Tea:
Phenomena & fandoms
Tea series featuring talks from guests and guest speakers from a variety of industries. Some of them discuss current pop culture phenomena such as currently trending movies, TV shows, internet memes, social networks as well as musicians and musicians. In addition, there will also be lectures reflecting, for example, the current rave culture and related safer space, or other activities typical for the young generation.
Cyberutopia in pop - Julia Pátá + David Laufer
"I wonder if you see / that the way we rewrite it, baby / can change the course of time," sings FKA twigs on the track Eusexua, which previews her anticipated January release. The British musician invokes Donna Haraway's cyborg utopia, in which blurring the lines between the natural, the artificial, the human and the mechanical is a form of feminist practice. Listening to the music, we walk through this world of machines – from early synthesizers and vocoders to Janelle Monáe's ArchAndroid and producer Arca's robotic bodies. But what if pop music takes the cyborg too literally and, carried by mechanical limbs, heads towards a techno-optimistic tomorrow? Does the image of the cyborg remain a symbol of emancipation in the light of AI, platforms, musical deepfakes and the ageless avatars of Rosalía and Sevdaliza (de)shaping beauty standards?
Wherever you look - Tomáš Pacovský
He looks like "everyone", yet he is not like "everyone". He is not bound by one body. He does not inhabit one particular space-time. And at the same time, he can send a pretty funky outfit there. In this talk, we will look at the cult sci-fi series Doctor Who through the prism of queer theories and the concept of queer gaze. Just as the Time Lord bends the boundaries of the universe, we will use it to explore the boundaries of gender, identity and desire. From fanfiction to individual storylines, we'll show why Doctor Who isn't just about saving the world, but reshaping the way we see it.
The Yellow Army - Jáchym Ozuna
al yellow mimes have become one of the most recognisable faces in the film world since their inception. Originally minor comic characters, they have become main protagonists over time and their reach has extended far beyond the movie screen. Mimes are everywhere – in Mecca, in memes on the internet, even at the Olympics. How did a character based on the stereotype of the worker become a global phenomenon in a capitalist-ordered world? Does mnemonic innocence hide hidden agendas on the part of their creators? And would Karl Marx have liked mimes?
In his lecture, Jáchym Ozuna will outline the ideological parameters of the fictional world of mimes and point out the paradoxes in the depiction of proletarian society within the American world of consumerism.