Screening and discussion
Admission starts at $5
November 7, 2023, 7pm
Brooklyn, NY 11205
USA
e-flux Screening Room and Smack Mellon present a filmic adaptation of Jessica Segall’s four-channel installation Human Energy (2023, 35 minutes), followed by a discussion between the artist and the writer and scholar Macarena Gómez-Barris—on Tuesday, November 7 at 7pm.
Exploring humanity’s addictive and intimate relationship with oil, Segall’s film documents the largest extractive zones in the US—the oil fields in Kern County, California—as well as Soviet-era spas in Naftalan, Azerbaijan, where crude oil is used medicinally and the claims of its healing properties date back centuries. Segall captures the sprawl of the Southern Californian oilfield while dominating pumpjacks and bearing witness to erotic encounters in and around the extraction equipment, paying homage to its actual history as a queer cruising site. Shot via drone and Steadicam in the oilfields and Phantom camera in the spas, the sensual slowness of her footage divulges the role of fetish within discourses around petroleum. Through montage and the aesthetics of slow cinema, Segall builds upon the legacy of queer filmmakers such as Barbara Hammer and Kenneth Anger, incorporates influences from land art interventions by Nancy Holt, and draws inspiration from the ecosexual performances of Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. Human Energy delves into various facets of perversion, encompassing capitalist exploitation of natural resource extraction as well as queer relationships, which are banned on screen in Azerbaijan and increasingly endangered in the United States. Segall creates direct intimacy between the flesh, the machines that probe the earth, and “liquid gold” in its unrefined state.
The screening is hosted in conjunction with Jessica Segall’s current exhibition at Smack Mellon, on view through November 19, 2023.
For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.
Accessibility
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the Screening Room and this bathroom.