IMA's Essay Club no. 5
Wednesday 1 July, 6 – 8pm
Free
We're delighted to host the IMA's Essay Club No. 5 offsite here at UniSC Art Gallery with artist Amanda Bennetts.
Joined by IMA's Program Manager, Madeline Brewer, we'll discuss Jean-Luc Nancy's philosophical essay on surviving his heart transplant, 'L'Intrus (The Intruder)' (2000).
In writing about his major medical procedure, Nancy describes the accompanying temporality, strangeness, and fragmentation. Nancy's essay questions what it means to be 'saved' by something the body resists, reflects on medical management, and asks what's at stake in deferring death.
Bennetts will discuss the text in context to her exhibition, Fragmented, divided–yet whole, which explores time as both material and metric for understanding the body.
To complement Nancy's essay, we will screen Claire Denis' 'L'Intrus (The Intruder)' (2004) at 4 pm, prior to Essay Club. Loosely inspired by Nancy's essay, the film follows a man traversing geographic, familial, and bodily borders in search of his estranged son and a new heart.
4–6 pm Film Screening: Claire Denis 'L'Intrus (The Intruder)' (2004)
6–8 pm Discussion with free pizza and drinks
Registrants will receive the essay upon registration, along with details on how to access the film if they are unable to attend the prior screening. Participants are encouraged to read the text and watch the film.
Everyone welcome. Space is limited, so registration is essential.
Catalogue launch and performance lecture
Saturday 18 July, 2 – 4pm
Free
Join us for the launch of the catalogue for Amanda Bennetts: Fragmented, divided—yet whole.
The event will begin with a performance lecture by Bennetts that explores digital prediction as a form of bio-depreciation. Copies of Amanda Bennetts: Fragmented, divided—yet whole will be available to purchase.
2pm, Algorithmic Omens: Performance Lecture
In this performance lecture, Amanda Bennetts summons what she describes as the absurdity of the algorithmic omen: the silent digital pivot where a body is reclassified from the lucrative wellness market into a managed-decline segment. Practising from lived experience, Bennetts traces how the body in flux is set on an enforced trajectory of predictive marketing, an opaque rerouting from the transcendent world of optimisation into the colder logistics of bio-depreciation.
3pm, Amanda Bennetts: Fragmented, divided—yet whole catalogue launch
Published to coincide with the exhibition, this catalogue spans the artist's practice from 2023 to 2026, focusing on works that use time as both material and measure of the body and features an essay by Professor Susan Best, an introduction by Megan Williams, and a conversation between Bennetts and Williams.
Everyone welcome.