Göksu Kunak a.k.a. Gucci Chunk / performances/exhibitions/installations

photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake

photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake

photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake

photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake

1
photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake
2
photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake
3
photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake
4
photo: Ink Agop

at 2nd <Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>"

curated by Creamcake

Four years ago, when I turned the last page of the book Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics by Paul B. Preciado, I decided to quit the birth control pills that I was using for almost ten years and the antidepressants for one and a half years. Despite not quitting cold turkey, drug elimination transformed my body intensely. I had nights crying, figuring out the affect of touch and how my senses had been changing. Simultaneously, I was turned on by the idea of gender hacking, by using small amounts of testosterone, yet I realized that neither my past nor my emotional situation would allow that.

The lecture performance Döner-Blackout or Press Conference: Testo Soap begins with advertisements and continues with a press conference—a fictive situation in the future, like a cabaret of conservative try-outs. The dystopic moment continues with short snippets on pharmocapitalism and Preciado’s wor(l)d-s/ing that made me contemplate the vigorous gender-hackers and the governmental politics around population control such as the contraceptive trials of the US Government on Puerto Rican women in the 1950s or China's compulsory sterilization. I have been wondering: was there a similar method used on Ks?

Döner Blackout or Press Conference: Testo Soap from Goksu Kunak on Vimeo.

Two different versions performed at 2nd “<Interrupted = “Cyfem and Queer>” symposium Berlin, curated by Creamcake and at the exhibition Hactivate Yourself at 1a Space Hong Kong curated by Tuçe Erel.

Awake! (2020) Göksu Kunak from Goksu Kunak on Vimeo.

As a part of the John Heartfield – Photography Plus Dynamite exhibition at the Akademie der Künste, the online programme: Laboratory of Contested Space – discussing the topic of Art & Truthtelling. Curated by the JUNGE AKADEMIE (Clara Herrmann and Luise Pilz) and Lynn Takeo Musiol.

"Göksu Kunak’s interest lies in queer methodologies (especially chronopolitics) and hybrid texts that deal with the performative lingo(s) of contemporary lifestyles. In a world where experts are doomed, our reality shifts with the speed of a thumb scrolling down. Awake! is a reflection on this fragmented speed; surveillance, truth, and trust. In the text, excerpts from semi-fictional interviews on the diversity in the business culture with the AI robot Sophia, or say, several advertisements for objects and actions that control the body greet us with the format and hybridity of a TV/radio show. Moreover, suggestions from Jehovah's Witness magazines that focus on the post-truth culture with the intention of guiding us to God, as well as reflections on body politics such as the Orientalist imagery—for instance, the Odalisque image in the Western canon—or the pharmocopornographic era (Preciado) point out various methods of power structures."