A NOTE ON DIALECT

(c) Joséphine Wagnier

︎ SB34 The Pool

A NOTE ON DIALECT [PRELUDE]

An invitation by Simon Asencio

Jen Brodie, Chloe Chignell, Jack Cox, Diana Duta, Loucka Fiagan, gladys, Stefa Govaart, Mahmoud Hamzeh Beshtawi, Maxime Jean-Baptiste, Imis Kill, Anouchka Oler Nussbaum, Goda Palekaitė, Sabrina Seifried & Henry Andersen

Dec 13, 14, 15, 16, 2023

︎ TEXT

A Note on Dialect: [Prelude] is the first iteration of Simon Asencio’s project for SB34 – The Pool dedicated to the sci-fi and sex utopia novel Through The Valley of The Nest of Spiders by Samuel R. Delany. The event is a prelude to an exhibition scenario thought of as a publication in three chapters. Borrowing the title of the foreword, A Note on Dialect [Prelude] gathers a motley of textual experiments each evening, that will circulate within the sociality of the bar: concerts, readings, plays, conversation protocols, ephemera, talks and performances.

To be invisible in a text, or to be invisible through text, is to be unreadable, opaque, unintelligible, indescribable. Invisibility often manifests through a process of othering: it is either a ruse for safety or a stigmate forced upon to undermine the ‘inadequate’.

In the book Through The Valley of The Nest of Spiders, Shit, one of the characters, explains to his lover Eric what "a culturally invested language" is: a deviation away from the official language to reveal or conceal forms of life and practices according to the context of enunciation. Subversive resignification, vernaculars, slang… these are both a means for recognition and protection. Shit adds: "Culturally invested language is for includin' people not for excludin' them." The project conveys a corpus of textual experiments –other possible culturally inverted languages– remote in time, in space and intentions, in order to approach the ethical and poetical implications of such a term.

︎ ARTISTS

HENRY ANDERSEN studied as a composer of experimental music in Perth and Berlin before moving to Brussels and retraining as a visual artist. He makes performances, sculpture, sound recordings and printed matter, sometimes alone and sometimes with Bryana Fritz under the name Slow Reading Club.

JEN BRODIE researches anti- literature, contemporary movement practices and the discursive cosmologies of our political right now mostly in the light of Samuel Delany's writing. Jen is particularly interested in the impossible practice of thinking our world without slavery.

CHLOE CHIGNELL is an artist working across text, choreography and publishing. Chloe takes the body as the central problem, question and location of her research. She invests in writing as a body building practice, examining the ways in which language makes us up.Since 2019 Chloe co-runs rile* a bookshop and project space for publication and performance with Sven Dehens.

JACK COX is the author of Dodge Rose but no longer mentions that name in print.

DIANA DUTA is an artist working with sound in hypnotic ways, with a background in art and socio-cultural linguistics. Her work focuses on concepts of mimesis and reiteration within the linguistic and the natural worlds, our relationship to the non-human and acts of listening. Her solo project DIAN makes things disappear with words, while performing an oracular striptease in the dark. She is part of the duo Like, the monthly community hypnosis sessions t.r.a.n.c.e and the collective translation group Traduire Dhalgren. Founded in 2019, Jambes is a recording studio commissioning new work by artists experimenting with sound and voice, based in Brussels or elsewhere.

LOUCKA FIAGAN is a poet, rapper, musician, researcher and performer currently based in Brussels. He co founder of the experimental hip hop bands The Eskaton 115 and WE IN THE ZOO as well as the multimedia performative collective Wedntknwyet.
Under the name of SVDU, Loucka composes and performs abstract hip hop music, a branch of rap which is strongly influenced by spoken word lyricism.
Currently, Loucka is a resident in Volta where he is working on new music of his own as well as in Beursschouwburg where he pursues a research program till 2025 around the topics of the repressed collective unconscious, shadows, their relationship to a colonial history, and the embodiment of these concepts through a multidisciplinary practice.

gladys is a performer and musician living in Brussels. She is behind Che Vuoi, her synth song theater solo project.

STEFA GOVAART works across dance, performance, poetry and theory. They have performed internationally, working with Eszter Salamon, Claudia Pagès Rabal, Bryana Fritz, among others. Recent work was presented at Wendy's Subway (New York), WIELS (Brussels) and de Appel (Amsterdam). They teach at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), are a founding member of Sex Negativity at Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, and curate the artists’ gathering spring* meeting at Performing Arts Forum, St. Erme (FR).

MAXIME JEAN-BAPTISTE is a filmmaker based between Brussels and Paris. He was born and raised in the context of the Guyanese and Caribbean diaspora in France, to a French mother and a Guyanese father. His artistic approach explores the complexity of Western colonial history by detecting the persistence of past traumas in the present. Jean-Baptiste’s audiovisual and performance work focuses on archives and forms of reconstitution, seen as a way of conceiving a living, embodied memory.

IMIS KILL raps on trap, drill, boom bap, uses onomatopoeia coz they like Missy Elliott, and Emo lyrics coz they are a sad boi💧

ANOUCHKA OLER NUSSBAUM is a visual artist who lives and works in Brussels. The videos and performances of the artist are at once magic tricks, stand-up comedy and experimental philosophy. The sculptures, objects, animals and people who take part in them carry out exhilarating embodied investigations in search of ways of being in the world that are cathartic, reparatory and emancipatory.

GODA PALEKAITE is an artist and researcher working in the intersection of contemporary art, performance, artistic research, literature, and anthropology. Her practice evolves around projects exploring the politics of historical narratives, the agency of dreams and imagination, and social conditions of creativity. Through elements of fiction and narrative speculation, she proposes an intimate relationship with history and other forms of knowledge.

SABRINA SEIFRIED is a designer and stylist based in Hamburg and Brussels. She works between costume design, fashion, and in collaboration with visual artists, with a focus on the various visual forms of pop - from music videos to editorials and live performances. Since 2021 she signs her collaborative work with designer Joëlle Laederach under the name Wang Consulting.

︎ Dec 13, 14, 15, 16, 2023, 19:00 - 22:00
︎ + 16/12 SVDU music set from 22:00

Supported by Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles and COCOF.

Alix Dussart
Luke Calzonetti
éditions la CAB/Charles Pigneul, Alan Jeuland & Brieuc Weulersse
Lars Herman Hegg
Julie Larrouy
Jacques Le Bourgeois
Anna Luz Pueyo
Sophie Martin
Rokko Miyoshi
Justin Sanchez
Marion Séhier

Thily Vossier

Mohammed Alani
Homa Arkani
Christophe Nasaridis/Biim

Gert De Clercq

Indigo Deijmann
Roshan Di Puppo

Nasrine Kheltent
Yona Laci
Anatole Lachasagne

Nikko Noirhomme
Fanny Patarin
Rik Peeters
Annelein Pompe

Stijn Stevens
Prose Studio
Paul de Toytot
Amélie Uwera-Ngira
Jivan van der Ende
Chantal van Rijt

Alix Dussart Luke Calzonetti éditions la CAB/Charles Pigneul, Alan Jeuland & Brieuc Weulersse Lars Herman HeggJulie LarrouyJacques Le Bourgeois Anna Luz Pueyo Sophie Martin Rokko Miyoshi Justin Sanchez Marion Séhier

Thily Vossier

Mohammed Alani Homa ArkaniChristophe Nasaridis/Biim

Gert De Clercq

Indigo Deijmann Roshan Di Puppo

Nasrine Kheltent Yona Laci Anatole Lachasagne