Xpiritualism
2022, two performers, audio/video, light, objects [22']
13/06/21 - performed by the artist and Louis d'Heudieres as part of 'Sunscreen' @ Multifunktionsstudio, HfMT - Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Hamburg, DE).
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#xpiritualism is an Instagram hashtag collating meme-like, self-analysing images. Ethically ambivalent in their collaging of celestial forms, trashy esoterica, Islamic iconography and palpable sadness, they force us to reckon with irony as a veil concealing depressive truths. Webcore as a playlist genre often foregrounding white rap might also offer similar possibilities of divination.
The performance traverses transcultural knowledge systems; tapestries of custom and existing #xpiritualism images alongside their captions, comments and users; plus geeky esoterica associated with light, music, algorithms, history, perception and the Sun. From Draingang to Cambridge Analytica, ancient Persia to the contemporary West, 'Xpiritualism' struggles to hold the refracted present in the illuminating shadow of history.
photography by Peter Lund & Kixka Nebraska.
