As many of you already know, Natasha Eves and I (and many of our friends) have a habit of putting on nights to celebrate the life and work of Mark Fisher.
Back in January 2018, when Kodwo Eshun’s inaugural Mark Fisher Memorial Lecture was announced, Natasha and I felt like there should be some sort of afterparty. We had often come together on dancefloors in 2017, whether at Hyperdub’s Ø nights at Corsica Studios or various raves around London’s south. These nights were often impromptu but nonetheless cathartic experiences that were central to how we all got through that year together.
Kodwo himself had joined us at the first Ø night, which took place just a few days after Mark had died, dancing and mourning to an all-night set from Kode9. And so, with his blessing, we organised something and called it for k-punk — to our surprise, it was an enormous success. We packed out a tiny club in Peckham and welcomed everybody else into our dancefloor ritual.
Three years and five more events later, we don’t want the pandemic to stop us coming together to remember Mark in this way, or to forget about the way his work was channelled not only into lectures and books but into culture itself. But don’t worry — we haven’t organised a plaguerave.
With support from Repeater Books and commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, Natasha and I have invited a number of artists and musicians to respond to Mark Fisher’s final lectures, and the resulting five mixes are going to be broadcast between 10PM and 3AM GMT on 30th January 2021 — that’s next Saturday — via the ICA’s ‘Cinema 3’ platform.
There will be mixes from Time Is Away, Daniel Lopatin, Iceboy Violet, Tim Lawrence and INCURSIONS, with captioning and visual material created by Sweatmother.
Please note: This livestreamed premiere is open to all for 24 hours only. It will then be accessible to ICA Members only, who will be able to listen back to the mixes for 30 days after the broadcast.
For more information, visit the ICA website here.
We hope to rebroadcast these commissions at a later date and on another platform, but we see this as a great opportunity to enjoy the night as we have for all our previous years of doing these sessions, now allowing friends from around the world to join us at an event that has previously been localised to London. We would love if people joined us for a live listening session next Saturday, wherever you are. If we cannot share space, let’s share time. Come out — or, rather, stay in — for k-punk on Saturday.
Below you can find the official press release from the ICA, along with biographies and websites of everyone taking part.
Hope to see you there.
For k-punk is a series of events celebrating the life and work of Mark Fisher.
Beginning in 2018 as an afterparty for the Mark Fisher Memorial Lecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, the series’ seventh incarnation is moving online, inviting people to listen together into the night, sharing time when they cannot share space.
Taking place around the release of Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures of Mark Fisher, published by Repeater Books, for k-punk invites five artists and musicians to respond to the themes and provocations of Fisher’s final lectures.
Curated by Natasha Eves and Matt Colquhoun and commissioned by the ICA, the five responses will premiere on the ICA’s Cinema 3 platform on 30 January 2021, broadcast between 10pm and 3am. This event will be captioned.
Artist contributions from: Tim Lawrence, Time is Away, INCURSIONS, Oneohtrix Point Never and Iceboy Violet. Visuals and captions by Sweatmother.
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Natasha Eves is a textile artist, writer and curator. Currently, she teaches constructed textiles at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a member of the School of the Damned. She completed her masters in contemporary art theory at Goldsmiths and the California Institute of the Arts. Her most recent group exhibitions are New Views on Same-Olds (2020-21) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and Coming Soon (2020) in Warrington, UK. In her work, Natasha uses processes of knitting and weaving to explore relations of care, invisible labour, digital hoarding and popular culture. www.natashaeves.co.uk.
Matt Colquhoun is a writer and photographer from Kingston-Upon-Hull, UK. He is the author of Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher and editor of Mark Fisher’s Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures. He blogs at xenogothic.com.
Tim Lawrence is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79, Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92, and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83. He is a co-founder of Lucky Cloud Sound System (2003) and All Our Friends (2018), where he also DJs. www.timlawrence.info
Time is Away (London-based duo Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) work across radio, research and site-specific sound-works. Over seven years as residents on NTS Radio, they have combined spoken word, field recordings and music as part of an ongoing reflection on the relationship between time, place and power. Using an approach that is open-ended, associative, polyphonic and, in places, deliberately opaque, they produce a distinctive sonic atmosphere in which to ruminate. Recent commissions include the Arts Council England-funded solo exhibition Fable of the Bees (Black Tower Projects, UK, 2020) and Prospect Cottage 1989–90 (La Becque, Switzerland, 2020). www.nts.live/shows/timeisaway
INCURSIONS is a collaboration between Archie Smith & Kitty McKay in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, hosting walking forums for documenting neoliberal cityscapes to shift dominant narratives of space and place, always in collaboration with others. Part walking event, part archive, part radio broadcast, INCURSIONS interweaves walking and talking with overlapping social histories and personal experiences of pop culture, friendship and community resistance, to trace the aching proximity of an absent collective subject. www.incursions.co.uk.
Daniel Lopatin is a Brooklyn-based musician, composer, and Mercury Prize nominated producer who also records and performs as Oneohtrix Point Never. Daniel has released numerous critically acclaimed albums including his recent self-titled album, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (Warp 2020), a culmination of his work over the last ten years. He has collaborated with numerous artists including James Blake, Ishmael Butler, Kelsey Lu, Iggy Pop and his production credits include The Weeknd, Anohni, FKA Twigs, David Byrne, Moses Sumney and Nine Inch Nails among others. www.pointnever.com
Iceboy Violet is a producer//vocalist channeling the energy, emotionality and resistance of Grime music. Giving voice to anxieties, anger and defiance as personal and collective catharsis. soundcloud.com/iceboy_violet
Sweatmother is an artist and filmmaker based between London and LA. They use experimental techniques and hybrid documentary filmmaking in collaboration with non-professional actors to create counter-narratives from within their own communities and subcultures. Their work reclaims the often misplaced voice, body and gaze by repurposing femme and gender non-conforming identities in spaces where objectification is removed, and the agency and difference in the otherness is celebrated. www.visualsweat.com
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