Hyper - Diffractive Photographic Diptychs in the Queer Borderlands of Drag and Wrestling
(2025)
author(s): Carl-Mikael Björk
published in: Research Catalogue
An RC adaptation of the project as presented at the Hugarflug conference, Reykjavik 2025.
The presentation takes its point of departure in a photographic artistic research project that moves within the queer borderlands between drag and wrestling – two performative expressions that, through eccentric personas, embodied gestures, and DIY culture, destabilise notions of sex, gender, and sexuality. I approach these practices as arenas of performativity, where the hypermasculine and the hyperfeminine are not positioned in opposition, but meet in mutual tension and unstable, embodied renegotiation.
Through photography, in reciprocal movement with essayistic writing, I explore images of identity in motion. The presentation is part of a diffractive methodology, where photographs neither illustrate nor represent, but emerge as entangled with fiction, memory, theory, and philosophy as components of a broader research apparatus. An unstable interplay emerges, where photography and language generate tacit knowledge – a possible, partial and situated enactment of how identity and the body are (re)presented and displaced.
The project is diffractively grounded in the thinking of Barad, Butler, and Haraway on research apparatuses, performativity, and situated knowledge – with particular attention to the camera’s and photographer’s access to spaces where identity is performatively negotiated.
The Sonic Atelier #3 – A Conversation with Federico Albanese
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, performance, and technology. This interview features Federico Albanese, who reflects on his formation, his approach to integrating sound design and production into the act of writing, and his perspective on the transformations of today’s recording industry and streaming platforms. His insights shed light on central issues such as hybridity, authorship, and the value of craftsmanship in contemporary music-making.
