Caspar Heinemann: Design a flying saucer as if it were The Ark

Across the In formation programme, the interweaving politics of gender, sexuality and race are placed in tension with notions of sociality and knowledge production institutionalized by the ‘academy’. Taking its title from Paul Thek’s teaching instructions, Design a flying saucer as if it were The Ark is a performative lecture by Caspar Heinemann on gay liberation history, consensus reality and magical technologies.  

Questioning the boundaries of legitimate knowledge production, the lecture will utilise the insights of para-academic and independent researchers in the fields of transpersonal psychology, comparative theology and Western esoteric history in an attempt to prefiguratively map the territory.  

This performance lecture will be followed by an open discussion led by queer historian Brooke Sylvia Palmieri. 

Caspar Heinemann is an artist, poet, and independent researcher based in Berlin. Recent events include readings at University of Cambridge, the Serpentine's Miracle Marathon, Gallery of Modern Art Glasgow and Kunsthal Aarhus. They have recently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, David Roberts Art Foundation and Almanac, London. Their first book, a homo-pastoral epic poem set in a near-future Thames Estuary, is forthcoming from Vile Troll Books.  

Brooke Sylvia Palmieri is a writer and historian working on a PhD concerning the history and materiality of radical archives at University College London. She currently teaches ‘The Queer Book’, an intensive course that considers media history via concepts within queer theory, and is the editor of the academic journal Printing History.