The series will open up theoretical and practical interventions for subversion from various angles: Five events shall weave a net around the figure ‘Talking Eyes’, opening a space to engage more closely with affective dimensions of images and their production. ‘Talking Eyes’ enter the visual realm, zooming in on the subject that is presented. With ‘Talking Eyes’, subjects and relations are perceived by way of an embodied gaze, introducing questions of sexualised, racialised and gendered subjectivities; pornotopic, forensic, clinical and military detection; surveillance and control of disease; and crime and war. ‘Talking eyes’ evoke a desire to unite image and language. Discussions on the strategies and limitations of representational practices and interventions will be synchronised and positioned next to technological aspects of image production.

Programme:

26/04/2012 . 7.30pm . C/O Berlin – International Forum for Visual Dialogues
Jennifer Evans: Queering the Gays/Gaze: sex, street, and subculture in 1970s queer erotic photography (Talk)
The decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1960s enabled legal protection for homosexuality and made it possible for same-sex desiring men and women to produce, possess, publish and consume erotic images without fear of police retribution or censor. Although photography played a pivotal role in the construction of queer identities in the newly protected public and private spheres, the art world was slow to embrace sex, street and subculture as high art. This talk explores the tension between high and low – between the museum and the street – as a fundamental feature of efforts to queer the gays/gaze after Stonewall. It takes up the problem of nostalgia in 1970s queer erotic photography and analyses the history and transformation of subject formation through the constitution and portrayal of erotic looking and seeing.

11/05/2012 . 7.30pm . b_books
Alisa Lebow/Basak Ertür: Coup de Genre: The Trials and Tribulations of Bulent Ersoy (Talk)
This essay/presentation takes as its subject the real and fictional trials of Bulent Ersoy – a fantastically outrageous Turkish transgender singer/film star, whose public gender ‚transition‘ coincided and collided with the 1980 military coup d’état in Turkey and its aftermath. There is a confused but fascinating feature film that came out in 1981, starring Ersoy (playing herself as a man and a woman), about her gender ‚crisis‘, which relies on documentary footage to build sympathy for the star’s admittedly unusual and exaggerated persona. Interweaving an analysis of The End of Fame with Bülent Ersoy’s real life trials, Lebow and Ertür explore the trans-queer challenges posed by the star’s public persona, not only to genre and narrative, but to the law itself, allowing a unique perspective on the fitful logics and legal hysterics of the Turkish September 12, 1980 coup d’état.

31/05/2012 . 7.30pm . ICI Kulturlabor
Coco Fusco: Torture: The Feminine Touch (Artist Talk)
From 2005-2009, Coco Fusco developed a series of projects that explored contemporary military scenarios as intercultural encounters, examining the role of female sexuality as a weapon in the War on Terror. Treating the so-called “theatre of combat” as a dramatic and symbolic space, she concentrated on military prisons. Many of the most controversial images have emerged from military prisons run by the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba, featuring depictions of ritualized humiliation of “enemy” combatants. In her performances, writings and video about this subject, she analyses these spectacles of subjection and considers how the American military has capitalized on the growing presence of women in its ranks, adapting originally feminist ideas about sexual assertiveness in order to exploit them as interrogation strategies.

14/06/2012 . 7.30pm . Hörsaal 208, DOR26, HU Berlin
Klaus Müller: In the blink of an eye: Post-war constructions of (in)visibility of victims and perpetrators (Talk)
This presentation explores the opposition between the post-war invisibility of gay survivors of the Nazi regime and the desire of post-war society to portray Nazis as homosexuals. In order to forget that ‘ordinary’ men and women had become perpetrators, the Nazi was portrayed as an outsider: deviant and degenerate. Homosexuality came to signify transgression into evil. Due to their exclusion from post-war memory, some gay survivors blamed themselves for their victimization. Their shame, ongoing persecution, and – above all – post-war silence constitute a disturbing figure: the speechless victim. Using various films, including the film within the Berlin Memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism, the discussion thus moves between the invisible victim and the post-war image of a perpetrator, both of which served collective and voyeuristic needs.

26/06/2012 . 7.30pm . Babylon/Mitte
Jim Hubbard: United in Anger. A History of ACT UP (Screening / Discussion)
Screened for the first time in Europe, UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP is the first feature-length documentary about how ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a group of men and women of all races and classes, came together to change the world and save each other’s lives. The film takes the viewer through the planning and execution of a dozen exhilarating major actions that forced the U.S. government and mainstream media to deal with the AIDS crisis. The film reveals how the group’s complex culture – meetings, affinity groups, and approaches to civil disobedience – mingle with profound grief, sexiness, and the incredible energy of ACT UP. Utilizing oral histories, as well as rare archival footage, the film depicts the efforts of ACT UP as it battles corporate greed, social indifference, and government neglect.

Organized by Research Group Visual Culture of the PhD Research Programm „Gender as a Category of Knowledge“ of the Humboldt-University of Berlin

Links:
http://www.talking-eyes.de/
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/gkgeschlecht/aktuell.php
http://www.facebook.com/TalkingEyesLectureSeries2012