Six performers are pushing towards a paradigm shift in the future. They are following the score “To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation,“ which the composer Pauline Oliveros wrote in 1970 after reading the text “Scum Manifesto“ by Valerie Solanas. The instructions are chosen in order to insist on “a continuous circulation of power“ (Oliveros) between listening and sounding - a give and take that requires, as Oliveros says, an unusual attention to the relationship between oneself and others. The film introduces the 16mm-camera as an additional performer, who constantly moves and interacts with individuals or groups of performers. The whole performance of the piece is shot in one continuous take, while only the editing process introduces extreme close ups which highlights a fetishist interest into details of bodies, instruments and costumes. The work poses the question of the possibilities and limits of a politics of musical and filmic forms. Can sounds, rhythms and light produce queer relations? Can they become revolutionary?

Film still: courtesy Marcelle Alix Paris, Ellen de Bruijne Projects Amsterdam