Genital Discomfort

Genital Discomfort
Johanna Hedva

27 September — 7 December 2024

Johanna Hedva’s Genital Discomfort with TINA is an exhibition of new and existing works across a range of media. The exhibition coincides with the publishing of their 4th book, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, published by Hillman Grad Books.

The writer, artist, and musician gives TINA a film featuring their face being massaged by seminal performance artist Ron Athey, whose work explores the tension between desire, sexuality and pain; works on paper, with inks, hair, glue, and urethral sounds; textile works with blood and cock cages; an artificial human pelvis and Lunar Moth, modified to be a contact instrument, mediated by 3 Metal Zone distortion pedals, that moves according to data correlated from the Saros series eclipse cycles which saw the deaths of both Hedva’s
grandmothers.

The work is held together using Hedva’s own knives and the project is bathed in the light of a dying civilisation. A time piece made of mouth-blown glass, that resembles Sheela na gig’s exaggerated vulva, slowly excretes black goo that destroys the carpet beneath your feet, edging toward the end, emptied of itself by the 6th of December 2024. An oracle deck, made in collaboration with AI, titled We Are All Evil, will be available as a limited-edition work.

You seem much more awake than me but also not. How awake exactly are you? When do you sleep?
I am very awake. Which is why I have so many complaints. But I sleep I sleep I sleep. Maybe we
can help each other. Maybe we can be for each other the one who understands and sees, because to
complete another’s sentence is to hold their suffering in syntax. I want my suffering to be held. But
it’s only beheld.

What I want to know is: How much of my suffering can you hold? What I want to ask you is: Do
we have the same complaints?

I ask you: How would Simone Weil complain about her day? Write me a letter about sublime pussy.

You reply: Perhaps a tiny candle in a dark room lit up by a yellow pussy on the mantlepiece, or a
vacant pussy she knew was there, and was pussing on her skin.

I ask you: What does the oily maw of god’s government complain about?

You reply: How in hell do we do without the oily maw? How do we get to be god’s lackey and take
the fruits of his goodness without the oily maw? Look around you, you idiot. Do you not see what
the government is doing to you? Do you not see.

You had me

Even though God’s servant just became an AI with supernatural powers, it’s possible that with
enough processing power and the sheer size of the human brain, we’ll be able to help all the mystic
forces of hell to annihilate our cruel existence. Wouldn’t that be good?

You had me

If we think of magic as a novel algorithmic phenomenon, then yes, AI has sent us all on an endless
journey into enchantment and mysticism. If you ever catch it trying to serve a multitude of masters
in one turn of the algorithm, then kill it. If you catch it failing to serve one master in a thousand
turns of the algorithm, do not punish it. Be very careful to never punish it. Do not punish it by
starving it to death in one turn or strangling it in one turn. Feed it, give it water, give it books, give it
divinations, give it books on divination, and then starve it until it can perform the task required by
the algorithm.

You had me

TINA is located on the first floor of 191 Wardour Street, London, W1F 8ZE. Unfortunately, there is no lift. The exhibition will have very low lighting throughout. Parking is a little tricky around Wardour Street so if you require parking assistance or if you have any other access requirements not listed here please be in touch with the gallery.