A workshop of automatic writing, hypnosis, glossolalia and choreographic practices with Ron Athey and Hermes Pittakos
This workshop is part of the Queer Communion: Ron Athey retrospective at ICA LA
https://www.theicala.org/en/exhibitions/81-queer-communion-br-ron-athey
To access the realm of automatic writing, artist Ron Athey draws on his Pentacostal childhood, his ability to speak in tongues, and his explorations of the ecstatic experience in performance.
Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. In this two-day weekend workshop, Athey & collaborator Hermes Pittakos will join participants in an immersive exercise to access the subconscious state in order to draw, write, and express.
Working with hypnotist Michele Occelli and collaborator Hermes Pittakos, this Weekender explores parts of Ron Athey’s practice and theory which parallel the aims of Georges Bataille’s Secret Society of Acéphale. How, at the absence of God, do we create new celebrations? How with lingering curses and restrictions, can we fight magic with magic?
Participants use automatic writing, hypnotism, as well as Ron’s own practices of word virus, mouthing off, channeling hysteria and dialectics of the sublime to create narratives, movement scores and choreographic practices. Original hand-made planchettes made by Athey in collaboration with artist Paul Donald will be shared among participants for the writing exercises as well as crafting your own mark-making intention tool.
