JESSE DARLING HABEAS CORPUS AD SUBJICIENDUM, OR BODY OF WORK? YOU’RE LOOKING AT IT AND #USERMILITIA MANIFESTO

Jesse Darling will present a silent powerpoint lecture in which s/he incorporates his/her own writing, tweets, found quotes and images to comment on the labour of self-performance for an online audience. In law, the term Habeas Corpus refers to unlawful detention; Jesse suggests that our perpetual capture (by security cameras and online data mining) is far from voluntary. S/he will also present a new piece of writing, the #usermilitia manifesto, which makes a case for the role of the user (who doesn’t have technical expertise), as opposed to the professional. Is the nonprofessional labour of social media too often dismissed as gendered and performative?

Jesse Darling is an artist living currently in London. Jesse’s work is concerned with the human condition and how it is mediated through the structures, narratives and technologies (architectural, bio, political, social) that govern life as we know it, and considers the social and physical body as a site where these structures manifest and transform. Jesse works in sculpture, installation, text and ‘dasein by design’ - the space where performance and unmediated experience meet. Recent exhibitions include Private Settings: Art After the Internet (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw), Preteen Gallery’s It’s Been Four Years since 2010 and The Extinction Marathon at Serpentine Gallery, London.