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Final Transmission: Performance Art and AIDS in Los Angeles

Please join LADA and the editors for a special event marking the launch of this book on Saturday 1 May (11am PST/7pm BST).

The last of Brian Getnick and Tanya Rubbak’s 6 volume archive of performance art and community in Los Angeles, Final Transmission is a book of intergenerational dialogue between artists, scholars and activists about what it means to transfer the skills, ideas and mysteries of performance through pandemic and crises.

Final Transmission is purchase on Unbound, with print and digital copies shipping in early May. We encourage US/Canadian customers seeking to purchase the printed book through Barnes and Noble to save on shipping costs.

Co-published by NS and the Live Art Development Agency, 2021.

 

In the summer of 2016, NS, the performance art journal of Los Angeles, brought together 35 performance artists, scholars, and activists to discuss the impact of the ongoing AIDS crisis on queer communities and performance culture in Los Angeles. Throughout that four day event, participants uncovered histories, myths and a deep well of emotion on both sides of the generational divide created by the epidemic. Final Transmission, Performance Art and AIDS in Los Angeles compiles those exchanges in a book that highlights the legacy of catastrophe on performance making in the context of pandemics past and present.

Contributors include: Pablo Alvarez, Benita Roth, Ty Geltmaker, Jamillah James, Nao Bustamante, Jennifer Doyle, Marcel Alcalá, Mica Sigourney, Liss LaFleur, Daniel Hellmann, Alexandra Juhasz, Dont Rhine, Chris Freeman, Jack Halberstam, Simone Aughterlony, Travis Read-Davidson, Brandon Drew Holmes, Raquel Gutiérrez, Andy Sacher, Robb Hernández, rafa esparza, Sebastian Hernandez, Kenyon Farrow, Nathan Schocher, Keith Hennessy, Philip Littell, Ryka Aoki, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Obidio Martinez, Marc Streit, Mark C. Tennyson, Rubén Esparza, Stuart Sandford, DINO DINCO, Ron Athey, Zackary Drucker, Sheree Rose, iiia anxelin eleuia xochipilli, Tanya Rubbak and Brian Getnick.

About NS

NS, the performance art journal of Los Angeles, is a 6 volume archive of performance art production in LA from 2011 to 2016. At the start NS was created to bring artists together at live performance events organised for the launch of each issue. NS directors Brian Getnick and Tanya Rubbak, conceive of the archiving function of NS as a platform for live exchanges between artists who were otherwise separated by LA’s vast terrain and the insular quality of its many vital scenes. The first five issues were organised around performance modalities; satire, dance, ritual, activism, and sound. Their last issue, Final Transmission, Performance Art and AIDS in Los Angeles is about how performance makers process history, legacy, and myth in the wake of catastrophe.

LADA’s Study Room holds copies of all issues of NS.

*Formerly Known as “Native Strategies LA

THe cover of the book reads: Final Transmission: Performance Art and Aids in Los Angeles Final Transmission, co-published by NS and the Live Art Development Agency, 2021. Design by Tanya Rubbak.

Banner image credit:

Final Transmission, co-published by NS and the Live Art Development Agency, 2021. Design by Tanya Rubbak.

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