QUEER|ART|FILM Presents GHOST IN THE SHELL
Press release
QUEER|ART|FILM: Elektra KB presents
GHOST IN THE SHELL
Monday, October 28, 8pm — IFC Center, 323 6th Ave at W. 3rd St. New York
Dear Friends,
Join us for the second screening of our special fall season of Queer|Art|Film, entitled Chicas y Fantasmas, organized by guest curators Vivian Crockett, Camilo Godoy, and Carlos Motta. Presented by four contemporary Latinx artists, the season assembles a fierce ensemble of showgirls, cyborgs, glam rockers, and two Chicana teens who defy gendered expectations, ableist norms, and society’s limitations to actualize their own self-constructed identities and shape a vision of the world in which they want to live. This month, we welcome Elektra KB to present Mamoru Oshii’s GHOST IN THE SHELL!
GHOST IN THE SHELL
1995. 82 min. Directed by Mamoru Oshii.
Major Motoko Kusanagi is a cyborg living in the fictional Japanese city of Niihama, circa 2029. As commander of a task force in search of hackers overtaking the cyberbrains of cyborg-human hybrids, she is made to confront her own identity and alienation. For video and performance artist Elektra KB, GHOST IN THE SHELL presents “technological possibilities for some disabled humans, that, like me, fantasize often about getting a functional robot body.” In Elektra’s words, the film prompts us to “think of speculative trans-feminist technologies while showing elements of a radically tender, liberatory future in an AI cybernetic-dysphoria-hacking cyberpunk world.”
Elektra KB on GHOST IN THE SHELL
“Living in a conflict with the body I was assigned has been a constant for most of my life. GHOST IN THE SHELL speaks to me about the exchange of shells, not as mere interchangeable prosthetics, but us technological possibilities for some disabled humans, that, like me, fantasize often about getting a functional robot body. I am currently preoccupied with becoming a part-machine cyborg to actualize my body. I want to engage corporeal sickness, disability, and chronic pain with utopian possibilities and alternative universes. GHOST IN THE SHELL makes us think of speculative trans-feminism technologies while showing elements of a radically tender, liberatory future in an AI cybernetic-dysphoria-hacking cyberpunk world.”
QUEER|ART|FILM
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he’ll tell you the truth,” says Velvet Goldmine’s Brian Slade, quoting Oscar Wilde. Chicas y Fantasmas — a special season of Queer|Art|Film organized by guest curators Vivian Crockett, Camilo Godoy, and Carlos Motta — explores the shells we inhabit to move through the world. Presented by four contemporary Latinx artists, the season assembles a fierce ensemble of showgirls, cyborgs, glam rockers, and two Chicana teens who defy gendered expectations, ableist norms, and society’s limitations to actualize their own self-constructed identities and shape a vision of the world in which they want to live.