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The HTMlles Festival: A Guide to the Obsolete Future

November 5th, 2014     by Romina Cameron     Comments

Image courtesy of The HTMlles

Taking place in Montréal, The HTMlles is an international biannual festival that brings together artists, scholars and activists who are passionate about exploring new technologies from a feminist perspective. This year’s festival, Zero Future, is dedicated to the presentation of independent media artworks by women, trans, and gender non-conforming artists in a transdisciplinary, anti-oppressive environment. With over 50 local and international artists, curators, and thinkers participating in this year’s festival, Shameless has partnered with The HTMlles to provide a brief guide to festival events that are not to be missed.

Photo: Alisha Wormsley and Lisa E. Harris

EXHIBITIONS

PROOF – Alisha Wormsley and Lisa E. Harris

Performance: Saturday November 8th - 8pm

Studio Enertia presents this multimedia installation by the sound artist Lisa Harris and visual artist Alisha Wormsley. Through a combination of sculpture, performance, video and photography, PROOF explores themes of social justice and urban mythology. The project brings together five major bodies of work that immerse audiences in an incubator-like space where individual narratives regarding global tradition, futurist dreams and nostalgia are combined as a way to inspire a discussion of contemporary issues affecting humanity.

VVVVVV – Faith Holland

Zero Future Online Exhibition

This online exhibition presents an abstract porn site that displays the relationship between the Internet, pornography and women’s bodies. Here, Faith Holland has created a tunnelling vortex that combines the idea of the Internet as an endless entity with the vagina in order to create what she calls a “cyberpussy.” For those who will not be in Montréal to view the exhibition first hand, we invite you to experience VVVVVV for yourself (NSFW).

Photo: Gaby Cepeda

Agatha_Re_Do_4_Olia – Gaby Cepeda

Zero Future Online Exhibition

This vibrant collection of GIFS incorporates ideas and visuals commonly used by Cepada: feminism, the representation of women in media, and celebrity. The work addresses celebrity as the theatre in which we project our needs as a society. Here images of Rihanna and Miley Cyrus are transformed from the typical tabloid snapshots into ones that are immaterial, ever-changing and tele-transporting. To view just a few examples of these GIFS check out Cepada’s website (NSFW).

Photo: Raphaele Frigon

PERFORMANCES

Diamonds Under my Skin: Very Personal Jewelry – Raphaele Frigon

November 15th – 7pm

As a trans woman, Frigon has continuously felt under-valued by the society that surrounds her. Diamonds, by contrast, are valuable and considered a girl’s best friend. By implanting diamonds under her skin, Frigon hopes that her body will be infused with their qualities, that she will be “increasing the value” of her body, making it more “real.” In this anti-capitalist performance, spectators will watch as Frigon implants diamonds under her skin in an attempt to place herself in a position of power over her own body. Through her use of biomedical technology Frigon’s actions examine how value and realness are constructed by our economy while still striving to challenge this system.

Photo: APO 33, Julie Matson and The Pre-Lubed Sisters

In Between Yesterday and Tomorrow Was Us – A performance Evening in Three Acts – APO 33, Julie Matson and The Pre-Lubed Sisters

November 13th – 7pm

Tying together visual and auditory senses, this three-act performance features both international and local artists experimenting narratives that blur the line between the individual and the collective.

The first performance by Julie Matson chronicles her many childhood homes, and the desire for a stable and secure future. This work layers emotional tones with particular sounds from each place, providing an auditory landscape alluding to Matson’s past.

The second performance by APO 33 exhibits a network that uses that Internet as a place of interaction between musicians. It is a collaborative project which hopes to create a new musical aesthetic by merging time, space, noise and delay in order to create a new form of listening.

The third performance by The Pre-Lubed Sisters presents a collective blend of music, performance and video, creating a new genre that they describe as “witch opera.” They explore the constructions of mental “health,” witch-hunts, despair as spectacle, the boundaries of kink and the grotesque, and queer love spells in the time of capitalism.

Image courtesy of The HTMlles

DISCUSSIONS

Afro to the Future: Paving Pathways to Liberation

Sunday November 9th – 3-5pm

The HTMlles presents a conversation on Afrofuturism from a feminist perspective. Afrofuturism combines elements of science fiction with historical fiction and Afrocentricity in order to develop an aesthetic to address the dilemmas faced by people of colour. The genre calls for the reexamination of historical events of the past while applying a less discriminatory context to these past histories. All are welcome to participate in this discussion, which aims to create a link between Afrofuturism and the Montréal community. Participants will hear from a variety of international and local artists who work within this medium in order to learn how they might develop these ideas in their own art works or daily lives.

Queer(ing) Cyberfeminism

November 12th – 5-7pm

This discussion focuses on the evolution of feminism into the cyber fem. Cyberfeminism is a term used to describe the philosophies of a contemporary feminist community whose interests are cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. Participants will examine how the politics of cyberfeminism creates a cross-generational dialogue about Internet art and activism while learning about an array of feminist web-based practices and theories.

WORKSHOPS

FemHackFest 2014

November 9th – 930am-5pm

FemHackFest is a full day event that welcomes all generations to participate in hacking activities related to technology, art and feminism. This workshop aims to contribute to the demystification and re-appropriation of technologies. Participants will work with various hardware and software while learning from their peers. These hands-on activities are very error friendly! No tech skills are required, only curiosity and an eagerness to learn.

With so many activities, there is a little something for everyone. The HTMlles is committed to being as inclusive and accessible as possible in hopes of raising awareness within communities while inspiring social change regarding feminist practices. Whether you hope to encounter new artists, or experience diverse music, or if you want to learn more about cyberart, Feminism and technology be sure to look into The HTMlles Festival.

This is the second in a series of posts produced in conjunction with The HTMlles Festival

Part 1

Tags: event listings

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