Centered Subject

What can we do but lament and watch the snow melt, count buds, and discuss: the end of Covid-world, loss, perfume, and boiling milk. Plus much more!

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Are we cyborgs yet? Is it all just an episode of Solaris (by A. Tarkovsky, not G. Clooney) and if so, where is our invitation to the Space Federation Lunar Fashion Show? How to mine Mars, are we ready for aliens, and why go to the philharmonic if your skull provides plenty of acoustic architecture – all these vital questions are covered in our new episode.

PS. keep an ear out + subscribe to Yelena's new podcast of animal news, Hare Bear and Everywhere:

A dream-state episode in which emotional, physical, and cinematic spaces overlap. Jenny and Yelena reflect on what they learned in solitude: Jenny tunes in to the bean soak clock, Yelena overcomes the fear of being alone (not really) and takes a laughing workshop with Flora Wellesley Wesley, a dance artist based in London. Flora then joins in for a chat about the nature of forced vs natural laughter and shares a recent experience of dancing in the park. Also mentioned: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Maya Deren, Ann with an E, graceful fades from Zoom, and ever more.

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Part 1: Jenny and Yelena consider the body’s erotic insistence by casting their gazes to the sexiest of the pandemic classics, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio and the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.  J and Y wonder about the nature of vibrators in the Middle Ages, and provide an overview of recent news involving medical fetish gear, missing condoms, and long-awaited panda copulation.

Part 2: While happy that pandas finally got their special alone time, Yelena looks forward to the days when we can group together with other bodies and chats with curator Daniela Seitz – zooming in from Berlin – about attending events via screen, Daniela's work with Creamcake, and the future of parties.

Creamcake is an open and queer platform dedicated to exploring the impact of the Internet on music at the intersection of music, art, and technology. Founded by Daniela Seitz and Anja Weigl in 2011, together they initiate and organize concerts, performances, symposiums and digital projects; lectures, workshops, exhibitions and festivals, including 3hd, インフラ INFRA, NextGen, Europool and "”.

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Jenny and Yelena look at the body physical in the infinite digital room (zoom) that collapses distance and makes everything cinematography. Despite the omnipotent 21st century technology, we remain surprisingly fragile humans, though just from the waist up. The phone as oracle returns (we discuss this regularly) but does not glow with the same comfort as before.

Artist Tanya Brodsky stops by the pod with notes on the Soviet past and weighs in on advertising in the corona era – follow and send contributions to @quarantineads, Tanya's collection of poignant insta ads that encapsulate our drastic, ravenous times.

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Jenny and Yelena report on respective self-isolation in NYC and LA. Yelena compares the gutted supermarkets of LA to the empty shop shelves in the former USSR, and reflects on the concepts of corona-socialism and corona-capitalism.

Jenny assesses the state of language in the times of coronavirus (how many times have you said the word ZOOM in the past week?) and shares her experience of weathering a hurricane. The problems of doing laundry, finding toilet paper, and charting a new apartment geography are addressed, as is the intermingling of work and leisure, and home and public space.

Follow/DM: https://www.instagram.com/centeredsubjectpodcast/

Zoe Aja Moore stops by the pod and things get transcendental as we unravel the notion of an eternal object. Yelena finds wooden boxes on the internet and experiences spiritual panic induced by a selfie stick. Jenny channels Marianne Williamson and is sure she has met you before, and Zoe refuses to let apps change her eternal behavior. We cast our gaze to medieval times to get pointers on surviving coronavirus and heatedly debate the history of menswear.  Also, life is easier to manage when divided into small 8 minute chunks.

Inspired by research that connects neurobiological development to social networks in adolescence, Jenny and Yelena trace the history of their friendship and discuss how friends make a difference in life through time. Parsed: differing friend finances, friends with bens, bullies and allies, disappearing friends, death dates, and birth dates. Cheburashka sings a comforting, wistful sad song.

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Useful reading: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/friendship-crucial-adolescent-brain/605638/

A brisk episode wherein Jenny and Yelena examine the performative qualities of public and private lives. Props and settings covered: border wall drop, car as costume, coronavirus mask, selfie filters, oratory politics props, giving birth to objects, and putting them on one’s head. Bonus: Yelena meets Hunter Biden but discloses little.