Podcast behind the screens – behind the scenes | Counting Feelings

A wide angle photo of the Pop Up Disabled Data Center shows three large and colorful sails made from differently textured fabrics in front of large windows. The left sail is a soft violet sewn together with smaller orange and grey fabrics and has braille embroidered. The middle sail falls in round curvings and is bright yellow, orange and grey. The sail on the right is made from bubblewrap that shimmers in opacities and hovers above an orange blanket placed below. The sails are connected via orange straps that weave in and out of embedded metal gromets, and that are also holding them via attachments on the ceiling. From these sails, grey booklets containing the data sets dangle downwards on long grey strings that permeate the fabrics. Below, small clay figures are scattered across on the floor.

datasetofweight_01.jpg In the middle of this photo, an orange blanket floats, folds and rests across a dark grey bench. The blanket is made from a warm knitted textile, while the pockets are shiny and look smooth to the touch. From viewing alone, the contents of the pockets cannot be determined, but it is clear that the materials are different. Around the blanket, there is floor space with small white clay figures arranged around vinyl fonts. Above, there are two fabric sails: One is an orange textile, one is a fabric made from bubblewrap. On the left, a booklet is dangling down from above so that it can be picket up and read when sitting down and using the blanket.

A grey booklet with the title "Data Set of Weight. Collecting of objects and materials within a blanket" held together by a large metal ring is dangling in front of a blanket made from knitted orange textile onto which a glossy plastic-like pocket is sewn on the right.

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Podcast behind the screens – behind the scenes | Counting Feelings

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Several projects have been selected as part of the new Media Art Fund and Media Art Fellows funding programmes. What do they all have in common? A co-operative mindset and the ambition to use media art and digital culture to investigate current issues and developments in the fields of art, technology and society. In the second series of the podcast, journalist Sophie Emilie Beha wants to find out from the people involved what other ideas and goals lie behind the projects of art and cultural institutions and initiatives from all over NRW. In behind the screens – behind the scenes, she talks to artists, curators and researchers from NRW about topics that concern and affect them. They conduct research together: into the essential, the hidden, points of friction and interfaces with society that can be found in the projects.

Episode 10: COUNTING FEELINGS

COUNTING FEELINGS is an artistic research project by the arts-design duo MELT (Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr) that considers data for Trans* and autistic lives and engages it for our embodiminded positions to re-count (tell about) and ac-count (claim political agency) for our experiences differently. Moving from a politics that asserts ‘nothing about us without us’, COUNTING FEELINGS celebrates Trans* and autistic authorship, figuring our politics of comradeship, embodied data practices and dreaming. This page offers recordings and PDFs of all data sets and lists that were developed during the fellowship period, as well as a podcast episode recorded with Sophie Emilie Beha and MELT.

Read Transcript

MELT (Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr) study and experiment with shape-shifting processes as they meet technologies, sensory media and pedagogies in a warming world. Meltionary (derived from “dictionary”), is a growing collection of arts-design-research engagements that cooks up questions around material transformations alongside impulses from trans* feminism and disability justice. Melting as a kaleidoscope like phenomena touches upon multiple topics at once: climate change, the potential for political reformulations, change over time and material transformation. MELT shares work in the forms of videos, installations, websites, lectures, workshops and courses.
Find out more about MELT

Sophie Emilie Beha is a multimedia music journalist. She works in various contexts, including music, text, language, curation, improvisation, dramaturgy and poetry. Sophie moderates festivals, concert introductions, podcasts and panel discussions. She is also an author and presenter for various public broadcasters. Furthermore, she curates interdisciplinary events, realizes transmedia compositions and works as a dramaturge for ensembles.