"Auto-destruction - Pourquoi la voiture détruit le monde (et comment arrêter ça)" - French translation of my car-book now published!

It is such a great honor to have the French translation of my book on the car ("Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe") in my hands. In French, everything seems more radical and cool, even my own writing - and it is so wonderful that formidable Editions Wildproject have decided to keep my initial title for the book (that was refused as too unclear by my German editors - no bad feelings ;)

I am in the ZAD Notre-Dame-des-Landes right now and will present the book for the first time here, in the Talsu, next Wednesday the 20th of August at 19h. This will be followed by a three day workshop on post-fossil mobility I am designing with the wonderful collective -h- called "vroum vroum autocritique" - find all the information here.

Below you can find the description text of my book and a link to the homepage, where you can find a pdf excerpt and several other materials.

La voiture a beau être l’un des principaux agents de destruction de la vie sur Terre, elle a beau tuer un million d’êtres humains par an dans le monde, rien ne semble défaire notre amour pour elle, ni notre dépendance structurelle vis-à-vis de ses promesses – confort, rapidité, praticité, élégance. Elle constitue, depuis bientôt un siècle, la clef de voûte de notre organisation spatiale, sociale et affective.

Il est plus que temps d’analyser notre relation toxique avec elle, de se libérer de ses séductions factices et coûteuses, et de mettre un terme aux ravages planétaires qu’elle entraîne.

Ancien petit garçon amoureux des voitures, Kilian Jörg explore ici la façon dont la bagnole informe l’idée que nous nous faisons de la « liberté », de la « normalité », de la « raison » et de la « nature » – au point de devenir l’objet emblématique de l’hybris capitaliste et de transformer chacun de nous en micro-fasciste.

Dialoguant avec Beyoncé et Baudrillard, Descola et Batman, le philosophe nous emporte dans des montagnes russes à travers la culture pop, la masculinité fasciste, l’hégémonie du pétrole et du béton, les parcs nationaux, les occupations de terres par des militants, pour nous emmener vers des mondes sans voitures et pleins de vie.

Mieux encore qu’un « livre noir » : l’analyse de notre relation toxique avec la bagnole

--> https://wildproject.org/livres/auto-destruction

°°°°°**{{{VROUM-VROUM ;ﾒ) AUTO-CRITIQUE>>> Laboratoire d’utopies mobiles - Workshop from 20-22 of August in the zad nddl

Along with friends from -h- I'm organizing a three-day workshop on post-fossil mobility, which will take place on 20 to 22 August in the nddl zad. Since mobility is intrinsically linked to the question of territory, I think it is vital so rethink mobility in a more joyful and splendid way in one of the largest occupied zones of Europe. Only outside of the capitalist neoliberal norm will a true transformation of mobility in its cohort with hetero-normative family ideology and fossil-capitalist desires be overcome. Find the invitation - in French - below!

Pendant trois jours,  °°°°°**{{{VROUM-VROUM ;ﾒ) AUTO-CRITIQUE>>>  invite à explorer ensemble les récits et les imaginaires de la mobilité.

Au cœur de la zad de Notre-Dame-des-Landes, shapé par des récits d'avions et de chicanes, cet évènement propose un espace de réflexion collective pour imaginer et développer des mondes où se déplacer et voyager joyeusement.

Le culte de la voiture individuelle, qu'elle soit à essence ou électrique, façonne les paysages, nos déplacements, nos rapports au temps, nos dépendances.

Nous pouvons ouvrir des brèches dans l’imaginaire routier et nous demander comment nous pourrions nous déplacer dans un monde post-capitaliste, post-pétrole, post-Musk : à quoi ressemblerait la mobilité selon des principes anarchistes et écoféministes lorsqu'on agit dans une perspective de lutte contre l'aéroport et son monde ? 

°°°°°**{{{VROUM-VROUM ;ﾒ) AUTO-CRITIQUE>>>

Laboratoire d’utopies mobiles pour 15 à 20 personnes,

Du 20-22 août 2025.

Ambazada, Zad de Notre-Dame-des-Landes

Possibilité de dormir sur place en dortoir dès le mardi soir.

Dortoir en mixité choisie possible.

Renseignements et inscription : vroum-vroum-boum@proton.me

https://vroum-vroum-boum.hotglue.me/

"Enabling rituals for the social production of feelings in times of ecological demise" @ ESRI 2025: "Down to Earth: Exploring Meaningful Ways of Living, Together”

I feel very honored to have been invited to the ESRI 2025 of the Mind&Life Europe Network as a speaker and faculty member. It's buddhist and contemplative nature is new to me and I am very excited - the very thoughtful programming looks extremely promising and this will surely not be just another conference with smoking heads and aching bodies - but a full spiritual, body&mind experience. I am very happy and privileged to take part in it and contribute with some socio-political contributions from my work both as an artist as well as theorist. Find my abstract below and the full program here

Enabling rituals for the social production of feelings in times of ecological demise

Input for ESRI 2025 “Down to Earth: Exploring Meaningful Ways of Being Together” by Kilian Jörg

The ecological crisis has made it into the popular conscience of mainstream discourses over that last decade, but it is today mostly associated with negative feelings such as despair, panic, grief or anxiety. In this input, I want to argue (with Shotwell 2026) that these feelings are not the “natural” result of living in times of planetary catastrophe, but are a cultural product of our hegemonial societal order.

Whereas other catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, black-outs or terrorist attacks often elicit feelings of strengthened solidarity and purpose (compare for example Solnit 2004), it is interesting to investigate why the planetary catastrophe has so far mostly individuated feelings that are of a despairing and atomizing nature: people who suffer from climate-anxiety mostly retreat into depressive inaction and the affective climate of panic leads to activist burn-out that is a real issue in movements.

Discussing examples of my own artistic practice of creating ritualistic spaces, I want to argue for the necessity of creating social and cultural institutions that promote the mutual production of enabling feelings. Ecology is not just a problem of the “natural” world, but equally one of our cultural values and infrastructures that need to be radically revised. The capitalist order based on private property, atomistic individuality, neo-colonial extractivism and heteronormative family constructions has to be de-naturalized in order to reveal it as the main reason for the production of negative feelings in the catastrophe that we need to overcome in order to become able to act. Examples from radical land reclamations and autonomous zones have in most recent times been the most fertile sites for this civilizatory task (compare Jordan & Fremeaux 2024, Gelderloos 2022).

I will talk through my experiences of the speculative-religion-turned-artistic-project Toxic Temple I have invented with Anna Lerchbaumer and will narrate about my most recent artistic project: the creation of the first national holiday devoted to an ecological topic. The Zwentendorf-Holiday will introduce you to a local specificity of Austrian ecological struggles and how they can be institutionalized to create new identities of being part of a community that refrains from the most ecocidal modern infrastructures as a virtue needed to survive and thrive on this planet.

the CARS WE LIKE at the Chemnitz European Cultural Captial 2025

The last two weeks I spent mostly in Chemnitz with the Futurama.Lab and Rainer Prohaska, Hannah Priemetzdorfer and three VW interns to build the CARS WE LIKE. As part of this years European Cultural Capital we were invited to update the rusty car cultures of Eastern Germany (and their politically unpleasant side-effects) with our material pool. Tying together our materials (that have already been used for boats, tea-houses etc.) with ratchets only, we built the true future of mobility in a fun and inclusive way.

The CARS WE LIKE will now be on display in the Garagen Campus of the European Cultural Capital Chemnitz until end of November. Find more information here: https://chemnitz2025.de/the-cars-we-like-chemnitz-25/

Also, in the last week of August, we will come back to our car (as part of the School of Garages) and navigate it through the streets of old Karl-Marx-Stadt (as was the name of the city in the GDR) and improving the car along the way. Join us, it will be a lot of fun! 

Also, here are some nice articles about our CAR WE LIKE:

https://www.freiepresse.de/chemnitz-kulturhauptstadt-2025/dem-spanngurt-gehoert-die-zukunft-des-fahrzeugbaus-chemnitzer-vw-azubis-machen-kunst-artikel13871016

https://chemnitz2025.de/aktuelles/detail/freiwilligenbericht-fahrbare-badewannen-rollendes-bett-im-garagencampus/#gallery-8368-2 

Autodestruct me, baby! @ Wiener Prater: Posthuman Social Club #5

Next Wednesday, the 9th of July, will be a very special kind of book-release event around my book on the car "Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe". Together with the wonderful team of the Posthuman Social Club, we will do a interactive reading, performance, audio-visual concert mega crash thingy at the Super Autodrom, the biggest bumper car place at the Viennese prater! This event you must not miss: 

Autodestruct me, baby!

Posthuman Social Club #5

Das Rein-Menschliche ist im Anthropozän schlicht nicht mehr genug. Während sich große Teile des Posthumanismus mit Quallen, Oktopussen und Flechten auseinandersetzen, wollen wir in dieser Ausgabe des Posthuman Social Club dem im Mainstream sicherlich größten Begehren nach dem Nicht-Menschlichen widmen: dem Begehren, einen fetten Schlitten sein Eigen zu nennen, dem Begehren, mit 200 Sachen über eine leergefegte Autobahn zu brausen, dem Begehren, sich in einer spektakulären Karambolage in einem hitzigen Feuerball den heißeren Materien anzugleichen, kurz: dem Begehren, eine Maschine zu werden. 

Am 9.7 um 19h laden wir zur fünften Ausgabe des Posthuman Social Club ins Super Autodrom am Wiener Prater. Sind die ewigen Stöße der Bumper Cars eine hilflose sexuelle Annäherung, ein kompulsiver Zerstörungszwang oder beides? Unter dem Titel "Autodestruct me, baby" werden wir transdisziplinär dieser Vereinigung von Tanatos und Eros im bewegten Selbst (=alt. gr. für "Automobil") nachgehen und den Umstand zelebrieren, dass man mit einem einfachen Menschenkörper in den meisten Bereichen den Menschenwelt ziemlich nackt und alt aussieht. Vielleicht ist das Anthropozän viel treffender ein "Automobilozän"? Die Rhythmen der fordistischen Produktion und Bewegung diktieren unsere Alltäglichkeit, unsere Musik, unsere Wirtschaft, unser Sexualleben, unser Imaginär und unsere Raumplanung. Musikalisch, performativ und theoretisch werden wir in "Autodestruct me, baby!" den unausweichlichen Rhythmen der Automobilgesellschaft nachgehen. Das Autodrom ist hierbei vielleicht ein zentraler Ort, an dem die ihr inhärente Zerstörungskraft rituell durch den ständig wiederholten Unfall erfahrbar gemacht wird. Durch die zwanghafte Wiederholen des ewigen Auf- und Abflauen des nicht weg zu denkenden Verkehrs werden wir dem Geruch unserer Endzeit spürbar machen und seine kraftstoffgetränkte Euphorie ungefiltert feiern. Macht Euch auf ein Schleudertrauma gefasst und nehmt Kopfhörer mit - bei dieser Ausgabe des Posthuman Social Clubs werdet ihr alle Bruchpiloten unserer planetaren Autodestruktion! 

Im Programm stehen: Interaktive Lesung aus "Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe" von Kilian Jörg

Kompositionen und Performances von:
andother stage:
Doina-Cezara Procopciuc
Isabella Forciniti
Samuel Toro Pérez
Kilian Jörg
Brigitte Wilfing
Jorge Sánchez-Chiong
Milan Loviška
Otto Krause

Produktion von andother stage mit Unterstützung der Stadt Wien Kultur (MA 7)

Ecological Reasonings @ Pretty Heady Stuff Podcast

I had the chance to talk with Scott Stoneman about my book "Ecological Reasonings" on his Podcast "Pretty Heady Stuff". Scott wrote such beautiful words on our conversation that I will post below. Find the Podcast wherever you get your podcasts or via youtube below. Also: if you have trouble getting the book because it is too expensive or your library doesn't have it - drop me an email and I will try to help!

"My conversation with Kilian was one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve ever done on writing and thinking. There’s something very refreshing about the way that Kilian thinks about the act of writing in the university. I’m not sure where it came from, but the more tactile and situated sort of theorizing he is able to do makes me want to spend more time with the texts that he looks at and really engage with the threads there.

Because he’s using them to weave together different concepts of liberation, with the ultimate goal, I think, of showing how to fight the imposition of one worldview on the planet. Kilian is fighting to defend other possible methods of reasoning. It might not be a magical solution for our ecological crisis, but I found that talking to Kilian about the ideas in Ecological Reasonings opened up approaches to problems like what to do about Donald Trump or artificial intelligence or our attachment to the car as a convenience we can’t live without, regardless of what it does to us.

One of the wonderful things about his book is that it is using this idea of the “resilience of Reason” to deconstruct and decompose the current technocratic world order — he’s saying that there is a continuum between Trump, the narrowing of political possibilities, and Monorationalism.

What he wants is a world where we are actively “nourishing ground for many other voices to be heard.” Where we are consciously worrying about and destabilizing the relationship between the things we consider active, aggressive and ambitious, and the things we consider passive, wasteful and directionless."

Von verstrahlten Katzen bis zum Zwentendorf-Feiertag

One of the reoccuring topics I keep coming back to in both my artistic as well as theoretical work is that of nuclear power, radiation and the unfathomable long-durationality of radioactive toxicity. I am very happy to bring the different threads and approaches I have developed over the years together in one Workshop at Kunstuni Linz next Tuesday.

24. Juni 2025, 14.00 bis 16.00 Uhr Kunstuniversität Linz, Expostmusik, Domgasse 1

Gastvortrag von Kilian Jörg in der Abteilung Kulturwissenschaften.

Künstler*in und Philosoph*in Kilian Jörg führt uns in das Forschungsfeld der Atomsemiotik ein, das obskur ist, aber nach wie vor relevante Gedankenexperimente anstellt. Er spricht ausgehend von eigenen Projekten über den Zusammenhang zwischen Atom und Anthropozän und ruft uns dazu auf, einen neuen Feiertag auszurufen.

--> More info here <--