In her most recent book, Raving, McKenzie Wark invokes a trans practice of raving as a timely aesthetic for dancing in the ruins of this collapsing capital. Simon(e) van Saarloos' most recent book, Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto, questions age as a category, illustrating how ageism ties to white supremacy, intergenerational queer intimacies, sexual abuse and crip time.
When Wark posted an Instagram story declaring “I’m a 61 yr old transsexual so I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about aging. Maybe I’ll write them down sometime,” Van Saarloos decided to invite Wark for a conversation on aging, raving and trans time.
Addressing the criminalization of anti-normative cultures such as raving, queer and trans pleasure, and refusing the regulation of behaviors that are not considered “age-appropriate,” Wark and Van Saarloos host a reading and conversation at 2727 on Thursday April 13, 7:30-9pm.
Various books by the authors will be available for purchase from Pegasus Books.
McKenzie Wark is the author, among other things, of Raving (Duke 2023), Reverse Cowgirl (Semiotexte 2020), and Capital is Dead (Verso 2019). With madison moore, she coedited the Black Techno | Queer Rave issue of e-flux journal, December 2022.
Simon(e) van Saarloos is the author of Playing Monogamy, Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting and Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto. They also write fiction. Recent productions include the short sci-fi story “Dreamdead Surrender” (Postmodern Culture Journal) and De Foetushemel, a theater play about abortion and violent resistance for Ulrike Quade Company at Bellevue Theater Amsterdam. Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. Recent projects include the installation Cruising Gezi Park, the spread of a mo(nu)ment, IDFA’s 2022’s queer day Not Yet Yes, the 2023 lecture series Juicy Refuge at Rietveld Academy’s Studium Generale, multi-year transnational queer community, nightlife and art project Through the Window, and the ABUNDANCE exhibition at Het HEM.