Alien Intimacy
James Batchelor and Zander Porter

Alien Intimacy by James Batchelor and Zander Porter speculates on an interpersonally constructed “alien sensibility” where the visible and the invisible, or the physically embodied and the virtually disembodied, intertwine.
The duo’s speculative choreography proposes new landscapes comprised of console gaming scenography and low-res NASA images. “Touch” is recalled as a microscopic gravitational force and a magnetic repulsion over the illusory notion of a direct contact. In Alien Intimacy, “contact” is macroscopically proportioned, inviting new senses of (non)touch-touch, the “almost-touchable,” or a “space-in-between.”
Both the concept and content of Alien Intimacy emerged in 2019-2020 through bodily/extra-bodily choreographic relationships to digital interfaces. The work has been danced for staged audiences in Birmingham, Berlin, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, and Prague. In its newest iteration, Alien Intimacy merges “audience” with “smartphone” and “stage” with “socially-distanced public” to reconceptualise contact-points between viewers across neighbourhoods, oceans, and browsers.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A between Djibril Sall, Zander Porter and James Batchelor
Dance (Lens)
The Dance (Lens) series highlights outstanding Dance Films from Australia and internationally with artist Q&As.
Like dance, film is conveyed in time. A time which can be manipulated, accelerated, stopped and rewound at will. On-screen narratives are produced by the rhythmic combination of takes, jump-cuts, wipes, fade-ins and fade-outs — where the camera itself becomes a choreographic tool that extends beyond the physical boundaries of the body and the stage.
Dance (Lens) explores the embodiment and disembodiment of dance, speculative stages, screening history and the communal dance of watching from the other side of the screen.
Read more about the Dance (Lens) program.
Biographies
James Batchelor (b. 1992) is an independent choreographer and performer from Ngunnawal Country (Canberra) Australia, working internationally. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, James has worked extensively in Naarm (Melbourne) with organisations such as Dancehouse (Housemate 2014, KCA 2014+16, Dance Massive 2019), Artshouse (CultureLab, Dance Massive 2017), Chunky Move (Next Move 2017). James’s acclaimed works such as Deepspace and Hyperspace have toured to 25 countries around the world, presented in contexts such as Centre Pompidou (Paris), Tanz im August (Berlin) and Dansens Hus (Norway). In 2020 James was supported by the Australia Council to undertake a residency at the Cité international des Arts in Paris and is creating a new production An Evening-length Performance that will premiere in December Dance (Bruges, Belgium).
Zander Porter (b. 1994) is a US-American, Germany-based artist working in spaces between liveness and onlineness, constructing physical, virtual, theatrical, and curatorial performances from mediated experiences of togetherness, identification, and embodiment. Zander graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut with a High Honors Art Studio thesis titled I’m your pixelpleasure, awarded the Elizabeth Verveer Tishler Prize. Zander has further presented work at DFBRL8R (Chicago), Vanderbilt University (Nashville), Fierce Festival (Birmingham), TIFA Working Studios (Pune), Kampnagel (Hamburg), National Film & Sound Archive (Canberra), Human Resources (Los Angeles), and Sophiensæle (Berlin), among others. In 2020/2021, Zander is an artist-in-residence at Trauma Bar und Kino and National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Zander works in addition as part of XenoEntities Network, a platform for discussion and experimentation focusing on intersections of queer, gender, and feminist studies with digital technologies.
