S.W.E.A.T.

Mad Kate

S.W.E.A.T. >>sex/uality. work. extraction. art. theatr/ics. is a series of conversations about performance and performativity of the sexual and sexualized body at work—where work is broadly defined as the labour of survival, the labour of care, creativity, and capital-A-Art. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? My hope is that these conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our always already sexualized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. This show is a labour of love. Please support S.W.E.A.T. on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/sweatpodcast S.W.E.A.T. hostex Mad Kate is a Berlin-based electronic artist, vocalist, and producer who fuses sound, performance, and activism into a singular, immersive experience. Rooted in a background of writing and queer feminist, sex-positive performance art, Mad Kate weaves together interviews, field recordings, and vocal manipulations with raw, pulsating synthesizers to explore the porous borders between bodies, identities, and geographies. With a sonic language shaped by storytelling and embodied experience, Mad Kate’s compositions interrogate the personal as a lens for understanding collective realities—how power structures inscribe themselves onto intimacy, how movement across borders reshapes identity, and how world-building through imagination disrupts existing narratives. Whether through hypnotic, shape-shifting club compositions or experimental soundscapes, their work pulses with a deep commitment to sonic activism, carving out space for new forms of relationality and resistance. Mad Kate’s performances are immersive and confrontational, collapsing the boundary between artist and audience, body and machine. Their sonic explorations have been featured in venues and festivals across Europe, where they continue to push the boundaries of electronic music as a site of both political critique and radical pleasure. www.mad-kate.com podcast cover photo by Onsoh Studios

  1. Oct 13

    S5E10 S.W.E.A.T. with Verónica Aristizábal and Ilok Inti Trujillo

    This month's conversation is with Verónica Aristizábal and Ilok Inti Trujillo S.W.E.A.T. Verónica Aristizábal is a Colombian industrial designer, educator, and trans activist bridging community project management with creative, pedagogical strategies. With deep roots in grassroots organizing and mutual-care networks across Colombia and Latin America, she has served as a core facilitator and advocate within the movement for the Ley Integral Trans. Currently, through Juguetería TRANSensual, she merges tactical design, sexuality, and community empowerment to create spaces of pleasure, learning, and autonomy. Verónica is dedicated to weaving international alliances, connecting trans grassroots activism and mutual-care infrastructures between Latin America and Europe to build sustainable, cross-border networks of collective support. Ilok Inti is a travesti, non-binary, agender, autistic, and disabled person from Colombia, a popular educator, and an activist for the rights of trans and non-binary people, committed to collective building. They are a co-founder of La Juguetería TRANSensual, a collective rooted in trans, non-binary, disabled, and neurodivergent experiences, working to imagine new ways of inhabiting eroticism, exploring pleasure, and creating our own narratives around desire. Through the creation of sensory erotic toys, fanzines, workshops, and spaces for gathering, the collective seeks to transform dominant narratives about our bodies and sexualities. Through this work, desire, pleasure, and eroticism become territories of resistance, creativity, and freedom. Ilok Inti on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ilok_inti/ Verónica Aristizábal on Instgram: https://www.instagram.com/veronica__aristizabal/ La Jugueteria TRANSensual - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lajugueteriatransensual/ Ley integral trans ya - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seraleytrans/ La Jugeteria TranSensual: https://lajugueteriat.wordpress.com/ We all sweat as we provide care, as we labour, as we perform our work, as we f**k, as we survive and as we sacrifice one choice for the other. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our racialized bodies, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? These conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our (always, already, and ever pervasive) sexualized and racialized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. I hope that they contribute to dialogues which normalize sex work as work, and all work as deserving of respect, healthy conditions, and a living wage. You can find out more https://www.mad-kate.com/sweat-podcast/ Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer, performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfcking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world.

    S5E10 S.W.E.A.T. with Verónica Aristizábal and Ilok Inti Trujillo
  2. Jul 19

    S5E7 S.W.E.A.T. with ReveRso

    S.W.E.A.T. features conversations about performance and performativity of the sexual/ized body at work—work as labour of survival and labour of a/Art with host Mad Kate. Their guest this month is performance artist ReveRso. Out of the darkness emerged ReveRso. The creation myth of a megalomaniac marred on its own venom: a fetishistic cannibal-of-self bound in love, loss, seduction, salvation, madness, prophecy and pain. Currently based in Berlin, ReveRso has massacred crowds on stages (and in alleyways) from Europe to America, and back again. ReveRso's tour de force of delirium sites: Berlin, Amsterdam, Moscow, Istanbul, Antwerp, Paris, Barcelona,Genève, Madrid, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York,Cologne, London, Basel -Genève,Poznán, Lugano as some of his Holy grounds. ReveRso also serves as the High Priest of the legendary SupperClub as a long-term Resident Performer, desecrating its white walls with his carnal pleasures. Live like a suicide, ReveRso is the teenage harlot strangled by the Mad Hatter, lips suckled in blood, a ghostly white palour. A junky, he must devour the public to feel the light, his rite of purification through the shadows. To Repent to the name of no other but He ☦ ReveRso. We all sweat as we provide care, as we labour, as we perform our work, as we f**k, as we survive and as we sacrifice one choice for the other. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our racialized bodies, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? These conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our (always, already, and ever pervasive) sexualized and racialized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. I hope that they contribute to dialogues which normalize sex work as work, and all work as deserving of respect, healthy conditions, and a living wage. You can find out more https://www.alfabus.us/s-w-e-a-t/ Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer, performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfcking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world. photo of ReveRso by Guille Chipironet

    S5E7 S.W.E.A.T. with ReveRso
  3. Jun 9

    S5E6 S.W.E.A.T. with Nancy Nutter

    This month's conversation is with performer Nancy Nutter. Nancy’s artistry expands through visual, performative, musical realms. She is one half of the piano cabaret duo THE DAMES, the lead vocalist of trans-femme punk band GIRLS IN YOUR AREA, and head of performance at TRACEY. She co-creates TREASON cabaret club night, and co-curates the performance stage at WHOLE FESTIVAL. Nancy teaches gender performance in various workshops, including the EMBODIED DISRUPTION series, KÖNIG, and at ARTHAUS. They are a costume maker, makeup artist, and drag star. A graphic designer, film maker, tattoo artist, and a painter. https://nancynutter.net/ photo of Nancy by Javier Alejandro Cerrada In this episode, Nancy and Mad Kate speak about parenthood, gender, drag, folk music, workers' solidarity, the aching vulnerability of performing your truest self in front of a room of strangers and the power of empathy. Nancy also shared some of their brilliant ideas on gender beyond the binary that she is outlining in her book-in-progress, working title Drag, Disruption and Descent We all sweat as we provide care, as we labour, as we perform our work, as we f**k, as we survive and as we sacrifice one choice for the other. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our racialized bodies, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? These conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our (always, already, and ever pervasive) sexualized and racialized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. I hope that they contribute to dialogues which normalize sex work as work, and all work as deserving of respect, healthy conditions, and a living wage. You can find out more https://www.alfabus.us/s-w-e-a-t/ Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer, performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfcking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world.

    S5E6 S.W.E.A.T. with Nancy Nutter
  4. Apr 14

    S5E4 S.W.E.A.T. with LIADLAND

    In this month's conversation, Mad Kate speaks with activist, musician and performer LIAD LAND. They speak about the layered realities of sex work and why the ProstSchG – Gesetz law in Germany pushed migrant sex workers further underground and out of reach of the peer networks that actually kept them safe. They talk about what community care really looks like when the system, and individuals, are exhausted and broke. And they talk about how the body becomes a political site — in performance, in sex work, in watching and/or surviving genocide. Liad talks about what she’s carrying from Palestine into her music and live shows right now, how watching a genocide from Europe has felt on her body. Finally, why she’s in the process of revoking her Israeli citizenship — and encouraging other anti-Zionist Jews to do the same. LIADLAND is a musician, an artist, an activist, a perpetual migrant, a queer trash diva, a Jew from Pralestine, and a master of the margins. Her music, performances, and films de-exotify and demystify positions of so-called sexual and political deviance. In them, the body and voice are used as tools of decolonial education and resistance, as platforms to display vulnerabilities, and as means to call for a revolution, celebrate life, and mourn. Liad's art and worldview is informed by decades of political work on intersectional issues such as sex worker rights and queer and Palestinian liberation. Her debut album, Nothing to Declare and subsequent EP, Nothing to Remix, were released in 2024. Her current music and live show focuses on collective organizing and ongoing resistance with Palestine as a starting point. Broken is her upcoming single. You'll hear an excerpt at the end of the show. Photo of Liad by Oren Ziv Buy LIADLAND’s music: https://liadland.bandcamp.com/

    S5E4 S.W.E.A.T. with LIADLAND
  5. Mar 9

    S5E3 S.W.E.A.T. with BLEACH

    This month's conversation with punkrocker preacher drag performer activist and promoter BLEACH. Essex raised, Berlin Based Drag performer BLEACH is a central figure in the German capitals queer underground. Creating parties, shows & festivals. Starting out in a burlesque bar in Stockholm she entertains with a fiery mix of punking, stripping & speeching. A regular host of Berlin club nights, drag shows with a loud point of view. When DJing she plays a wide range of music to keep dancers on their toes, acidy house with sparks of rock n roll punk tunes. BLEACH is front woman of BLEACH and the Bumholes https://bleach.blog/ In this episode, Mad Kate sits down with Bleach — a Berlin-based drag performer, chef, and queer artist originally from Essex — for a wide-ranging conversation about persona, performance, sexuality, and politics. They trace the evolution of Bleach's characters from Baby Chino (a homoerotic, tongue-in-cheek art persona born in Stockholm) to the fierce, unapologetically political drag queen Bleach, and explore how these alter egos have served as vehicles for processing identity, anger, and queer community. The conversation moves through social media, consent and sexual politics, the economics of drag, and ultimately arrives at the role of the artist in a world of rising fascism — concluding that drag's most radical act may simply be giving people a good time. TRACKS played: Mad Kate - My Fear of Pretending (feat. Lori Baldwin)

    S5E3 S.W.E.A.T. with BLEACH

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

S.W.E.A.T. >>sex/uality. work. extraction. art. theatr/ics. is a series of conversations about performance and performativity of the sexual and sexualized body at work—where work is broadly defined as the labour of survival, the labour of care, creativity, and capital-A-Art. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? My hope is that these conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our always already sexualized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. This show is a labour of love. Please support S.W.E.A.T. on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/sweatpodcast S.W.E.A.T. hostex Mad Kate is a Berlin-based electronic artist, vocalist, and producer who fuses sound, performance, and activism into a singular, immersive experience. Rooted in a background of writing and queer feminist, sex-positive performance art, Mad Kate weaves together interviews, field recordings, and vocal manipulations with raw, pulsating synthesizers to explore the porous borders between bodies, identities, and geographies. With a sonic language shaped by storytelling and embodied experience, Mad Kate’s compositions interrogate the personal as a lens for understanding collective realities—how power structures inscribe themselves onto intimacy, how movement across borders reshapes identity, and how world-building through imagination disrupts existing narratives. Whether through hypnotic, shape-shifting club compositions or experimental soundscapes, their work pulses with a deep commitment to sonic activism, carving out space for new forms of relationality and resistance. Mad Kate’s performances are immersive and confrontational, collapsing the boundary between artist and audience, body and machine. Their sonic explorations have been featured in venues and festivals across Europe, where they continue to push the boundaries of electronic music as a site of both political critique and radical pleasure. www.mad-kate.com podcast cover photo by Onsoh Studios