Loud Bodies was a weekend of participatory events, sonic performances, and a panel discussion, where visitors were invited to unpack some of Mika Rottenberg’s critical themes, usually wrapped in a thick mantle of absurd – and often sensory – metaphors.

LOUISE ASHCROFT
Talking to a brick wall.
Duration: 45 min.

Artist and wall-fan Louise Ashcroft live-wrote a fanfiction ode to the gallery’s exposed brickwork. With the help of participants, charismatic cracks in centenarian cement constructed a cast of characters as we explored the building.

SHANZHAI LYRIC
Take the unpredictable trouble: A group poetry reading.
Duration: 40 min.

Audience members were invited to activate the Shanzhai Lyric Open Archive in a group poetry reading. Through articulating the ‘new tongues’ and scrambled translations generated by digital and physical pathways of hyper-capitalism, this piece unpacks the slippery logic that troubles the cause and effect narratives of global production. Take the unpredictable trouble carves out space for collective appreciation of the poetic absurdities and absurd poetries written through the collision of unexpected words and worlds.

The Shanzhai Lyric is an inquiry into global logistics and linguistics through the prism of technological aberration and nonofficial cultures. Taking inspiration from the experimental text that often appears on counterfeit (shanzhai) clothing coming out of China and proliferating across the globe, the project looks specifically at how the language of counterfeit uses mimicry, hybridity, and permutation to both revel in and reveal the artifice of global fashion hierarchies.

Co-curated by Goldsmiths MFA Curating students; Bhav Bhella, Kathy Cho, Lxo Cohen, Oana Damir, I-Ying Liu, Samantha Moreno, Sophie Netchaef, Andrew Price and Annika Thiems

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