Wanna Be a Rider (Notes on Parasite Joy) was a talk and screening presented at The Parliament of Bodies: The Strategy of Joy, Fridericianum, Kassel, 8-10 Sept 2018.
The Parliament of Bodies: The Strategy of Joy
was curated by Paul B. Preciado and included presentations by Ross Birrell, Nita Deda, Hendrik Folkerts, Dimitris Ginosatis, Natasha Ginwala, Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Balitronica Gómez, Jack Halberstam, Trajal Harrell, Candice Hopkins, iQhiya, Élisabeth Lebovici, Catherine Malabou, Joar Nango, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Paul B. Preciado, Ibrahim Quraishi, Roee Rosen, Dim Sampaio, and Adam Szymczyk
This artist's talk consisted of an initial reflection upon rausch (intoxication) as a frame for approaching the theme of mingled bodies in the related works of The Athens-Kassel Ride: The Transit of Hermes, Criollo and the related publication, The Parasite.
The presentation began with a short screening of previously unseen moving image work by Birrell, Glenn/Glenn (I) (2016). This work consists of a silent film collage of Glenn Gould performing Bach's 'Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus 1' edited from the 1959 Canadian TV documentary 'Glenn Gould On & Off the Record' (Dir. Wolf Koenig & Roman Kroitor). Gould is performing Bach's Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus 1 at his home in Uptergrove, north of Toronto, Canada. Gould's performance embodies a form of an trance-like rapture in the intoxication of music - what Nietzsche called 'Rausch' - intensified in the hallucinatory effect of a silent layering and mirroring of the edited work. This reflection on intoxication and superimposition framed a consideration of the 'mingled body' in the philosophy of Michel Serres, a key reference point in the development of the Transit of Hermes. The title of the talk is a reference to Werner Herzog's film, The Enigma of Kasper Hauser(1974) and the final chapter of Michel Serres', The Five Senses (2008). The talked concluded with a reading of the role of the parasite in Andrzej Żuławski's film, The Third Part of the Night (1971) in relation to the series of works commissioned for documenta 14, including Criollo, Fugue and the then forthcoming publication, The Parasite.
