e-flux podcast

Tamara Khasanova and Hallie Ayres talk to artist Saodat Ismailova following&nbsp;, a screening of three films at e-flux. Stay tuned after the conversation for an excerpt from a soundscape composed by  for Ismailova’s film, The Haunted. Films discussed in this episode: The Haunted (2017, 23 minutes) takes the form of an open letter to the Turan tiger. A majestic symbol of the Central Asian landscape, this animal has been extinct for several decades but lives on as a sacred symbol in the collective imagination of the local population. In her captivating film essay, Ismailova pays homage to the tiger as she shows how firmly bound it is to the region’s history. Stains of Oxus (2016, 24 minutes) follows a transformation of the landscape of the Amu Darya riverbanks and the people that inhabit them, beginning from the high plateau in Tajikistan to the lowland deserts in Uzbekistan, where the river finds its end. Chillpiq (2018, 17 minutes) begins with a scene of two buses emerging on the horizon as they drive toward Chillpiq. A group of forty girls climb the ruins that stand atop a mount in the middle of the steppe. One by one, they tie pieces of cloth to a flagpole that crowns the archeological site, and worship it as a symbol of life. The girls circle the shrine while the setting sun changes the light to an orange glow, blurring their silhouettes as they disappear into the site. Two Horizons (2022, 24 mins) was exhibited as part of the ’s Partial Eclipse section, and hints at infinite strategies through which humans access occluded forms of matter and energy. Two Horizons combines a prophecy carried down in the ancient Turkic oral histories of Qorqut with the more recent history of a space launch facility. The tomb of Qorqut—the storyteller and seer who is the central hero of the epic—lies in the south of Kazakhstan, near the Baikonur Cosmodrome. In the local culture the belief persists that a person will one day come to defeat gravity and achieve eternal life.&nbsp; &nbsp; Saodat Ismailova is a filmmaker and artist who came of age in the post-Soviet era in Central Asia. She graduated from Tashkent State Art Institute in Uzbekistan and Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France. Drawing on the cultural identities and vernacular histories of Central Asia, Saodat Ismailova’s films meditate on memory, spirituality, immortality, and extinction. Frequently based around folk stories in which women are the lead protagonists, and exploring systems of knowledge suppressed by globalized modernity, these consciousness expanding works hover between visible and invisible worlds.&nbsp; Tamara Khasanova is a curator, researcher, and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She currently serves as an Archives Assistant at e-flux, and curated the To Share a Dream With a River screening program. Hallie Ayres was on the curatorial team for Cosmos Cinema, the 14th Shanghai Biennale. She is Associate Director of e-flux.

Saodat Ismailova: To Share a Dream With a River

McKenzie Wark on her essay, "My Collectible Ass," published in the 85th issue of e-flux journal, October 2017.&nbsp;In conversation with journal editor Stephen Squibb. 

Read the essay: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/85/156418/my-collectible-ass/
Subscribe to the podcast via itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mckenzie-wark-on-fate-art-collecting-in-digital-age/id1332021431?i=1000399156007&mt=2

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McKenzie Wark on the fate of art collecting in the digital age

Vivian Ziherl&nbsp;discusses her curatorial platform Frontier Imaginaries&nbsp;on the occasion of&nbsp;TOXIC ASSETS: Frontier Imaginaries Ed.No3&nbsp;at e-flux, Columbia University, and UnionDocs in October 2017. In conversation with journal editor Brian Kuan Wood. 

Watch day one of TOXIC ASSETS on e-flux film & video: http://www.e-flux.com/video/167822/toxic-assets-nbsp-frontier-imaginaries-ed-no3-at-e-flux-and-columbia-university-day-1/
"The Fourfold Articulation" in e-flux journal #81, April 2017: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/81/126968/the-fourfold-articulation/
Subscribe via itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vivian-ziherl-on-frontier-imaginaries-toxic-assets/id1332021431?i=1000399960426&mt=2

Vivian Ziherl on Frontier Imaginaries, Toxic Assets, and The Fourfold Articulation

Elizabeth A. Povinelli discusses four axioms of critical theory in response to her presentation, "Toxic Assets the the Extimacy of Existence," from Frontier Imaginaries Ed.No3 at e-flux. In conversation with journal editor Stephen Squibb. 

Read Elizabeth A. Povinelli in e-flux journal (http://www.e-flux.com/journal/): 

"Geontologies: The Concept and Its Territories" from issue 81, April 2017
"Geontologies: The Figures and the Tactics" from issue 78, December 2016

Elizabeth A. Povinelli on the four axioms of critical theory

e-flux founder, journal editor, and artist Anton Vidokle discusses cosmism with Kaye Cain-Nielsen, editor-in-chief of e-flux journal. You can read more on cosmism in the 88th issue of e-flux journal&nbsp;(February 2018).&nbsp;Featuring texts by Robert Bird, Maria Chehonadskih, Keti Chukhrov, Boris Groys, Trevor Paglen, Alexei Penzin, Marina Simakova, Arseny Zhilyaev, and a Timeline of Russian Cosmism compiled by Anastasia Gacheva, Arseny Zhilyaev, and Anton Vidokle.&nbsp;

Immortality for all: Anton Vidokle on cosmism

Zach Blas in conversation with Laurel Ptak, Art in General's Executive Director &amp; Curator, on the occasion of Blas's exhibition&nbsp;Contra-Internet&nbsp;at Art in General and his lecture-performance&nbsp;Metric Mysticism&nbsp;at e-flux. 

Zach Blas&nbsp;is an artist and writer whose practice confronts technologies of capture, security, and control. Currently, he is a Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. His recent works respond to biometric governmentality and network hegemony. 

Read more about the exhibition, on view through April 21, 2018, at http://www.artingeneral.org/exhibitions/650

Read Zach Blas' essay in e-flux journal #74 (June 2016): "Contra-Internet" http://www.e-flux.com/journal/74/59816/contra-internet/

Contra-Internet with Zach Blas and Laurel Ptak

Conversations with some of the most engaged artists and thinkers working today.

e-flux is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and enterprise which was founded in 1998. Its news digest, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and the art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux describe strains of critical discourse surrounding contemporary art, culture, and theory internationally. Its monthly publication e-flux journal has produced essays commissioned since 2008 about cultural, political, and structural paradigms that inform contemporary artistic production.