KCQ: Delavnica trash pisanja

BuQve - LGBTIQ literatura in kultura v okviru projekta Ljubljana - svetovna prestolnica knjige 2010

ŠKUC-Kulturni center Q (klub Tiffany) vas vabi na Delavnico trash pisanja v petek, 27.5.2011, ob 20h v klub Tiffany

Na delavnici trash pisanja bomo skupaj kotili zgodbe, po načelu nadrealistične metode Exquisite corpse. Ne bomo se ozirali na zakone kanonizirane literature, zapisali bomo tisto, kar mislimo in čutimo. Podirali bomo mit avtorstva in na njegovo mesto postavili moč skupine. Vsebinsko dobrodošle LGBTIQ teme, ki jih bomo prekvasili s samoironijo in parodijo. Delavnica je namenjena vsem mladim nemirnim duhovom.

Let’s write!

Delavnico vodi Vesna Lemaić.

Vabljene! Vabljeni!

Dogodek je del Noči mladih v sklopu projekta Mladinski teden in projekta Knjižni molj. Dogodek sofinancirajo Mestna občina Ljubljana, Javna agencija za knjigo in JSKD.

Projekt je del programa Ljubljana – svetovna prestolnice knjige 2010.

Valpurgis Night Fest in Warszawa, Poland

NOC WALPURGII / VALPURGIS NIGHT FESTIVAL
April 30th 2010 at CDQ, Burakowska 12, WARSAW, POLAND

Entrance: 5 Euro/ 20pln

Bands, DJ'anes, artists, performances, workshops, distros and more to happen.

www.myspace.com/nocwalpurgii
http://cdq.pl/
http://www.muranow.gutekfilm.com.pl/

This year's NOC WALPURGII FEST is combined with 1st RAW CUT FILMFEST 1-2.05. WARSZAWA, KINO MURANOW, ul. Gen. Andersa 1 Anyone interested in participating or visiting festival please contact us for more details. We're also interested in screening films and documentaries related with Punk, hardcore, radical politics, DIY culture at our filmfest. Feel free to contact us if you have any filmoffer.


BANDS:
FROM THE DEPTHS (North Carolina, USA)
Female fronted intense heavy-hardcore mixed with melodic anarchopunk unlike A.P.P.L.E. or Signal Last w/ members of CATHARSIS, REQUIEM and Crimethinc. Collective.
http://www.fromthedepths.info/ http://www.crimethinc.com/

SPECIESxTRAITOR (Turku, Finland)
Multi-gendered Political Vegan Straight Edge.

STE McCABE (Manchester, UK)
Ste McCabe is Manchester's political queer pop-punkster, blending big punk guitars and 80s-style beats with a snarling, sarcastic view of the world. Ste's been playing at various queer, riot grrrl and DIY events wowed musos and audiences around the country full to the brim with homophobe-baiting, pro-feminist, anti-church, fun and angry pop music.
www.ste-mccabe.co.uk http://www.myspace.com/stemccabe

EX BEST FRIENDS (Berlin, Germany)
all-girl band with their sound combined influences from riot grrrl, mid 80s DC bands and punk rock.

EL BANDA (Warsaw, Poland)
One of the strongest Punk band in Poland of the recent years. Catchy and powerful female fronted punk w/ members of POST REGIMENT, DELICJE etc. (+ performance)
http://www.myspace.com/elbanda23 www.pasazer.pl

ANTIDOTUM (Warsaw, Poland)
Female fronted Hc/Punk with over 15 years of experience.
http://www.myspace.com/antidotumband www.nnnw.pl

LIFE SCARS (Biala Podlaska, Poland)
3/4 girl melodic anarchopunk in the vein of Ballast.
http://www.myspace.com/lifescarspunk www.nopasaran.pl

THE BLIND DATE (Warszawa)
Rockin' HC/Punk with dose of garage.
http://www.myspace.com/blinddatepunk

2nd floor (start 21)
DJanes:
DJane Tina Pornflakes (Berlin) - synth elektro 80ties
DJane Katharandale (Berlin) - electro pop&techno
DJane Pinkshot (Warsaw/Berlin) - klasik shot'79

also:
Crimethinc. workshop (16.00) & distros (Crimethinc., Emancypunx, Refuse, No Pasaran and more) & vegan food and more

1.05. TOFU ATTACK - vegan brunch in Cykloza (Warszawa, Hoża 62, start 12)

-----------------------------
NOC WALPURGII 2010
www.myspace.com/nocwalpurgii
Emancypunx Records: www.emancypunx.com www.myspace.com/emancypunxrecords
Refuse Records: www.refuserecords.prv.pl www.myspace.com/refuserecords
CDQ: www.cdq.pl

about the event

Noc Walpurgii festival started in 1996 in Warsaw, Poland and its being organized every two years. It was pioneering event in Poland taking issues of struggle against sexism and homophobia and promoting girl-fronted bands and activities.

This issues often were not taken seriously inside of the punk, DIY or antifascist scenes and we felt the importance to show that most forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, homophobia are linked and that fighting against these forms of oppression is basic for antifascist, leftist, anarchist and hardcore/punk movements.

As a pro-feminist and pro-women festival, we support anarchist-feminist activities as well as other forms of feminist and anti-patriarchal struggle. We were also supportive to any kind of all female and female fronted punk and hardcore bands, as it was clear back then that local scenes used to have small amount of women involved. It was even worse with openly queer, gay or lesbian participants in DIY culture. We worked with queer, lesbian and gay activists, spoken word artists, drag queens, drag kings, djnes and other activists.

The event achieved its goals as it became attractive mixed crowd of females and males, queers, lesbian, gays or straights, punks, HC or others who wanted to be a part of it. Its impressing feeling to see so many different people having fun at the dance floor or during the shows. We respect needs for self-organization and needs for space for all those discriminated or oppressed, but the festival idea is not to create a separated place fot just one certain type of people. Noc Walpurgii is more about connecting each others and building fundamental structures for strong and diverse DIY culture - free from any kind of discrimination and prejudice.

Its open to anyone interested in supporting the issues of the festival; bands or artists. It's important to us to connecting people each other, to speak about political or personal.
We felt the importance to make events friendly to everyone involved, to have fun and feel welcome in a safe environment so were standing in opposition to all kinds of violence at the shows, violent dancing or macho behaviours. It was importance to us all to see more women taking up the space or having fun during the shows.

Throughout the years the festival became one of the most important events in Poland related with DIY underground hc/punk scene. Each festival there is around 400-1000 visitors.
Every time there is more and more visitors from other countries, foreign bands or artists.
Noc Walpurgii its now the oldest DIY orientated hardcore/punk festival in Poland.

Throughout the years many international bands/artists were guest at the festival like LYNNE BREEDLOVE (TRIBE 8), HARUM-SCARUM, RE-SISTERS, ACTIVE MINDS, INNER TERRESTRIALS, SCATTERGUN, DAISY CHAIN, BEYOND PINK, GREG BENNICK (TRIAL), HIGHSCORE, THE TANGLED LINES, SHORT FUSE, LORENA & THE BOBBITS, DE FATWAS, LADY! DIE, OIL, AMANDA WOODWARD, AGATHA, USAISAMONSTER, LIFE CYCLE, DIASPORA, N.K.D. , DEATH BEFORE WORK, CINDER, VICIOUS IRENE and more.
Also we were honoured to have at the fest many great local bands at the fest like POST REGIMENT, HOMOMILITIA, GUERNICA Y LUNO, ZLODZIEJE ROWEROW, SANCTUS IUDA, EYE FOR AN EYE, EL BANDA, REGRES, EXMISJA, DULDUNG, SILIKONFEST, WHITE RABBIT and many others.

We had always lots of non-musical activities during the fest like workshops, performance, exhibitions, spoken word, Drag Kings & Drag Queens, DJ'anes, movies or demonstrations (Take back the night, Gay Pride) with people from Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, UK, USA, Argentina involved.

Noc Walpurgii since the beginning was organized by Emancypunx Records (who remained from anarcho-feminist collectives KDP and Emancypunx) and Refuse Records.

Our goal was that Noc Walpurgii would me more than annual festival but an event who can give inspiration for new projects, bands and activities with girls and/or queers involved, but also any kind forms of DIY activism.

For Fuck's Sake - Part II

In the previous post, Anna Ehrlemark shared some impressions about the XXX Politics, or as we prefer, For Fuck's Sake workshop we held at the 2009 Pride Istanbul week. Here are some of my additions...

The workshop took place in a dance studio called Çıplak Ayaklar or, in literal translation, Naked Feet, a name that, if you ask the neighbors, seems to suggest more than you could ever imagine seeing at the hammam right next door. Not only did we listen to on-screen moans and sighs at lower volume; during the workshop, the entrance door was locked – just in case another guardian of pub(l)ic morals would decide to check up on yet another shameless exposure of conscientious objectors who, among other kind and brave people, run the venue.

The studio is placed in a small dead-end street beside a metal workshop where a large sun-tanned man was smoking a cigarette, resting in the fading daylight while people began gathering for the discussion and screening. To my great surprise, there were people there who said they never watch porn but have come to see whether the independent and possibly queer porn films have something “less revolting” and more ticklish to offer.

After seeing portions of Trans Entities: The Nasty Love of Papi' and Wil and The Crash Pad, a girl said she could only enjoy these films if she put herself into a “male mindset”, a comment that needed further explaining since the exact characteristics of a “male mindset” seemed to be unknown to male and female participants alike. And yet, our demands to explain her claim might have been too pushy. In fact, it looked like we were too busy proving our point to actually hear her answer.

Did she say that the pleasures embodied on-screen were too far from the ones she likes? Or that the use of porn for arousal is, in her eyes, a domain so traditionally male, that it is easier for her to imagine herself in that role than it would be to claim that space, make it comfortable for her as a woman? Perhaps all she was saying was that she could not identify with those filmed bodies – an issue that seems to enter reflections on porn use only at workshops like these. As an abundance of sources claims, the essential condition for one’s enjoyment of porn is the opposite: you have to accept the objectification of another’s body in order to let your fantasies go, and allow yourself to scribble your own handwriting on those bodies. And then again: if you feel objectified and reduced to a sex object in real life – how can you be expected to do the same to people acting in virtual representations of sex? Especially those that deliberately try to familiarize you with the actors, de-objectify them, by interviewing them and showing the interviews before the sex, for example.

If we were satisfied with Barbara DeGenevieve’s amusing definition of queer porn as porn in which “queer people are having queer sex”, feminist porn proved to be a more difficult subject to pin down. As mentioned in Anna's notes, Jennifer Lyon Bell’s film received quite contradictory responses, all made in the name of feminism. In order to make any kind of discussion possible – in spite of the very articulate and respectful participants – it seemed that everybody has to define what they claim in the name of feminism first. And we tried.

There were people who have already seen all the films we brought for screening, and willingly shared other film suggestions with us. Like Abby Winters, an amateur lesbian site that prides itself with moral, or rather, ethical integrity. Also recommended were the Straight Guys for Gay Eyes site and the award-winning documentary about female masculinity by Gabriel Baur, Venus Boyz (2002). And, of course the fabulous “erotic noir” SM film by Maria Beatty, The Black Glove.

During The Crash Pad scene screening, I was smoking a cigarette in the studio’s kitchen. While watching familiar scenes, I realized that I must have reached my limit. I must have seen that film four times, and like it happens with “real” unimaginative sex, I definitely had enough. The scene that aroused me at the first viewing seemed terribly long and predictable now, and the only joy I could find was in the fact that I was looking at the scene in a mirror that reflected another mirror’s reflection of the screen.

I was thinking about what Luca Donnini said earlier that day: that from a genital point of view, the number of possibilities, sex positions, is very limited: our bodies are too predictably familiar, too similar to each other. And yet, if you talk about genders and their possible expressions, the details and differences multiply into infinity. While the challenge of making interesting, challenging, arousing queer porn would seem to lie right there – in the ability to portray that playful variety – it seems, strangely enough, that a whole lot of people are turned on more (and therefore keep looking for) visual representations of sex that are familiar, mirroring more of the same familiarity.

And thinking about the girl who had to put on her “male” persona in order to enjoy “women-friendly” porn, I could think of only one question: could it be that enjoyment of independent, feminist or queer porn requires a process of un-learning the rules of the genre (allowed and accessible fantasies included) as defined by mainstream production first. Could it be that, in order to enjoy porn, you also have to un-learn behaviors that are socially approved for your sex? And then: does it demand an exposure to a great variety of independent queer porn so that you can familiarize yourself with queer bodies and previously unseen fantasies, and get used to them. In other words, does it demand, like other kinds of sensitivities, a training in the ability to imagine the yet unseen and inexperienced? Something like our attempt to stamp out “common morals” with our “naked” feet and vulnerable ethics, perhaps.

XXX-Politics at Istanbul Pride 2009

Independent Porn as a Critical Response to Mainstream Porn - Workshop / Discussion / Film Screenings at Istanbul Pride 2009!

Tuesday, June 23rd 2009, 20:00 – 23:00 at the Çıplak Ayaklar Dance Studio. Address: Firuzağa mah., Çukurcuma cad., No: 6/ 3, Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Turkey; phone: 0212 252 30 13

http://prideistanbul.org/schedule.html
http://www.ciplakayaklar.com/index.html

The discussion/workshop is going to focus on independent pornographic films that can be labelled as political, feminist, queer or simply different from what the mainstream porno industry has to offer. Like all porn, independent porno films are about sexually explicit imagery intended for sexual arousal of the viewer. But the difference is significant. There are many amateur and professional film-makers who deliberately ignore, resist, laugh at, comment on or are bored with the persistent male-centered gaze, misogynystic scenarios and reproduction of heterosexual norms in the mainstream porn industry.

Independent porn is a direct and critical response to mainstream porn production. It is providing our horny and queer, role-playing and bisexual, lesbian and gay, submissive and dominant, transgressive and straight desires with a show-and-tell alternative. It is about reclaiming the right to sexual pleasure as we like it, to the beauty of bodies like yours and mine. It is about resisting sexual humilation, violence and exploitation in porn as a symptom of rather than the reason for the sexual and gender violence in society. It is not about liberal relativizing, but about respecting mutual consent. About ethics.

Is independent porn political? From a feminist point of view, it is politically correct because queer people with queer bodies are in it having queer sex. But porn can never be completely politically correct, because our fantasies are not. That's why watching and producing queer porn opens up a field of difficult questions that an unconditional anti-pornographic stance doesn't allow us to face. Barbara DeGenevive, one of the filmmakers that will be presented during the workshop, puts it this way:

"Porn is made to get people off. In order to do this, bodies must not only be highly sexualized, but objectified, fetishized, exotified and made to accommodate very particular individual kinks. Political correctness has become an intellectual prison within which an extremely limited dialogue can take place, and in fact where monologues and diatribes are usually the discursive practice. Embracing the need to objectify and be objectified, to fetishize and be fetishized, to play the willing victim as well as the victimizer, opens up a mine field that will be difficult to traverse, but it is a more intellectually provocative and honest terrain from which to understand who we are as complex sexual beings."

During the workshop we will show and discuss excerpts from the following independent porn films:

- Watching Lesbian Porn (dir.: Dayna McLeod, 2001, 10'18'', Canada, excerpt, Turkish subtitles
- Headshot (dir.: Jennifer Lyon Bell, Blue Artichoke Films, 2006, 9'00'', NL/USA)
- Trans Entities – The Nasty Love of Papi' and Wil (dir.: Morty Diamond, 2007, USA, excerpt, Turkish subtitles)
- The Crash Pad (dir.: Shine Louise Houston, Pink and White Productions, 2007/08, USA, excerpt)
- The Raspberry Reich (dir.: Bruce LaBruce, 2004, Canada, excerpt)
- Love Hotel (dir.: Barbara DeGenevieve, 2009, USA, excerpt)

Your questions and critiques are most welcome. The workshop is moderated by Anna Ehrlemark and Tea Hvala, the 2009 Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns (Ljubljana, Slovenia) porn film screening curators.

To apply, write to info@prideistanbul.org
The workshop is going to be in English. Simultaneous translation to Turkish is going to be provided. The number of participants is limited to 30 people. To help us prepare for the workshop we would be grateful if you enclose your reply to the following questions:

Why do you watch porn? Or why not?
What do feel is lacking in mainstream porn?

For stimulation, here are some missing (porn) links: http://rdecezore.blogspot.com/2009/03/xxx-until-dawn-missing-links.html