SLEEVE SHOCK

Curated by Jonathan Armour

17 – 28 January 2023

Opening Reception Wednesday 18 January | 6-9

Artists’ Talk Thursday 26 January | 7-9

Taken from Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, sleeves are the term used for bodies that serve as a receptacle for the human consciousness. The body an individual is born with is called their Birth Sleeve. 

A recurring theme in Transhumanist thinking is that one day we will be able to upload our human consciousness into some form of device which can then be relocated into a new body (re-sleeved), whether naturally born, modified or artificially created, as required or desired.

When an individual is re-sleeved they often experience a degree of sleeve shock. The more foreign the sleeve is in comparison to the individual’s birth sleeve, in terms of age, race, gender etc, the more intense the shock. 

Whilst we are not living in 2384, the year of Altered Carbon, this does provide us with a future-retro perspective on aspects of identity conflict felt by so many of us.

This exhibition, Sleeve Shock, results an Open Call during 2022 in which respondents were asked to describe the basis for this own sense of Sleeve Shock or identity conflict. Thus the work selected is often deeply autobiographical, is raw and fresh and uses current techniques and media to confront, evade and wrestle with the sleeves that the artists find themselves in.

Gender transitioning, body dysmorphia, alopecia in the context of Egyptian culture, disability in late teens, sexual assault, age-ism, mental health, parental preference for their child’s gender, cultural migration, and sexual orientation are some of the bases for Sleeve Shock.