Bockowski's short story 'a sister of her sister. (No… it can’t be her!)' appears in our Cyber Smut anthology. Join us at our virtual launch on 15 September. For pre-orders visit: gutspublishing.com/books
Tell us about your short story ‘a sister of her sister (No… it can’t be her!)’.
“A Sister of Her Sister” was written in the production period of short SF film “Nekama” with C Brache in our Guangzhou video studio in 2013/2014 China. The story plays with the idea of a virtual game environment manipulated by a tropical fungus, which performs some strategies of transsexual replication via perverse biotechnologies. The interface takes the form of incestuous twin sisters who are spawned from diffused biomass but nevertheless crave ecstatic possibilities of separation from each other.
In your bio it says you are a ‘philosopher of biotech’. Can you explain what this is?
I’ve been reading philosophy ever since I was a teenager in the late 90s and it has had crucial influence on my life. I perceive human cultural phenomena and problems of reality in general as questions about biology being transformed by technological abstractions. At the same time those abstractions seem to be the very material processes of thinking. I also understand writing in terms of biotechnological moulding of body processes.
Tell us about your work as a body performer & video artist.
In my performance practice I am focusing on the origins of ideas from bodies not only human. I seek narratives closely related to visceral intensities of corporeal movements. I’m interested in exposing the most subtle concepts as resonance of physiological gestures.
Video is a form of encapsulating my body practice, at the same time serving as medium of transsexual replication.
Tell us about your Chronic Illness performance art events.
Chronic Illness performance art events happened at my squatted sewage, the Dungeons of Polymorphous Pan, between 2015-2019. There were 11 overnight editions exploring body art, immersive theatre, biomedia installations as well as multi-sensory aesthetics of decomposition. The essential drive animating my dungeons were always anonymous microbial entities dwelling down there and mystified as mutant fungoids.
What is Fungi Media research?
Fungi Media was my doctoral research for University of London (Goldsmiths) developed between 2015-2020. It describes media technologies through philosophical theories of microbial bodies or their activity in the biosphere. It focuses on dark vitalism of fungi and the sophistication of rot.
Tell us about Peach Spore Press.
Peach Spore Press is a conceptual publishing platform launched in London by me and Gabriela Gasparini in 2019. It grew from obsessive discussions around subjects of body philosophy. In the near future Peach Spore will launch a magazine dedicated to the very contemporary performance art ideas, practiced as direct (micro)politics and speculative tactics of group behaviour against societal control.
What attracted you to Cyber Smut? And what does Cyber Smut mean to you?
Cyber Smut attracted me as a blatant reference to pornography as the rawest artistic expression. Moreover, it calls for necessity of locating that expression in the context of digital media experiences.
Describe yourself in three words.
Twisted Insect Stroll
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Piotr Bockowski is a philosopher of biotech, body performer & video artist, working between Hong Kong & London for over a decade. Since 2015 he has been curating Chronic Illness performance art events at his squatted microbes-contaminated space, The Dungeons of Polymorphous Pan in London, at the same time researching Fungi Media and teaching Media Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Piotr writes for academic and online journals as well as publishes with art, subcultural & fetish zines in London. In 2019 he launched Peach Spore Press with Gabriella Gasparini, a platform focused on body philosophy.
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