4/18 – Cyberpunk Culture Talk: Fragments Of A Hologram Future
Stop by makerspace CRASH Space LA to hear Badly Licked Bear’s talk during our Cyberpunk Spring series! This talk is free and open to all who live in Los Angeles, and free snacks and drinks will be provided. SIGN UP HERE ABOUT THE TALK: The unruly child of New Wave science fiction and postmodern experimental literature, cyberpunk is/was a literary and cinematic movement whose seminal television manifestation, Max Headroom, asked us to “Step 20 Minutes into the Future.” Instead of imagining what human life might be like in the distant future, or constructing elaborate metaphors for contemporary social issues, cyberpunk, born in the final years of a decades-long Cold War, suggested an immanent future looked that looked less like the product of human progress and more like the result of a series of man-made crises, many borne out greed, fear, and a desire for control on a planet growing increasingly smaller and more hostile. Was cyberpunk a literary movement made rapidly obsolete as those twenty minutes skidded into the perpetual now of the Internet era, or was it always so mutagenic that it remains with us – a flickering neon virus that we just can’t kick? —– ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Badly Licked Bear is an educator, storyteller, artist, and mutual aid worker. As a former curator and professor, she now teaches and writes at intersections of film, culture, politics and sexuality. She also teaches, writes, and speaks on both transgender civil rights and practical, transformative sexuality in the BDSM, kink, and leather communities. She is the author of the PBS Independent Lens Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures, I identify as a threat (it’s not just a meme), and Give Me Sodomy or Give Me Death, and will be featured in the upcoming edition of Making Art During Fascism, published by the Feminist Center for Creative Work.Her artistic work touches on apocalypse, Queer realism, and transgender surrealism, and can be found in the numerous collections, including that of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been featured in publications ranging from ArtNet to AVN. Badly is a recent recipient of a California x Culture Bearers & Artist Disruptors Award and serves on the steering committees for both the LA LGBTQ+ Art & Culture Coalition and the CIRCA: Queer Histories Festival. Want to attend a field trip or hangout at CRASH Space? Reach out through our google group , discord server , or check out our calendar for future events.