Interventions on frequency: SASSYNATION! - nvk

Venue: Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunt, event space, ground floor

For the second iteration of the Interventions on Frequency, artist, poet and performer nvk (nick von kleist) will present SASSYNATION!, a virtual drag plant metamorphosizing over the course of the performance. As a drag queen turned plant uploaded into the virtual world, Sassy has the incredible ability to oscillate their presence through different media. Over the course of an hour, Sassy will die, decompose, ferment & then again sprout. Each progression mirrors an RPG in its form, leveling up, down and being reborn once again.

nvk’s investigation with virtuality, vegetality & drag is a research on the methods of metamorphosis that can be embodied to diffuse an identity. The audio environment will propel the movement and vibes of the performance, providing context and scene while Sassy glitches. This performance builds on an earlier performance of nvk’s called non-playable-bodies is a performative simulation, an embodiment of algorithms (as scores) and the middle space between the real and virtual. The durational performance and audio investigates how memory, delegation and drag is embodied to assemble and dissolve our conceptions of reality and identity. The n-p-b was birthed from a glitch, instantly cutting a hole in cyber time, and thrusting this NPC/virtual character onto a physical form – but only temporarily. The n-p-b is not a manifestation, but instead a consensual possession, where nvk uses drag as a technology and portal, for the glitch to take a temporary physical form, to manifest as Sassy.

nvk (nick von kleist) (b. 1991) is an artist, poet, producer, performer and archive – assuming the role(s) necessary for each collaboration, embodying these traces, scores and algorithms as repertoire to be rehearsed, repeatedly. nvk uses process and collaboration as a carrier bag for language, media and drag to trace, root, and redistribute potentiality. Inhabiting the liminal space of the glitch, nvk’s practice focuses on how ecology, communality, and virtuality can inspire horizontal and metamorphic structures for further collaboration and research.

Sound Design by Josh Anio Grigg.

Interventions on frequency is a performance series focusing on sound practices. It explores the potential within sound and asks the question: what happens when body and sound meet?

There will be works by various artists who represent different positions on pressing issues around race, gender, and sexuality. This results in a reflection on radical care that finds expression in poetry, science fiction, affect, and club culture. Following texts by political philosopher and feminist activist Silvia Federici, the significance of the commons – forms of living together outside institutional conditions – will also be discussed artistically.

• This event is free of charge
• No registration required