"Why be in one place?" – in conversation with Elly Clarke and Vladimir Bjeličić on being #Sergina

A conversation between Elly Clarke, Vladimir Bjelicic and Victor Sternweiler about performing (as) #Sergina over the previous 5 years. In particular the iscussion focussed on one #Sergina performance that took place at Munich Academy of Fine Arts in November 2016.

This three way conversation took place via Zoom in April, 2020, when the lockdown was still new. Compressed from a two hours chat, Victor Sternweiler discusses the practice of #Sergina, a multi-persona drag performance 'figure,' that operated and operates online and offline—often simultaneously—way before our present day circumstances reduced this to a mere necessity. While discussing two performances—an online and on-site performance and another online-only performance—the artists elaborate their take on topics such drag, digital presence and parallelity, digital wellbeing, and us (or digital profiles) being dragged around in the web. Furthermore, the conversants also state their views on topics such as the necessity of bodily presence in performances which, five months later, seem to be pre-pandemic in character. Nonetheless, this conversation bears witness to the early-lockdown Zeitgeist which was marked by the urge to reflect upon the inevitable upscaling of online communication.