El Hardwick

Process of Elimination explores sickness as a teacher for anti-capitalist modes of being; a rewilding of the self. The product of an attempt to be indestructible, this sickness has an unknown diagnosis. The only route to determine the indeterminable is via a process of elimination. Eliminate the noise so it may quieten and make space for listening to what whispers underneath, allowing a return to the present moment. Slowness and queerness as technologies, questions as answers and mysticism as a path to healing when science alone does not suffice.

London-based multidisciplinary artist El Hardwick’s sophomore album follows their experience of becoming chronically ill after years of treating their body like a machine. El explains After failing to receive a diagnosis, which is only given via a lengthy process of elimination, I instead turned to autonomous modes of healing rooted in mysticism and herbalism putting aside the need to be defined. My journey towards accepting my disability is told in parallel to my coming-out as trans. I also see my non-binary identity as a process of elimination: I am neither gender, both, in-between. It is through rewilding myself from capitalism and gender normativity that I learn how to connect to my body and the earth; no longer allowing either’s energy to be extracted from. The less I sought answers, language, metrics and analysis, the more peace I found.

• 1 the queer art of slowness
• 2 dual
• 3 quantology
• 4 how do i know what i want when everybody is telling me i should want what i dont have
• 5 laying on the floor staring up at dust in the air
• 6 breathing room
• 7 language couldnt say
• 8 pataphysical
• 9 wildest imagination