NEO ULTRA PUNK

Over the past three decades, artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang’s films, performances and networked productions engaged the immanence and augmented futurity of the nonbinary techno-body. Programmed in partnership with Res., this three-day event presents new and recent work by Cheang alongside presentations by performers, filmmakers and thinkers reflecting upon Cheang’s proposition of ‘NEO ULTRA PUNK’ – described by the artist as the attitude of ‘a nouveau queer generation.’ This includes refugees, migrants, functional diversity, transfeminism, open families, subversive motherhoods, forms of sustainable living and the rise of self-defence practices for self-empowerment.

The incorporation and wilful hacking of the body in the context of late stage biotechnical capitalism led prominent queer theorist Paul B. Preciado to claim ‘we are facing a new kind of capitalism that is hot, psychotropic and punk.’ The artists featured in this programme offer practical, metaphysical and speculative renegotiations of the boundaries of the body in order to challenge the social and structural injustices reproduced through patriarchal gender norms. 

Participants: Zach Blas, Jürgen Brüning, Giulia Casalini, Shu Lea Cheang, Mijke van der Drift, Natasha Lall, Elizabeth Mputu, Ayesha Tan Jones, Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, Shadow Sistxrs Fight Club.

NEO ULTRA PUNK is presented in collaboration with Res. and runs parallel to their exhibition Alembic III: Shu Lea Cheang + Annabelle Craven-Jones, including a recreation of Cheang’s coin-operated, gender fluid porno booth installation Those Fluttering Objects of Desire (1992).

Shu Lea Cheang (Taiwan/US/France) is an artist and filmmaker working with net-based installation, social interface and independent film production. Recent projects include Wonders Wander (2017), a mobi-web-series produced for Madrid Pride and the feature length, cypherpunk sci-fi film Fluidø (2017). Her seminal cyberfeminist web project BRANDON (1998-1999), concerning the rape and murder of a young transgender man in Nebraska, was recently restored as part of the Guggenheim’s permanent collection.

Res. is a mutable project based in a gallery and workspace in Deptford, South East London. Alembic is curated by Res. curators Helen Kaplinsky, Sarah Jury and Lucy A. Sames.