Berlin, July 3, 2020

Press Release  
"How do we imagine bodies? Congress invites artist-activists to infiltrate the image"

The First International Shell Congress connects artists, activists and scholars on July 29 and 30 in Berlin to “queer imaginaries”.

Until July 12, anyone interested can submit an idea for their contribution—a lecture, a workshop or an experiment—via ShellCongress.com. The attendants will receive support to materialize their contribution to the congress. Those who will not be in Berlin at the end of July can tune in via live stream.

"Skin color, gender, or what is now called neurodiversity—these are categories by which bodies are classified and economically exploited. We have developed a fine sensitivity to perceive from a distance whether people are deviant, and how privileged or successful they are. But this judgment happens in the world of images, and the imagination is very flexible. An image can never be reduced to a single meaning: it always contains much more. This excess makes the images elude authorative meaning. Feminist artists have been leveraging this excess and made it explicit in order to irritate, to disturb the 'normal' understanding of the image. So we want to convene activists, jointly explore this particular unruliness of images, and work out new strategies for queering the worlds of imagination: We have deviant bodies, and we are transforming them into dissident bodies!" (Flupsi)

The event is an initiative of international artists-activists who have been organizing happenings since 2020, in urban spaces such as the Floating University or Alexanderplatz, and online. With the congress, they want to initiate transdisciplinary, non-institutional connections and fuel a lasting dialogue.

Following the congress, there will be an incubation phase to link and unfold the practices. The aim is to offer the activists a framework free of economic and institutional pressure in which they can work together in an open-ended way. An interactive publication will broaden the dialogue with the public starting at the end of August.

Why 'Shell’?— Increasingly we communicate via screens and virtual platforms, where new image-meanings and ideas are established, for example in memes. The term 'shell' highlights the materiality of these image surfaces. It equally encompasses the cyborg body of Motoko Kusanagi in the film Ghost in the Shell (1995), the groundbreaking computer program Shell (1965), as well as the conch shell that served as a medium of communication even before the invention of writing. 'Shell', unlike terms such as 'medium' or 'tool', focuses on the body and conceives of it as active. The term points to new strategies, for example in image analysis or political activism, that are understood through the body's range of motion. Finally, it is our deviant bodies themselves that subvert their assigned meaning.

We are very happy about any question, interview request, or a cosy chat with coffee & cake:
shellcongress@gmail.com or +49 176 97310643 (Flupsi)

Click here for more info and cool multimedia: ShellCongress.com?window=Presse