Social experiments with currency, making music with neurological equipment, exploring VR with imaginary friends… these are some of the ideas being explored at the 2020 iteration of KISS Club, an event that allows artists to publicly present new ideas for live and experimental performance.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, KISS Club was first presented in Perth by pvi collective, an arts company that makes participatory artworks with the ultimate goal of “saving the world through creative play and revolutionary fun”. The program is currently co-presented and curated by pvi and PICA.

In response to the pandemic restriction KISS Club 2020 has both a live and digital iteration. Seesaw’s Nina Levy was lucky enough to snaffle one of the tickets to the live event which happened last week. Ahead of the digital season she then delved into the backstory of the program with pvi’s Kelly McCluskey. Have a listen to their conversation:

Show notes

You can catch KISS Club online, 11-20 September, by booking a digital pass on the PICA website (which includes access to artist interviews and digital performances, and also enables you to give feedback to the artists).

In the interview, Nina Levy refers to Jen Jamieson’s This is not personal, an interactive work designed for those days when your mental health could use a hand. You can read her review of This is not personal here.

Kelli and Nina also talk about pvi collective’s work tiny revolutions, and “the abc of renewables”, which you can view below.

tiny revolutions is a project designed to foster a climate of creative resistance in the face of the massive challenges that humanity is currently facing. Individuals are invited to submit an expression of concern about these challenges and select an intervention tactic for pvi to use.

Seesaw’s Nina Levy sent the following concern: “All the science indicates that it’s absolutely vital that we transition to renewables but most of the world’s leaders are doing nothing to support the process, or even actively standing in the way of change,” and chose singing as her tactic.

The resulting song was performed in the offices of Woodside and you can view it below.

You can read more about this particular performance here and more about tiny revolutions here.

Pictured top is KISS Club 2020 artist Daley Rangi. Photo: Daniel James Grant