The Abyss Between Our Hands & ŠUM#21 launch

Artist talk by the ARIA resident Áron Birtalan, and presentation of the latest issue of the ŠUM journal with the editors.

Áron Birtalan: The Abyss Between Our Hands

This talk is a study in intimacy and permeability, and an attempt at a heretic’s theology of touch. Departing from a participatory, relational, and performing art context, the talk hopes to explore an expanded reading of touch and touching with the help of ecstatic vocabularies taken from mystical theology. In this reading, touch is a folding of space-time that drags the sensing body into its depths. Whose voice dies, and whose voice blooms in this turbulent moment? What remains in the air, under our tongues, beyond the extent, before the word? What happens when we surrender the “Who are we?” for the sake of a “When are we?”

The lecture will be held in English.

The new issue of ŠUM is dedicated to artistic role-play practices and clues from a world conjured by the first edition of Algo-Rhythmic Ideation Assembly, which took place in Ljubljana last summer. The issue features texts by Áron Birtalan, Klara Debeljak, Carina Erdmann, Daniel Hüttler & shoggoth11, Michal Jurgielewicz, Omsk Social Club, Brandon Rosenbluth, Maks Valenčič, and Günseli Yalcinkaya. It was edited by Brandon Rosenbluth and Tjaša Pogačar, and designed by Klara Debeljak.

Free printed copies of the issue will be available at the event.

The event also serves as a teaser for the second edition of ARIA, scheduled to take place from 17 to 23 August 2024. ARIA is a summer school designed as a role-playing game to explore ways of imagining what our world can be in a time of a changing planetary ecology. Stay tuned for more information and the open call for participants!

Credits

ŠUM#21 and the ARIA programme are produced by Zavod Projekt Atol in collaboration with ŠUM.

The event is co-produced by the International Center for Graphic Arts (MGLC) and supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the City of Ljubljana, Department for Culture.

ARIA is organized in the context of the More-than-Planet project, co-funded by the European Union as part of the Creative Europe framework.

Biography

Áron Birtalan is an artist, musician, and student of theology, whose work explores languages of pleasure and anguish between angel, creature, and computer. Working with relationships and sense perception as artistic materials, Áron creates guided games, mystical practices, musical releases, unruly thoughts, and hybrid publications. They received their education at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague as well as the DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam, and now pursue doctoral studies at the Stockholm University of the Arts’ Institute for Dance. Their artistic dissertation, Your Bones Hold the Shape of What’s to Come, is due in 2026.

Links

Áron Birtalan

https://aronbirtalan.net/

https://www.instagram.com/gleemaiden/

ŠUM, journal for art and theory-fiction

https://www.sum.si/

https://www.instagram.com/sumjournal/

https://www.facebook.com/sumrevija

Projekt Atol Institute

https://www.projekt-atol.si

https://www.instagram.com/projektatol/

https://www.facebook.com/ProjektAtol