Study Session: spread (medium)

Image courtesy of sssssssssssSs.
Image courtesy of sssssssssssSs.
Book Now

Join us for an online gathering offered by ssssSssssssss (Ashkan Sepahvand and Virgil B/G Taylor) around queer friendship, intimacy and study. According to the artists,

“I have been offered a PDF of a text and told that I can read if I want to. I only manage a few pages. I open the zoom link and see two faggots vibing. They sit there, like we care, for what feels like an hour but is 20 minutes. The whole time I wonder, ‘Has it already begun?’ After a few minutes, I started to get into the music they are playing. Not too bad. Eventually one of them starts reading. The faggot is not reading from the PDF, but slowly I hear, I think, he's talking about it. On screen, the other faggot starts drawing. I write in the chat, ‘Hey guys, um, did anybody else read the text?’ The chat master responds, ‘No, but what did you think?’ Someone else, somewhere else sends a wikipedia link in the chat. I open it, and it takes me to an entry on the Sibylline Books. The vibes, the drawings, the chat continue for the next hour. I feel like I am eavesdropping, I kind of like it. Feels like some sort of nerdy cam show. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I look at the drawing. The chat gets busy and then it dies down. The faggots are occupying the medium.”

Exploring the medium of transmission and the (im)possibilities for contact and connection on screen, this occasion develops over the course of two online sessions, conceived as architectures of interpretation, creation, and conviviality. Not to be confused with a reading group, the performance circulates around reading, offering asynchronous modes of being together and apart, moving between word, voice, line, and image in ritualised slow time.

About the event

Online. Free. Limited Capacity.
You can access this event through the Zoom meeting link available on booking.
There will be automated live captioning for this event.
A transcription for this event is not available afterwards due to the intimate nature of the event.
We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event.
The duration of the event is 1.5 hours. A rest break is not included.

ssssssSssssss is a vibe between Ashkan Sepahvand and Virgil B/G Taylor. sssssssssSsss is a practice of exchange, study and strengthening through queer friendship. sSsssssssssss is informal, always undisciplined and often invisible. sssSsssssssss sees intimacy as an opportunity to exchange with others, friends and friends of friends; so-called ‘minor audiences’. sssssSsssssss cultivates subplots: the idiosyncratic, the esoteric and the abstract. ssssssssssSs believes that we cannot do it alone, we all need to look after each other, we all need to train ourselves to be stronger, and that there is always something to learn.

Supported by:

Cookie Consent