"The language of porn in expressions of love": Poet, novelist, and critic Nadia de Vries and artist filmmaker Sophie Lee discuss intimacy in the digital age
07 April 2023
07:00 PM
Nadia de Vries will also be reading from her new poetry collection, Know Thy Audience, a work that makes the reader complicit in both her aggression and her submission. Speaking—or rather, singing—as a ‘battered woman’ from a working-class neighbourhood, De Vries’ aphoristic writing belies a vengeful reversal of roles in which the author—and not her perpetrator—pulls the strings. Who is the victim in these poems? Can violence be redeemed through esthetic metamorphosis? Or can powerlessness only be transferred as fetish? Know Thy Audience investigates these questions, the extent to which a victim can share their wounds, and to what degree an audience can—sensibly, ethically—be burdened with painful knowledge.
Nadia de Vries is a novelist, critic and poet. She is the author of the critical thesis Kleinzeer (2019), and of the novel De Bakvis (2022), both published by Pluim, and two previous poetry collections, I Failed to Swoon (2021), and Dark Hour (2018) both published by Dostoyevsky Wannabe. A section of her thesis, about the image online of the dead human body is due to be published by MIT Press. She lives in Amsterdam.
Sophie Lee will also screen an excerpt from her film Ziwzih-Ziwzih-OO-OO-OO, a work that considers connections between the voice, technology and embodiment in order to retrace feminist lineages and posit the idea of a cultural haunting. It features an ensemble cast of characters from disparate historical moments including the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell, his deaf wife Mabel, and the Furies of Greek mythology. The dialogue comprises a dense network of quotations, including those from Anne Carson, Wayne Koestenbaum, the 1996 movie The Craft, Pythagoras and Pierre Schaeffer, and in this way uses the performers as interfaces with which to ‘channel’ other voices, exploring how repetition, echoes and feedback loops are inherent in the narratives we build of both the future and the past.
Sophie Lee is a former Callie's resident. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, followed by a two year residency at de Ateliers, Amsterdam. In 2018 she was a participant at Skowhegan residency, Maine. Recent exhibitions include Kunstfort Museum (Solo) (Kunstfort, NL); Royal Palace Amsterdam (Amsterdam, NL); Artists Unlimited (Solo) (Bielefeld, DE); Amsterdam Art Weekend (Amsterdam, NL); The Whitstable Biennale (Whitstable, UK); PS120 (Berlin, DE); Rogers Office (Los Angeles, USA); Yaby (Duo) (Madrid, ES); Zona Mista (Duo) (London, UK); November Film Festival (London, UK). Lee is currently supported by the Mondriaan Fonds.
"The language of porn in expressions of love" is part of a.p.'s Spring Season, a series of discussions, readings, and screenings that investigate the ever evolving relationship between literature, visual art, and technology, with a specific emphasis on both readers and writers' relationship to the screen. Each event is intended both to stand alone, and to form a dialogue with those of the other participants within the wider context of what might be loosely termed art-writing.
Please note, the event will be in English. Places are free but booking is recommended:
