Screening of Wu Tsang's Moby Dick; Or, The Whale & a Discussion with the Artists

 Join the Department of Performance Studies for a screening of Wu Tsang's Moby Dick; Or, The Whale. After the screening, there will be a discussion with Tsang and Tosh Basco, co-founder of Moved by the Motion who stars in the film. The discussion will also include Laura Harris (Cinema Studies and Art and Public Policy), and Fred Moten (Performance Studies and Comparative Literature).

In MOBY DICK; or, The Whale, award-winning filmmaker and visual artist Wu Tsang and her collective, Moved by the Motion, embark upon a feature-length, silent-film telling of Herman Melville’s great American novel. Presented in its North American premiere at The Shed, the film includes original music composed by Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee with Asma Maroof.

This adaptation, written by Sophia Al Maria and directed by Tsang, follows the white whale above and below the surface of the water, developing a visual cosmology that resists the exploration and exploitation of the earth under imperial colonialism. The narrative is interwoven with extracts by the Sub-Sub-Librarian, and tackles the novel’s subterranean currents, encountering the resistance of the ship’s hydrarchy, or organizational structure, and collectives of “mariners, renegades, and castaways,” as described by historian CLR James.

MOBY DICK; or, The Whale is produced by the Schauspielhaus Zürich and co-commissioned by LUMA Foundation, Superblue, TBA21—Academy, HARTWIG ART FOUNDATION, The Shed, DE SINGEL, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Wu Tsang (born 1982 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is a filmmaker, artist and performer based in London and Zurich, whose work is concerned with hidden histories, marginalized narratives, and the act of performing itself. In 2018, Tsang received a MacArthur "genius" grant. Tsang's films, videos, and performances look to explore the "in-betweeness" in which people and ideas cannot be discussed in binary terms.^[2] Generally, her films form a hybrid of narrative and documentary; they do not conform fully to one form or the other. Her projects have been presented at the Tate Modern (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Migros Museum (Zurich), the Whitney Museum and the New Museum (New York), the MCA Chicago, and MoCA Los Angeles. In 2012 she participated in the Whitney Biennial, Liverpool Biennial and Gwangju Biennial.

Tosh Basco was born in California and rose to prominence in the drag scene in San Francisco in the 2010s. Well known for her movement-based performances under the name boychild, Basco’s photography and drawing accompany the performance practice. Viewed as a whole, Basco’s work attempts to enfold language, becoming, and representation together in spaces where they are presumed to exist as discrete entities. She is co-founder of the collaborative entity Moved by the Motion with Wu Tsang, and collaboration remains a vital aspect of her work. Basco’s work has been presented at the Rockbund Museum of Art, Shanghai; Venice Biennale; the Sydney Biennial; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MOCA, Los Angeles; and ICA London, among other institutions.

*** Photo Credit:Production still from MOBY DICK or, The Whale (2022) featuring Tosh Basco as Queequeg. Directed by Wu Tsang. Photo: Greg Amgwerd.