Date: Sunday 4th June 2023

Time: 14:00-19:00 CET

Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)

Down the ontological path connecting drag with machine learning, Anne Ampersand, a drag computer ophthalmologist looks at adversarial images synthesized from both found and personal archives. Instead of constantly being on the lookout for data bias, she searches for moments in which the unincluded manages to make an appearance through difference. Like an air bubble stuck between signal and noise, she feels its presence as a movement trapped in digital matter. A foam, popping and rippling in different rhythms.

During COVERT TECHNOLOGIES #1: FOAMING we will get to know the work of Marko Gutić Mižimakov and notions of surfaces, skin and stylised forms. Thinking through these S's in relation to drag and machine learning, we will spend an afternoon together making and unmaking images. Through projected digital images we will connect to Marko's artistic practice, then we will make, unmake and our faces in an introductory drag workshop. Through concealing and exaggerating, we will style the images of/on our faces and experiment with different skins. The workshop will culminate in a relaxed sharing of our stylised selves and feelings of them.

Each participant is invited to bring a still image as a source for their drag persona.

Bio
Marko Gutić Mižimakov is a visual, performance and text based artist and researcher living between Brussels and Zagreb. He is interested in shaping sensory materials through intimate, collaborative and social processes. In his work, bodies as well as digital and palpable objects are animated, choreographed and sung into non-orientable forms via different media and processes of translation. Often borrowing from queer science fiction, he sees his work as a speculative technology of mutual transformation. He has an MA in animated film and new media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and is currently an artistic researcher at a.pass – Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies in Brussels. http://performing.site

Access
Inside Varia there is a gender neutral toilet on the ground floor of the space and free tap water is available. The sound levels may be high at times. For more information please check the accessibility description of the space at https://varia.zone/en/pages/accessibility.html and feel free to contact us for specifications if you would like to know more.

How to Join
To register interest in participating in this workshop, please send an email to info@varia.zone with [FOAMING] in the subject, by Tuesday 30th May 2023.

Spaces are limited so we will accept participants as emails arrive.