Apologize to the future

CHRIS KORDA – In Poitiers, in collaboration with the exhibition curators Goswell Road, Confort Moderne presents the first complete retrospective, bringing together for the first time its musical and artistic practice, dedicated to the founder of the Church of Euthanasia.

As soon as you enter the exhibition space, the funereal and chilling tone is set thanks to the "Population Counter" (2019), software displaying the global demographic count in real time. Then, we walk on a world map, where each continent is overflowing with human pictograms. Eventually, time passes, but nothing changes. 30 years after founding the Church of Euthanasia, which advocates the reduction of the human population in order to preserve the environment and whose sole commandment is "You shall not procreate" (without omitting its four fundamental "pillars": the suicide, abortion, cannibalism and sodomy), Chris Korda's goal seems not only unattainable but also closer to failure than ever; which the person concerned herself admitted with a certain resignation during an interview given to the program Tracks d'arte (1).

Portrait of Reverend Chris Korda, 1992

Grand niece of Hungarian filmmakers Alexander and Zoltan Korda (having fled Nazi persecution in 1940), daughter of the writer Michael Korda, Chris Korda has always had a taste for music, from adolescence, moving from drums to piano and on guitar, studying jazz at Berkeley College of Music. At 19, a software developer, she began her transition. Drag balls, gay clubs, cross-dressing, it's a revelation against a backdrop of house music in Provincetown, dear to John Waters. However, Korda does not forget what fundamentally concerns her: the ecological emergency. The epiphany takes place following a dream during which an extraterrestrial announces the end of humanity.

Supported by Robert "Pastor Kim" Kimberk and Vermin Supreme, Korda founded the Church of Euthanasia in 1992, in Boston, Massachusetts, and produced the legendary "SAVE THE PLANET KILL YOURSELF" bumper sticker (200,000 copies sold between 1996 and 1997!) ; which is also the title of his first self-produced EP, which will end up on International Deejay Gigolo Records, DJ Hell's label.

From then on, public space became the favorite playground of worship - duly registered in the state of Delaware (in the United States, tax advantages for churches are very lucrative...) -, which, originally, was called Children of The Plague. Demonstrations in front of clinics practicing abortion in the face of pro-life activists, participation in the legendary Jerry Springer Show (pope of trash TV) on the occasion of an unforgettable "I want to join a suicide cult" (August 11, 1997 in front of 8 million spectators), happenings, frantic production of slogans ("EAT PEOPLE NOT ANIMALS", THANK YOU FOR NOT BREEDING", "EAT A QUEER FETUS FOR JESUS"), this activism, tinged with performance, embraces in the same momentum Dada legacy, site-specific diversion, fight for the rights of women and sexual minorities, jamming culture and a serious dose of derision.

This effervescence is also contemporary with the actions of Act Up ("EFFICIENCY = DEATH" in the form of a wink), the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters (known for its "Buy Nothing Day" campaign) and the creations visuals by Aidan Hughes for the KMFDM group.

The (Wo)man of the Future. Chris Korda, a retrospective

After September 11, 2001, Korda published I Like to Watch, mixing the collapse of the twin towers and facial ejaculations taken from pornographic films. New century, new direction, Korda, once a geek, always a geek, dives headlong into the new possibilities offered by artificial intelligence, developing a lot of software (open source of course), including a virtual pottery application. Hiatus until 2018.

Now in Berlin exile, more or less forced, Korda reconnects with music and reactivates his cult without forgetting his message: "The only story that counts is the one that tells how we stopped burning so much fossil energy and how we then became a more enlightened species (2)." Original hand-painted banners, video and photographic archives, paintings, accessories, outfits, complete discography, stickers, vases modeled by algorithms, derivative products (t-shirts and iron coat racks for abortion), here is the sum of three decades finally compiled to better understand a journey which has in no way deviated from its "philosophy" as evidenced by this frieze made up of images looted from specialized banks and scathing slogans. For Anthony Stephinson, half of Goswell Road, "Chris is always evolving and not stagnating, but admits to being very disappointed to have always been right. The goal is unattainable. The intention to fail was there from the start. There is a feeling of inevitability in human beings." Invigorating despite everything, this corpus should (re)give, not without irony, reasons for hope.

Marc A. Bertin

(1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB4U7OYhvYM
(2) Trax Magazine, December 2021.

"The (Wo)man of the Future. Chris Korda, a retrospective"
Until Sunday August 28
Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers (86)

The preceding is a translation. The original language is here.