SEASON TWO

TRANSMISSIONS returns for Season 2 comprising eight episodes with contributions from BBZ TV, Juliet Jacques, Ignota Books, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Kat Anderson, Plastique Fantastique, and many others! All forms of community are now more important than ever, and it is vital that we find mechanisms to support each other through this precarious time. In the landscape that we have found ourselves in, many artists, writers and thinkers have had exhibitions, opportunities and subsequent fees postponed or cancelled. In response to this, we have established TRANSMISSIONS 2020: an online platform that commissions artists to share their work within a classic DIY TV show format.

EPISODE 1
9 SEPTEMBER | 9PM BST &
REPLAY | 11 SEPTEMBER | 10AM BST

KAT ANDERSON: BAD MAN NUH FLEE

Kat Anderson will show a collection of audio/visual notes on oppression, Black liberation and the white imagination. Kat Anderson is a visual artist and filmmaker, working under an artistic and research framework called ‘Episodes of Horror’, which uses the genre of horror to discuss representations of mental illness and trauma as experienced by or projected upon Black bodies in media. uffcampaign.org

Image Courtesy Kat Anderson

BLACK LIVES MATTER, FUCK THE POLICE

Kat Anderson is an artist curator, from the UK working in moving image with an interest in Diaspora identities, Black queer cultures and Black trauma and mental illness. In 2016 she co-curated Jamaican Pulse: Art and Politics from Jamaica and the Diaspora for the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. The project featured a major group exhibition of visual art from Jamaica, artist residencies, commissions and a book publication, co-edited by Anderson and Graeme Mortimer Evelyn (co-curator) and published by Sansom and Company. The project partners were National Gallery Jamaica, Jamaican High Commission and the Bluecoat, Liverpool. 

Recent work includes a commission from KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin for her on-going project Episodes of Horror, which explores the subjects of horror and trauma, as experienced by or projected upon Black bodies in lens-based media and literature. Anderson did a residency at Metal (Liverpool) in 2018, where she examined seminal moments of civic and personal change, looking at the historic and contemporary intersection of race, poverty and mental illness in the lives of Black Liverpudlians. Her first solo exhibition which opened in September 2019 was Restraint Restrained at Block 336.

Image Courtesy Plastique Fantastique Communiqué, Beware Mars with Earth in Ascendance, 2020
EPISODE 2 
16 September | 9PM BST
REPLAY | 18 September | 10AM BST

On 30 May 2020, at 3:52 pm EDT, Plastique Fantastique watched the Spacex Falcon 9 rocket carry NASA personal (for a fee) to the International Space Station and thought, as below, so above (next stop the moon, then Mars)… there is much today, down here, that needs our urgent attention… and there is much in the future, up there, to worry about too (including one million people living on Mars by 2050 as the first stage of planetary colonisation)… Earth views Mars as a planetary symbol for the cocksure warrior, and for violence, passion, assertion, and the weaponization of skill and sex… above all, Mars is the sign of competition (and Mars is a goal for commerce)… Mars is not this Mars though… That land is not that land… We know a different Mars (we have been there)… It is the hominids of Earth that have projected this image (of themselves) onto Mars… all other animals know this… Mars as ruling planet is not to be feared… it is Earth as ruling planet (Earth in Mars and the Mars in Earth) that we need to worry about… 

For episode two of the second series of Transmission2020, Plastique Fantastique offer moving images, stories and songs about planetary problems, below and above, with help from our friends Gentle Stranger, Christopher Kirubi and the collaboration of Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew. The broadcast will feature clips from a film by Plastique Fantastique commissioned by Southwark Park Galleries.

Plastique Fantastique is a collaboration between David Burrows, Simon O’Sullivan, Alex Marzeta and Vanessa Page and others, including Mark Jackson, Motsonian, Benedict Drew, Frankie Roberts, Harriet Skully, Ana Benlloch, Stuart Tait, Tom Clark, Simon Davenport, Joe Murray, Lawrence Leaman, Samudradaka and Aryapala. The collaboration is a performance fiction produced through comics, performances, text, music, film and assemblages, and investigates the relation of aesthetics and politics and sacred, popular and mass cultures. Recent exhibitions include Shonky: Aesthetics of Awkwardness, Hayward Touring Show 2017-18, and Mars Year Zero at Southwark Park Galleries 2019.

Image Courtesy The Duvet Brothers, Blue Monday, 1984.
Episode 3
23 September | 9PM BST
REPLAY | 25 September | 10AM BST

Less than a year after the UK’s traumatic General Election, after a pandemic that would surely have been far better handled if the principles of communality and solidarity had been at the heart of government, Juliet Jacques presents a selection of films that mostly look back at socialist politics and culture. Starting with comrade John Smith’s film made in response to the Covid-19 crisis, and the government’s chaotic communications, these films – by Jasmina Cibic, Octavia Cortázar, the Duvet Brothers, Deimantas Narkevičius, Oleksiy Radynski, Kerry Tribe and others – engage creatively with ideology and art in Yugoslavia, the USSR, Cuba, the UK and beyond. Juliet Jacques (b. 1981) is a writer and filmmaker, based in London. She has published two books, most recently Trans: A Memoir (Verso, 2015). Her short fiction, journalism and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Guardian, Granta, Frieze, Sight & Sound, Wire, New York Times, 3:AM, The New Inquiry, Arts of the Working Class, London Review of Books and elsewhere. Her short films have screened in galleries and festivals worldwide. She has taught art and creative writing at the Royal College of Art and other institutions, and hosts the political arts podcast Suite (212).

Image Courtesy Maryam Jafri, Theatre 2001, video still: DVD-video 3.44 min, Written & Performed by Maryam Jafri, Image Courtesy Maryam Jafri
Episode 4 
30 September | 9PM BST REPLAY |  2 October | 10AM BST

An actor was hired to play the gravedigger in “Hamlet.” He was asked what the play was about and explained “It’s about this gravedigger, who meets a prince….” Beyond, but notwithstanding, self aggrandizement there are many ways in which we can strategically deploy the positioning of ourselves within the stories that we tell. These concerns got me interested to learn more about the ways in which artists think through, reference, build on and abuse the monologue form. Here, three divergent artist positions by Maryam Jafri, Iman Issa and myself are clustered around what I believe to be an excellent archetype of the form written and read by Maan Abu Taleb.

 

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a “Private Ear”. His interest with sound and its intersection with politics originate from his background as a touring musician and facilitator of DIY music. The artists audio investigations has been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International together with fellow researchers from Forensic Architecture

Abu Hamdan completed his PhD in 2017 from Goldmsiths College University of London and is currently a fellow at the Gray Centre for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago Abu Hamdan has exhibited his work at the 58th Venice Biennale, the 11th Gwanju Biennale, the 22nd Sydney Biennial and the 13th and 14th Sharjah Biennial, Witte De With, Rotterdam, Tate Modern Tanks,  Chisenhale Gallery,  Hammer Museum L.A, Portikus Frankfurt, The Showroom, London and Casco, Utrecht. His works are part of collections at MoMA, Guggenheim, Van Abbe Museum, Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern. Abu Hamdan’s work has been awarded the 2019  Edvard Munch Art Award, the 2016 Nam June Paik Award for new media and in 2017 his film Rubber Coated Steel won the Tiger short film award at the Rotterdam International Film festival.  For the 2019 Turner Prize Abu Hamdan, together with nominated artists Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, formed a temporary collective in order to be jointly granted the award.

Episode 5 
7 October | 9PM BST
REPLAY |  9 October | 10AM BST
BBZ TV: Past, Present and Future

BBZ present a snapshot into queer Black British archives, memes that shaped us and a re- imagined queertopia. 

BBZ is a Black Queer Art & DJ collective raised in London with roots in nightlife and clubbing culture, working to challenge institutionalised and post colonial behaviours. We prioritise the experiences of Black queer womxn, femmes, trans folk and non binary people in all aspects of our work, providing physical and online spaces for this specific community.

Image Courtesy BBZ
Image Courtesy Ignota Books, Deep Deep Dream, 2020
Episode 6 
14 October | 9PM BST
REPLAY |  16 October | 10AM BST
Ignota Books: Deep Deep Dream

Deep Deep Dream by Ignota Books is an experiment in the techniques of awakening and an invitation to touch the dreamworld.

You will be guided through a series of simple exercises in three acts. Together they take the form of a palindrome. We have no map to the next world, but the future epoch is asking us a question. What kind of a world do you want to live in?

To move the outer world, you must journey inwards. This transmission is a point of departure. You will be invited to participate by choosing between two paths. All you will need is enough space to lie down on your back and enough space to perform some exercises standing up. A yoga mat and headphones will be helpful, but not essential. 

You must select what path you will take. You can only choose one or the other. This transmission will not make sense if you try both. The two paths exist simultaneously: you cannot walk both. You must choose one or the other, or none. 

Ignota Books is an invitation to awaken, and at the same time, dream. Founded in the last days of 2017 in the Peruvian mountains by Sarah Shin and Ben Vickers, Ignota publishes at the intersection of technology, myth-making and magic. Deriving their name from Hildegard of Bingen’s mystical Lingua Ignota, they seek to develop a language that makes possible the reimagining and reenchantment of the world around us.

EPISODE 7
21 OCTOBER | 9PM BST
REPLAY |  23 OCTOBER | 10AM BST

PROGRAMMED BY ANNE DUFFAU, HANA NOORALI, AND TAI SHANI

Image Courtesy Tabita Rezaire, Premium Connect, 2017
Episode 8 
28 October | 9PM GMT
REPLAY 30 October | 10AM GMT

The films in this episode explore in form and content the material imagination and interventionist potential of ‘the glitch’, both as a digital aesthetic and radical politic.

Image Courtesy Georgie Grace, The Machine Is Almost Pure Magic (still), 2015

Legacy Russell is a curator, writer, and artist.

Born and raised in New York City, she is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Russell holds a dual-major B.A. with Honors from Macalester College in Art History & Studio Art and English & Creative Writing with a focus in Gender Studies, and an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London with a focus in Visual Culture. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual.

Curated exhibitions and projects include Projects 110 : Michael Armitage, organized with Thelma Golden and The Studio Museum in Harlem at MoMA (2019) Dozie Kanu : Function (2019) and Radical Reading Room (2019) at The Studio Museum in Harlem and MOOD : Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2018-19 at MoMA PS1; GLITCH @ NIGHT, a series of multimedia events exploring digital feminism and celebrating queer nightlife at ICA London (2017); and the critically acclaimed Wandering/WILDING: Blackness on the Internet in collaboration with IMT Gallery and ICA London (2016).

Amongst other institutional projects, Russell is currently working on organizing with Thelma Golden and The Studio Museum in Harlem Projects: Garrett Bradley, a presentation of the artist and filmmaker’s multichannel video installation, “America”(2019) at MoMA.

Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art and a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow. Her first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020) is published by Verso Books. Order your copy here.

Season 2 of TRANSMISSIONS will run as eight weekly episodes screening every Wednesday at 9 pm BST and repeated on Friday at 10 am BST on TRANSMISSIONS TV. The 1st episode will air on 9th of September 2020. Each artist included in TRANSMISSIONS is paid a fee in return for their contribution. In some instances, artists have waived their fees in order to donate the money to a charity of their choice. With a sense of community, all the money used to pay artists in season 2 has been kindly donated by established art institutions and commercially stable artists. 

Season 2 was funded & supported by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Chisenhale Gallery, DACS, Grazer Kunstverein, Matt's Gallery, Studio Oscar Murillo, Netwerk Aalst, Somerset House Studios & Wysing Arts Centre.