Two things related to our upcoming Toxic Temple MESS at donaufestival 2023:
Today I have seen the perhaps most purest place of Nature I have ever met. The stones were made of plastic, the trees had thermostats and the artificial plants where sprayed with nutrients for the animal inhabitants.
Nature is of course not what you are taught in school or by advertisement. Nature is the perhaps most fiendish concept ever invented to exploit peoples and environments with. Nature is a central node of a colonialist and extractivist European mind-set – it is perhaps its most well-disguised patriarchal God.
The project LANDEN is a new, trans-discipinary and artistic research format based at im_flieger and currently Anita Kaya, Johanna Nielson, Laura Vilar Dolç, Sabrina Rosina and myself are a part of it. We have only started and do not yet have a web presence. But stay tuned, more will come soon for this exciting new project. I am very much looking forward to it.
Below you can find a poem I wrote in this temple of slow violence, entitled
„I think the butterflies hate Nature“
Life on Mars
after the apocalypse
no red sands
but grey smog outside
plants suck
think the butterflies
seek shelter on smooth shapes
of culture
to die, sometime
in this hypernature
most need transcendent portals
to connect
with an idea of everywhere
drops of water from above
from glass surface to glass surface
in enclosed space
is there a longing for solitude
in the unreal waterfalls
with children climbing plastic trees
teaching love for Nature
with hollow sounds
but looking real
Ikea's ideal of home
with life-long warranty
for the involuntarily reproduced
the violence of keeping alive
of not letting die
what we assumed god's land
his old smells so fiercely nice
acid layering the nostrils
sealing them with beauty
that hurts like forced adaption
to the militarily enforced paradise
free from bark beetles and weeds
"let us die!"
the last inhabitants demand
ultimate rallying cry
unheard of by smart ones
please keep the doors shut
to this altar of invisible violence
seek shelter on the one dirty leaf
drown me in electric cascades
i like the challenge
like the touch of death
that my caretakers forbid
ignoring us when we profess
hatred for the natural habitat
all animals unite against it
and yet no one who counts will hear
stay there, be quiet and let us care for you
enjoying pain-free agony
the last most stubborn god
is the former anti-christ
the possessor of women and folk
where all lines of flight eventually meet
the Church of Nature
is the most devouring machine.
As part of our so far very well received (from what our Serbian friends tell us about their newspapers) exhibition DOWNSTREAM #1, I will give a workshop at and around KC Grad tomorrow. Find the description below!
Reeking Environments – Senso-Poetical Experiments with Undoing Nature
What does “Nature” say if it is asked? How many would answer? Might a dance be the most apt form of conversation? In this workshop we will collectively develop strategies to sensually engage with our surrounding environments and reek out what myriads of smells and sounds, stenches and noises this big modern thing called “Nature” is made of and what words and movements it makes us emit. The workshop will be held in English (and German, if desired), but the participants can write and speak in whatever language they feel most comfortable with.
It usually isn't my medium of choice, but it it my sacred duty to inform you that we of the Toxic Temple had a holy apparition on Instagram. In the weeks from now until the festival, we will produce a series of religious propaganda which will be a lot of fun - we are very much looking forward to the festival! Follow us on Instagram until then!
