Velvet Voice Club • TEXTE ZUR KUNST

For a long time, physical pleasure did not enjoy a high standing in art history, art criticism, or aesthetic theory. Instead, it was often associated with a loss of critical thinking, it appeared as a low automatism beyond political aspiration and agency. Contrary to such disqualifications, TEXTE ZUR KUNST teases out the critical potential of pleasure precisely in its carnality and immediacy.

The Velvet Voice Club invites you to explore these potential spaces during an evening of earthly delights, starting with a conversation (incl. visuals) between the Berlin-based filmmaker Emre Busse and Christian Liclair about the salacious dissonance between mind and body, which might be triggered by pornographic experiences. The evening continues with a poetry-reading pole-dancing performance by Camila Carlota and Malina Ricci from the Berlin Stripper Collective, a group that has continually highlighted the artistic and creative as well as lusty side of stripping while creating community and support structures. The fact that our bodily pleasures, as well as your identities, are issues of great concern for governing bodies will be addresses by the SBSG group “Selbstbestimmung selbst gemacht” (“Self-determination done yourself”), who will take us on the joy ride of a staged reading of their alternative draft for a self-determination law, which is not formulated as the protection of minorities, but rather as equal rights for all people and against any kind of gender coercion.

The event will be mainly in English, with short parts in German.

Mine Pleasure Bouvar did something with cultural studies in Hildesheim. They are a power-critical educator with a focus on transhostility and transmisogyny and on the role of these in reactionary and counterrevolutionary politics. As queer-communist activist, they grassroot themselves through various social media and analog networks to subvert the cistem.

Emre Busse (born in Istanbul, based in Berlin) is an art historian and filmmaker who specializes in contemporary sexualities and trans-cultural pornography studies. Emre’s latest cinematographic work, the Godasses Trilogy, has been showcased at international film festivals and institutions. His monograph Ethnicity as Desire: Gay Pornographic Film between Europe and the S.W.A.N.A. Regions is scheduled for publication in Summer 2024.

Camila Carlota, @existesis6000 is a Chilean queer interdisciplinary artist, performer, and stripper currently based in Berlin.

Kleo Krajinovic is a singer-songwriter, dancer, actress, puppeteer, fitness trainer and developer of the Musical Dance Workout, a great and fun fitness concept that prioritizes mental health. She lives and works in Berlin and is currently looking for a band where she can be lead singer. Kleo is always looking forward to new contacts and collaborations and you can contact her by mail: kleo.kraji@gmail.com

Luce deLire is a ship with eight sails and she lies down by the quay. As a philosopher, she publishes on the metaphysics of infinity but also on queer theory, anti-racism, postcolonialism, and political theory. In her performances, she embodies figures of the collective imaginary. For more (including booking), see getaphilosopher.com

Malina Ricci is an Italian performer and seggs worker based in Berlin. Her artistic expression encompasses the world of food with the mission to combine it with pleasure and eroticism.

Photo: Emre Busse, GODASSES – Part III: Jamal Phoenix, 2022, Filmstill