« S.W.E.A.T. » (Sex/uality. Work. Extraction. Art. Theatr/ics): with Mad Kate, backatya w BLEACH #42

Every couple of years, S.W.E.A.T. host Mad Kate likes to do a "positionality check-in" about where they are coming from and where they are at in their on-going research about the body in LABOUR. In this very special episode, in collaboration with BLEACH for her new Berlin based zine SPAT Mag!, Berlin drag artist, DJ and punk icon BLEACH has taken on the job of being the interviewer and Mad Kate is the interviewee, in this "spat back at ya" episode.

Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, dancer, performer, sxwkr and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004 after completing a Bachelor of Honors in Peace and Conflict Studies with an emphasis on Gender and Sustainability from UC Berkeley, and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Consciousness at New College in California.

Thinking through an expansive definition of “queer(ing) the body” as a political process unfolding across time and space, Mad Kate integrates their political activism into performance, critiquing consumer capitalism, border regimes, migration policy, and the military-prison-industrial complex. They situate the queer body in a wide range of activist and performative contexts—from clubs, to darkrooms to theaters, from street protests and migrant shelters to protest camps—foregrounding the extractive logics of capitalism and the violent entanglements of militarism, consumerism, and border control. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world. As a sound designer they are committed to the use of field recording and context-specific development of works that resist extractivist artistic practices.

At the heart of all of their performative projects is the written word—whether their electronic project HYENAZ, their postpunk project Mad Kate the Tide or their solo performance work—they write first in essay form and then extract poems and lyrics from those longer written forms.

BLEACH is …

Essex raised, Berlin Based Drag performer is a central figure in the German capital's queer underground, creating parties, shows & festivals. Starting out in a burlesque bar in Stockholm she entertains with a fiery mix of punking, stripping & speeching. A regular host of Berlin club nights, drag shows with a loud point of view. When DJing she plays a wide range of music to keep dancers on their toes, acidy house with sparks of rock n roll punk tunes.

More about BLEACH ! spatmag.net https://bmerch.live/ https://www.instagram.com/bleach.babychino/

We all sweat as we provide care, as we labour, as we perform our work, as we fuck, as we survive and as we sacrifice one choice for the other. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our racialized bodies, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? These conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our (always, already, and ever pervasive) sexualized and racialized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. I hope that they contribute to dialogues which normalize sex work as work, and all work as deserving of respect, healthy conditions, and a living wage.

You can find out more https://www.mad-kate.com

Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer, performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfcking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world.