Director: Benjamin Rosenthal

Film: Body-oddy-oddy-oddy: Destabilizing the Surveilling of Queer Bodies

Bio: “Body-oddy-oddy-oddy: Destabilizing the Surveilling of Queer Bodies” explores the nature of how we understand our bodies, the ways in which we “queer” the body, and performative nature of how we explore our identities in mediated space. The work challenges the supremacy of normative human body-to-body contact, by exploring the role that a hybrid human-object-virtual encounter might pose for alternative forms of intimacy and exchange. The use of self-surveillance as a strategy of making and being is critical to our understanding of contemporary bodily experiences in the piece. The lens, the camera, video as both electronic mirror and surveyor, the scanner, generative A.I., and motion capture technology construct the performance of identity—who we are as hybrids and how we exploit our self-awareness and positions.

Through the act of making this work, we aim to disrupt the hegemony of stable bodies in search of what might be greater potential. “Breaking” the intentions of the software and hardware specifications, and revealing the tools of its making, we blast open possibility for new rules and new narratives. The future is undoubtedly queer, and it’s one hell of a party.

Benjamin Rosenthal (b.1984, New York, NY, Lives and Works in Kansas City, Missouri) holds an MFA in Art Studio from the University of California, Davis and a BFA in Art (Electronic Time-Based Media) from Carnegie Mellon University. His work has been exhibited internationally in such venues/festivals as the Stuttgarter Filmwinter (Stuttgart, Germany), Cairo Video Festival (Cairo, Egypt), SIMULTAN Festival (Timișoara, Romania), High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary (Chicago, IL), ESPACIO ENTER: Festival International Creatividad, Innovacíon y Cultural Digital (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain), FILE Electronic Language International Festival (São Paulo, Brazil), Locomoción Festival de Animacion (Mexico City, Mexico), the LINOLEUM Festival of Contemporary Animation and Media Art (Kyiv, Ukraine), and SIGGRAPH Asia (Bangkok, Thailand), among others. He has been in residence at the Fjúk Arts Centre (Husavík, Iceland), Signal Culture (Owego, New York and Loveland, Colorado), the Ox-Bow School of Art (Saugatuck, Michigan), the Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, Missouri), Mirante Xique-Xique (Igatu, Bahia, Brazil) and The Studios Inc (Kansas City, Missouri). His work across media explores what he theorizes as queer “technosexuality” and challenges the supremacy of physical contact in a technocultural age. Rosenthal is Associate Professor of Expanded Media in the Department of Visual Art at the University of Kansas, where he has been since 2012, and teaches video art, performance art, experimental animation, graduate seminar and interdisciplinary practices.

Eric Souther (b.1987, Kansas City) holds an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and an BFA in New Media from the Kansas City Art Institute.

His creative research draws from a multiplicity of disciplines, including new materialism, anthropology, ritual, deep time, and toolmaking. These areas are read through one another and coalesce in technological assemblages that form emergent systems or software for exploring relations. I instrumentalize these systems so that they can become performative ways to navigate unexpected images/meaning making. My work takes many pathways, which include interactive installation, audio-visual performance, single-channel video, and software.

His work has been featured nationally and internationally at venues such as the Museum of Art and Design, NYC, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, and the Museum of Art, Zhangzhou, China. His work has screened in The Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens, Greece, Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, Beyoglu, Instanbul, Cronosfera Festival, Alessandria, Italy, the Galerija 12 New Media Hub, Belgrade, Serbia, the Simultan Festival, Timisoara, Romania, and the Festival ECRÃ of Audiovisual Experimentations, Rio de Janeiro. Souther is an Assistant Professor of Kinetic Imaging in the Gwen Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University.