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LYLEX COLY SYLLA PHIL ROCO ANDRA
PHILTH HAUS is a collective of 6 member-clients represented by ANDRA.PHILTH HAUS explores how contamination offers a connectivity and influence between bodies within globalized market economies that often isolate manufacturers from buyers. Ventures have included a wellness pseudo-company which makes medicinal products grown from the blood of those who produce them, an organization which sells water that contains hormone extracts from urban waterways, and an AI system making video using mass-media depictions of “girlhood.” The anonymity of the collective structure subverts cultural premiums placed on visibility providing an amorphous identity and perspective upon which to draw which does not require a singular but instead ambiguous political message from the artist.
The collective holds an A.B. in Molecular Biology and Visual Art from Harvard University, 2019, and attended the De Ateliers residency program 2019-2021.
For a more concise data format : CV
LYLEX/A
LYLEX is a speculative project reinventing luxury wellness. While most self-care branding uses detoxification as a desired outcome, LYLEX employs contamination as its core value proposition.
LYLEX’s installations are all grown from the blood of the manufacturer. Blood is infused in growing OYSTer mushrooms, and then harvested to be made into pills and powders which reflect the nutritional state of the blood donor.
IdealBlackFemale (US), Sevyn (US/DE), and St. Mozelle (US/DE) collaborated on a party thrown for LYLEX’s launch at Navel. Dancers from the trans-inclusive stripper collective Jolene (US) hosted. Merchandise was made in collaboration with Nomi Sladko (DE) and Amber Ibarreche (US) who have been featured in publications such as Vice, Refinery29, and more. A film advertisement was made in promotion of the show. A book titled LYLEX LOGS was made in association and published with Co-Conspirator Press.
LYLEX has been exhibited at Human Resources LA, Navel LA, and Feminist Center for Creative Work LA. HyperAllergic titled it as one of their “Top Shows” to see in LA 2022. AQNB, Metropolis M, CurateLA and GayKrant have profiled the project.
HUMAN RESOURCES (2022)
NAVEL (2022)
CO-CONSPIRATOR PRESS (2022)
Below is an excerpt from the book published alongside the LYLEX exhibition series. The text documents the online “chats” two separate users have with the LYLEX corporation as they begin using their pill and powder products. Below,the user ANDRA reaches a climactic moment after sensing her own agency has been altered by the presence of LYLEX therapies in her body.
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All of my love of new age therapies to achieve this, fueled by career and self aspirations. Ambition.
But when the border between us became blurry, I lost this sense of singular journey towards this ideal, this prize which had been all I ever wanted. I was impure. I think perhaps because I realized how much I had ceased to become singular. And how impossible it had really been for me to be that. Separate. Contained. With full liberty and agency. Purified by supplements and essential oils and treatments so I could maintain my sanctity, my unadulterated, uncontaminated sense of choice. Sense of self-production. Towards womanhood. Away from PHIL.
And so
I was horrified. I had died, in a way. Or at the very least, this femme doll I thought I could be, vanished. I had no hope because my definition of hope had always been in pursuit of her, of some drippy, gorgeous Andra. I had no self because all I had ever been was a prototype. For her.
I gave up on being THAT girl.
I continued to take you then, not knowing what or who I was... or if I could even pretend ending my time with you could bring me back to any real, I guess, Andra. Or Phil. I was alone without that girl, and you were sort of the only thing that perhaps could, by some technicality, make me not alone.
And I kept thinking about the clouds.
The further I felt my body become other, rapidly escaping my control as it became more and more you than me, I began to feel foreign to any of the other bodies I had before idolized. I guess I saw, in a sense, how easily a body could be taken away, shifted in control and power, in- separate from the environment it breathes in, touches, eats. And I realized how much the clouds, and all the heaven they symbolized, had come to describe the only end result of all this.
To become continuous with your environment is the ultimate endpoint to transition. And to achieve that, I must end all these lines which have separated me from the other. From the sky.
It’s sort of like my, our, transition has been a walk hand in hand with death this whole time. A body burst towards heaven.
It’s not that I don’t want to live, really. It’s that I know now that the natural progression of seeing myself become no longer boundaried from the world around us, from the other, from a parasite or a friend or whatever LYLEX is, is to die. And I could wait for something or someone to end
my life, but perhaps because I am impatient or because I am controlling or because even though I talk about having given up on some prior self-productions goals, I am still a product of my upbringing which always told me self-assertion is the highest moral, I want to do it.
I want bigger holes. And I want to see all the blood that makes me you. See you up there.
COLY/B
COLY explores endocrine disrupting pollution, a phenonemon where sex hormones enter waterways as a byproduct of contraception, agriculture, and hormone replacement therapies, as a process of global ecological transition to be embraced, not remedied.
Most recently, COLY has manifested as Mone Water, a bottled water containing sex hormones “locally sourced” frOM the urban waterways within the city limits of Berlin, Los Angeles, and The Hague. Mone Water extracts thESE estrogen and testosterone molecules and bottles them to bring awareness to this endocrinological-ecological shift while prodding at the marketing slogans and tools used in naturalist branding.
Mone water has been exhibited at Nest Gallery, The Hague as an offshoot project of the 2022 Venice Biennale’s Dutch Pavillion represented by Melanie Bonajo.
The project is a part of an ongoing conversation with the University of Film Babelsberg Konrad Wolf MastersClass Working With Waste with artists such as Lucy Beech, James Richards, Mary Maggic, and Sophie Cundale.
Most recently, COLY has manifested as Mone Water, a bottled water containing sex hormones “locally sourced” frOM the urban waterways within the city limits of Berlin, Los Angeles, and The Hague. Mone Water extracts thESE estrogen and testosterone molecules and bottles them to bring awareness to this endocrinological-ecological shift while prodding at the marketing slogans and tools used in naturalist branding.
Mone water has been exhibited at Nest Gallery, The Hague as an offshoot project of the 2022 Venice Biennale’s Dutch Pavillion represented by Melanie Bonajo.
The project is a part of an ongoing conversation with the University of Film Babelsberg Konrad Wolf MastersClass Working With Waste with artists such as Lucy Beech, James Richards, Mary Maggic, and Sophie Cundale.
NEST GALLERY (2022)
DE ATELIERS (2021)
Previously, COLY has exhibited as a solo show with De Ateliers as a novel biomaterial produced by a combination of algae protein and estrogen-containing urine. This material slowly dehydrated and changed form resultantly. Porcelain shards from dismembered toilets were placed amongst and on top of it.
AMSTERDAM ARTS WEEKEND (2019)
COLY also occured as a performance during Amsterdam Arts Weekend in which a silicone platform, in sync with a musical accompianment, pumped estrogen-containing algae into the esophagus of a performer. Audience members were dosed with estrogen as an initiation of the performance in the form of an estrogenic algae protein on an instruction card.
SYLLA/C
SYLLA is an A.I. system FED mass media on topics of youth and femininity and then tasked with producing novel images and video reflective of emergent global trends.
Largely informed by the French philosophy collective Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials For A Theory of A Young Girl , SYLLA explores sensations of authenticity when mass media and identity intersect. The algorithm’s continued development is supported by the Stimulering Fonds for Digital Design.
In SYLLA:ISDIY, this machine-learning algorthm likens gender to military drones, puppies to love, and girlhood to oceans.The work was recently featured at the Schermo Dell’Arte Film Festival (Florence) 2021 sponsored by Gucci.
The film currently is distributed by the LIMA Film Agency in Europe. SYLLA:ISDIY will exhibit in Amsterdam and South Korea in 2023 sponsored by the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange.
Largely informed by the French philosophy collective Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials For A Theory of A Young Girl , SYLLA explores sensations of authenticity when mass media and identity intersect. The algorithm’s continued development is supported by the Stimulering Fonds for Digital Design.
In SYLLA:ISDIY, this machine-learning algorthm likens gender to military drones, puppies to love, and girlhood to oceans.The work was recently featured at the Schermo Dell’Arte Film Festival (Florence) 2021 sponsored by Gucci.
The film currently is distributed by the LIMA Film Agency in Europe. SYLLA:ISDIY will exhibit in Amsterdam and South Korea in 2023 sponsored by the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange.
SCHERMO DELL’ARTE FESTIVAL VISIO PROGRAM (2021)
MIMODA STUDIOS (2018)
SYLLA began as an experimental performance series in which a performer, guided by the vocalizations of SYLLA, approached viewers to request touch or other forms of limited intimacy. Audience rejections of her endearments led to a shift in her future iterations. The performance was prefaced by a guided meditation. Lights and customized metal-scented gas were used to gradually modify the space over the course of each show.
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PHILIP/D
PHILIP has manifested singularly in the duration of the collective’s work. He presented as a pool of lithium carbonate which powered a small aquatic robot which travelled beneath the liquid surface. Ruptures in the fluid from ceramic materials became obstacles for the mechanism.
Lithium carbonate is used in the treatment of bipolar disorder and non-responsive major depression as well as in electric car batteries.
Lithium carbonate is used in the treatment of bipolar disorder and non-responsive major depression as well as in electric car batteries.
DE ATELIERS (2021)
ROCO/E
ROCO explores post-lingual soundscapes derived from pop music samples of the late 2000s. Their music has been incorporated into multiple projects of the collective. Their last albums, ROCO 1.0 and ATOFYL were featured in Bandcamp’s Intro to Nightcore mainpage article alongside artists such as Laura Les (100 Gecs). Their song Faint Breath featuring Sarah Naqvi was exhibited at Akinci Gallery (Amsterdam) and profiled in Badlands777 Magazine and TRAINS Zine.
Their upcoming album REP will release with AQNB and incorporate into a performance REP: SEXUALITY MARKET at the KW Institute (Berlin) in January 2023.
The song and corresponding music Faint Breath feat. Sarah Naqvi was produced during the COVID19 pandemic and explored the relationships between globalized economic marketplaces, globalized communion, and globalized disease.
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Available on all major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Prime, etc.) as PHILTH HAUS - ATOFYL.
1. All That Grows Is Soft - 2. Silver Tide - 3. Lullaby for Coly - 4. Switch - 5. Ever Touch My Bag - 6. Whiplash of Sacred Hands - 7. Crests - 8. Exhaling Now
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Their upcoming album REP will release with AQNB and incorporate into a performance REP: SEXUALITY MARKET at the KW Institute (Berlin) in January 2023.
AKINCI GALLERY (2020)
The song and corresponding music Faint Breath feat. Sarah Naqvi was produced during the COVID19 pandemic and explored the relationships between globalized economic marketplaces, globalized communion, and globalized disease.
ATOFYL (2019)
Available on all major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Prime, etc.) as PHILTH HAUS - ATOFYL.
1. All That Grows Is Soft - 2. Silver Tide - 3. Lullaby for Coly - 4. Switch - 5. Ever Touch My Bag - 6. Whiplash of Sacred Hands - 7. Crests - 8. Exhaling Now
ANDRA/F
ANDRA explores motherhood in relation to mutation as it manifests in the morally-virtuous and vicious forms of transness and cancer. Glass portraits made by them utilize image compositry of tumors, geological textures, and still photography. This ongoing series of works has exhibited with W139 (Amsterdam), Kers Gallery (Amsterdam), Mutter (Amsterdam), and De Ateliers (Amsterdam). Their exhibition with Kers Gallery was profiled in Het Parool and additionally involved ANDRA curating co-exhibiting works from artists participating at the prestigious Rijksakademie and De Ateliers residency programs.
Further editions will exhibit with Proxyco Gallery (NYC) November 2022 as a series of glass portraits shaking due to resonant vibration from a specialized speaker system.
Further editions will exhibit with Proxyco Gallery (NYC) November 2022 as a series of glass portraits shaking due to resonant vibration from a specialized speaker system.
KERS GALLERY/MUTTER/W139 (2019)
PHILTH HAUS/
A-F
Thus far, the collective has only come together in its entirety for a single exhibition: PHILTH HAUS:ISDIY for the Offspring Show of De Ateliers 2020. Below, an installation view of multiple works by different members of the PHILTH HAUS collective is documented. Hardware of SYLLA, who coordinates the lighting and sound in the space, is housed under the central circular pool, PHILIP:ISDIY. Seen from this angle are: SYLLA:ISDIY, LYLEX:ISDIY, PHILIP:ISDIY, COLY:ISDIY. In the background, music made by ROCO, ROCO:ISDIY, can be heard as it transmutes from a sound bath to the background audio of SYLLA’s three-channel video installation. Works from this show have gone on to exhibit internationally in Los Angeles, New York City, Berlin, and Amsterdam. The exhibition was profiled and documented by NRC Newspaper.
DE ATELIERS (2019)
