BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.5//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:326@artinliverpool.com DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20151030T120000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20151030T120000 DTSTAMP:20151029T093345Z URL:https://www.artinliverpool.com/events/camp-furnace-alien-sex-club-by-j ohn-walter/ SUMMARY:Camp & Furnace: Camp & Furnace: Alien Sex Club by John Walter DESCRIPTION:John Walter's  Alien Sex Club exhibition at Camp &\; Furnac e and sculpture at Walker Art Gallery as part of Homotopia Festival.\n\n Alien Sex Club\nCamp &\; Furnace\, Greenland Street\, L1 0BY\nFriday 30 October – 29 November 2015\nFridays 12.00 - 20.00\, Saturdays and Sunda ys 12.00 - 18.00\n\nPug Virus (more details here)\nWalker Art Gallery\, U pper Atrium\nThursday 29 October – 31 January 2016\nDaily\, 10.00 - 17.0 0\, FREE entry\n\nAlien Sex Club is a major multimedia project by British artist John Walter\, which explores the relationship between visual cultur e and HIV today.\n\nThe exhibition consists of a large-scale installation based on the shapes of cruise mazes\, found in sex clubs and gay saunas. I t comprises sculpture\, painting\, video\, performance and installation. V isitors are immersed in a multisensory world in which they can watch video s and live performances\, get lost in the maze and have a drink in the per formance bar.\n\nAlien Sex Club uses popular forms including hospitality\, fortune-telling\, comedy and the aesthetic of carnivals and festivals to introduce issues to a wide audience and make the subject palatable\, inter esting and fun\, while grounding it in cross-disciplinary research.\n\nAli en Sex Club will involve artists\, activists and HIV specialists\, clinica l academics and scientists in collaborations for a public programme of tal ks and performances that will provide audiences with a new vocabulary for understanding and talking about HIV and the factors contributing to its tr ansmission.\n\nCurated by Ellen Mara De Wachter.\n\nPug Virus at Walker Ar t Gallery:\n\nContinuing Homotopia’s long-standing partnership with Nati onal Museums Liverpool\, throughout the festival John Walter’s inflatabl e sculpture ‘Pug Virus’ will be exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery.\n The four metre-high inflatable head is sewn in pink ripstop nylon and is b ased on one of a series of 3D printed ‘virus heads’ that Walter has ma de. ‘Pug Virus’ is Walter’s attempt to re-envision HIV in our curren t era of highly effective antiretroviral therapy\, in contrast to represen tations of the virus during the ‘AIDS’ crisis in the 1980s.\nIt fills the elegant space of the neo-classical Walker Art Gallery in a bold and un compromising way. Visitors will then be signposted to the full exhibition at Camp &\; Furnace.\n\nAlso as part of Homotopia\, at the Bluecoat\, W alker Art Gallery and at Camp &\; Furnace\, Alien Sex Club will present a free public programme of associated talks and events from artists\, act ivists and health professionals aimed at providing audiences with a new vo cabulary for understanding and talking about HIV and the factors contribut ing to its transmission.\n\nFriday 30 October\, 6pm\, The Bluecoat - Artis t John Walter talks about Alien Sex Club.\n\nSat 7 November\, 2pm\, The Bl uecoat - Artist Frances Disley demystifies the jargon\, statistics and mod es of dissemination associated with HIV and visual arts in collaboration w ith Dr Valerie Delpech.\n\nSaturday 14th November\, 2pm\, Bluecoat - Artis t Mark Scott-Wood creates new work for an event exploring props\, tools\, habits and rituals associated with HIV in collaboration with HIV nurse Jan ey Sewell.\n\nSat 21 Nov\, 4pm\, Camp &\; Furnace - A collaborative pre sentation using good old words and pictures from performance artist Susann ah Hewlett and clinical epidemiologist Professor Sheena McCormack.\n\nTues 1 December -World Aids Day - 11 – 5pm\, Tarot Readings by Barbara Truva da\, Walker Art Gallery. The Alien Sex Club tarot deck gathers together im ages that allow reader and visitor to discuss subjects including sexuality and cultural transmission. Walter's set contains 78 cards\, with a Higher Arcana of 22 picture cards and four suits – the Bugchasers\, the Giftgi vers\, the Barebackers and the Serosorters - which draw on the mythology o f HIV. The tarot reader's name refers to Truvada® the brand name of a typ e of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP).\n\nwww.aliensexclub.com\n\nliverpool museums.org.uk/pugvirus\n\nBackground and context for the project\n\nDurin g the early AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s\, many public sex environme nts (often including cruise mazes) were closed by law. More recently\, cru ising for sex has moved online with apps such as Grindr\, Scruff and Horne t gaining in popularity. However\, many men still want to meet in person a nd anonymously for sex\, despite the risks involved.\n\nGay men remain one of the groups most at risk of HIV in the UK\, with 3\,250 new cases of th e infection diagnosed in this group in 2013. Anti‐retroviral therapy (AR T) helps HIV‐positive patients stay healthy with near normal life expect ancy but the long‐term physical effects of ART are still unknown and its long‐term cost is of increasing concern. It is estimated that ART costs around £500\,000 per person for a lifetime of treatment.\n\nPopular deba te around the medical and social implications of ART and HIV in this count ry is set to increase in the next year\, as pre‐exposure prophylaxis (Pr EP) and self‐testing for HIV will become more available in the UK\, chan ging how people think about risk and unprotected sex. ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.artinliverpool.com/wp-content/upload s/2015/10/homotopia-marrow.jpg LOCATION:Camp & Furnace\, 67 Greenland Street\, Liverpool\, L1 0BY\, Liverp ool\, United Kingdom GEO:53.394392;-2.98107 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=67 Greenland Street\, Liver pool\, L1 0BY\, Liverpool\, United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Camp & Furnace:geo:53.394392,-2.98107 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20151025T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR