Reconnecting...reconnecting...connection to tranxxeno lab re-established

Dear interlocutor,

So it's been (checks when I last sent a newsletter–it was in 2021–checks the year–it's now 2024–slinks away into a corner in shame) three years since I last sent a newsletter. I haven't really gotten a handle on this whole updating-people-about-what-I'm-doing thing, have I?

You may wonder what this newsletter is, since it hasn't been sent for a while. You're subscribed to letters from the tranxxeno lab, an occasional transmission that details the goings on of the tranxxeno lab, i.e., the work of Adriana Knouf. Me :) (although there are other people I work with on my projects, and the tranxxeno lab might be expanding in the near future, more on that below)

Of course if you don't want to receive this anymore, there's a little unsubscribe link at the bottom of this e-mail. There, got that out of the way.

For those of you who remain, I'm not going to give you a detailed account of what has occurred over the past three years...no-one would want to read that. (In fact, you can take a look at all my recent projects on my website.) Rather, I'm going to let you know about some work from the summer until now, and some insights into new projects that are percolating over the coming months. And some ideas of what I want the tranxxeno lab to develop into next year and beyond.

Just a warning...this will be a longer newsletter than it usually would be. Feel free to skim; I won't know ;) But read to the end to find a timely reading recommendation. And feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested.

Recent past events–since the summer

EMAP residency in Indonesia

I was delighted and honored to be selected at the very end of 2023 for an European Media Art Platform (EMAP) residency with the Indonesian Space Science Society (ISSS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I had followed the work of ISSS and its founder, Venzha Christ, for a while, and had also wanted to get to know better artists and musicians within Indonesia. My original proposal for the EMAP residency–before I knew I had been selected to go to Jogja–was not responsive to the Indonesian context, so I had to develop something slightly different. This idea was broadly to explore the intersections of contemporary understandings of space and the extraterrestrial with ancient cosmologies...and how temporality cannot be so easily divided into the "ancient" and the "modern". So come the middle of July I flew halfway around the world for a transformative month.

To say that this experience foregrounded alternative ways of working is an understatement. But just as importantly, it highlighted how we too could work differently in the part of the world I live in (Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Europe) by acknowledging the often-suppressed aspects of our past (alchemy, the occult, non-monotheistic spirituality), and how those aspects have directly shaped things that are generally accepted as truth in our societies (science, rationalism, liberalism). There's a lot more to say about this, but that will come as I further develop the work.

I was honored to work closely with a number of artists in and around Yogyakarta– Hangno Hartono, Nanang Garuda, Ramberto Gozalie, Dian Graha, Yonz Dickinsons, Setyawan Haryanto, Bon Diaz, and Venzha Christ. This project was truly a collaboration, as I came with some of my ideas, and the artists themselves created works, based on their own understandings and cosmologies and interests. And now my project is to showcase these works and develop a narrative frame that binds things together.

And this was the hope–that I would be able to show this in an EMAP exhibition in 2025. Unfortunately, as some of you may already know, EMAP lost its funding. As a result, I don't currently have a place to show the work that has developed out of this residency. I'm actively looking for possibilities, so if you know of anything please get in touch. I would be especially interested in having it shown within a European context, as I think it's quite important for people here to know about the art and practices, especially around extraterrestrial space, that are going on in the Javanese context.

More information about this project, provisionally entitled Synchretic Synchronies, can be found here.

Chronoplasticity in London

I've been extremely honored to work with Raven Row over the past year or so, which has culminated in being part of a group show entitled Chronoplasticity, curated by Lars Bang Larsen. I started working with Lars during my STARTS residency at Art Hub Copenhagen in 2022 and was delighted when he invited me, and TX-2: MOONSHADOW, to be a part of this show–I really appreciate his support of my work. In his words:

The works in Chronoplasticity attempt to fold or stretch time. They ask what and how histories should be told, and consider new conceptions of the ‘historical’, connecting the no-longer to the not-yet. Big events and political struggles of the last half century echo in the show, and many works speak to the tension between the personal and larger surrounding forces. Plasticity can also relate to the body, and its shape-giving or mark-taking encounter with something else.

It's especially been a treat to work with gallery director Alex Sainsbury who has shown incredible generosity and support of research trips to London that allowed me to find some awesome archival trans science fiction from the 1970s, some of which is included in the pamphlet for the show...and which I'll hopefully be able to write more about at some point in the future.

Many many thanks to the whole team at Raven Row: Rhian, Clo, Oliver, Rachel, Lucy, Toby, Dana, and everyone else I worked with there whose names I've unfortunately misplaced in my brain.

Chronoplasticity is on view until 8 December 2024. If you're in London please head by, the other artists in the show are quite incredible.

Upcoming engagements

Improper Walls, Vienna

Finally, after a number of years of delightful conversations, I'm able to work with daniela brill estrada, who invited me to be a featured artist of the exhibition They say identity: We say multitude, opening Wednesday, 13 November, at 18:00 at Improper Walls in Vienna, Austria. Co-curated with Alejandra Zapata Torres, I'm showing TX-1, DEAR INTERLOCUTOR: TX-1, and a new print that I just completed this past weekend. There are a number of workshops, talks, and performances as part of their public program, so if you're in Vienna over the next couple of months, please be sure to check them out! As well, I'll be back in January, on the 22nd, for a workshop entitled "Orientations for Transitioning Times"...more info to come about that soon.

They say identity: We say multitude will be on view until 22 January 2025.

W139, Amsterdam

TX-2: MOONSHADOW is getting around this fall, as I'll be showing it simultaneously at W139 in Amsterdam as part of the exhibition Taking Root Among the Stars, an exhibition initiated by Anna Hoetjes and Müge Yilmaz. I think this is the first time that I'm exhibiting my work in Amsterdam since moving here, so it's going to be a bit like a homecoming for me. Opening is on 22 November from 19:00-22:00. W139 openings are notoriously crowded, so be sure to get there early :)

Taking Root Among the Stars will be on view until 2 February 2025. And, like the show at Raven Row, I'm also exhibting alongside some other delightful artists, so please come by to see their work as well.

Paradiso, Amsterdam

Back to Paradiso, but this time as a speaker and not a performer. I'm going to be talking again with Hannah Pezzack, who I've had the pleasure of speaking with earlier this year as part of my Sonic Acts participation (interview here, lecture-performance here). This time, though, as part of the DRUK! Book and Publishing fair. We're going to be talking about all things trans zines from the 1970s, experiments in papermaking, and maybe some drawing robots. Exact time TBD, stay tuned to my socials for more information (see below for more info in general about my socials ;) ).

RADIUS CCA, Delft

I'll be presenting at RADIUS CCA upon the invitation of Victoria McKenzie and Delfina Fantini van Ditmar as part of the In(di)visible Infrastructures, Bridging Overseen Worlds symposium on 25 November. This is also part of our research seminar in the Avans Master's program I'm teaching at–more on that below. I'll be alongside Louis Alderson-Bythell and Samantha Jenkins talking about–what else–lichen. Again there's quite an illustrious line-up, so if you find yourself in Delft that day, be sure to come by.

Frankfurt and Giessen

Over the past few years I've had some quite invigorating conversations with Lukáš Likavčan, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately :) But he invited me to be part of a workshop he's co-organizing, with Aisling O'Carroll, entitled "Reading the Earth and Stars: Field methods for Narrating Geological & Cosmic Time". It'll be taking place in both Frankfurt and Giessen in Germany on 28-29 November. I'll be running a workshop about time, orienting ourselves to the cosmos, and how to place ourselves within a starfield. I think the registration is public, and my workshop is on the 28th, so sign up before 20 November if you're interested and in Frankfurt that afternoon. The entire program looks quite spot-on, so I highly encourage attending if you can.

December

I've got another event that will happen on 7 December in the Hague, but since it's not announced yet I can't really share much about it...more on that soon.

Ongoing and new developments

Swamps and Stars tape

Getting back to my music practice, I have a short, fragmentary work on the "Swamps & Stars" cassette release put out by Planetary Listening, for whom I did a small lecture-performance in 2023. For that event I first used my custom modular synthesizer module, XENOKINETICS, which allows one to experience temporalities from the quantum to the cosmic. (Oh wait, you didn't know that I also make and design modular synthesizer modules? Well I do, as my business selestium modular. Maybe I'll write more about that in a later letter.)

Ecology Futures

I've been teaching as part of the Ecology Futures pathway in the Avans Master's of Art since 2021, and since spring of 2023 I've also been the Pathway Leader. I believe we have a rather unique master's program, as we teach bioart and biodesign and are able to do so not only through all of the DIY methods that we know and love, but also within a fully-functioning scientific laboratory called the Material Incubator laboratory, supported in large part by Caradt. If you want more information, please reach out, as our web presence is a bit...lacking right now. But for more information about applying to the master's (first deadline is 10 February 2025) you can visit here.

Quantum Computing

Dearest–let this quant be a notice that I'm listening to the noise of superposition. Rotate your polarizer by 38.2 degrees. There; you measured the opposite of what I did last week. I'll have to send you a few more rotations–1036, to be exact–and we'll have sent the noise. Pay attention to when the channel flutters, as its own warbling contains the data.

The slop of social media, but the necessity of it

I've been on the internet now for almost 30 years. Suffice it to say I've seen a lot of different ways of sharing our desires, our interests, our little bits and bobs (oh how I miss thimbl). For me I think the height of this was around 2007-2011, when I would share fragments on tumblr, identi.ca, and del.icio.us quite regularly. Even if I didn't have a large audience then, I felt like I was building something and creating an archive of stuff that was useful, intriguing, and topical.

We all bemoan the downgrading of social media over the past few years, and there have been hundreds of attempts by developers and people to change the direction. Nothing has stuck. Hence my desire to re-assert ownership over this content, to host it locally, to curate it into an archive of my process.

I have built my own private system for doing this (https://gitlab.com/tranxxenolab/collectanea) and will continue using that for things that I don't want to be made public--at least at the moment. Nevertheless, I also have felt a desire to share more with the world about the process of the lab, yet I also don't want to only post on corporate platforms where I don't have control over the presentation, the people it is shown to, the archive. And, with the regime that will be running the US from 2025-2029, I want to migrate as quickly as possible from US-based platforms.

Hence these newsletters.

But in order to be part of a wider network, I'll also be posting quite regularly on my mastodon account of @zeitkunst@post.lurk.org. Instagram and Facebook posts will likely taper out over time, and may just be reposts of things I post in these newsletters. I've been part of Facebook since the beginning–2004–and well, I think it's time to go.

tranxxeno lab as an actual, physical space

Finally, amidst all of the preceding, I also moved into my own studio space! Lucky me, I found a place in Open Ateliers Zuidoost that is quite literally 5 minutes away from my apartment. I couldn't be happier. This is the first time that I've ever had my own studio place--well, besides temporary studios connected to residences or the like. To have my own space to experiment, make noise and mess, to develop new ideas...it's divine.

But this also means I can finally make tranxxeno lab a lab, a space for people to come to, a space for events. While my studio isn't large, it can fit a few people. And so be on the lookout for some events that might just take place sometime in 2025. I'm wanting to expand the purview of the tranxxeno lab into discussions, screenings, live experiments, equipment use, seances, cosmic projects--let's see how far we can push things.

Onward

Whew! I'm exhausted just reading through all of that. If you made it here, thank you :)

Nevertheless, I have to address the proverbial elephant that is in the room. (How did the room get so big to fit an elephant? What is the elephant's name? Let's spend some time with the elephant. Okay...I digress.) The election of 5 November 2024 will have uncertain, but most likely pernicious, effects not only in the US but around the world. Hatred of the other–of the xeno–increases apace. Yet as a laboratory founded on the premise that we need to become more xeno, more alien to our present condition, I affirm my practice as proof of a thriving that cannot be extinguished.

I ask that the fire of those who hate comes back to them seven times over, just as the fire of love and life comes to us seven times over.

I wrote this the day after the election:

Bathe in the majesty of Jupiter's glow during the crunchy, prickly nights of worry. Follow Venus' transition from evening to morning and track how it mirrors our own. Channel the unquenchable solar fire that formed you—that forged the very motes of your being—channel it towards the urge to life.

(By the way, if you live in the northern hemisphere and are wondering what that bright "star" is in the east at night? It's Jupiter.)

During these times I'm also returning to the writing of the late Rachel Pollack. Her works that merge science fiction with mysticism have been extremely influential for me over the past few years. I highly recommend the novel Unquenchable Fire and the short story "Beatrix Gates". And if you want to learn about tarot, Pollack is an incredible teacher and has many books on the subject.

That's it for now, dears. Until the next one, stay safe, be with those beings who nourish you, and don't forget to look up at the stars.

In hope,

Adriana