DAS AUTO UND DIE ÖKOLOGISCHE KATASTROPHE - Preorder now!

 

My book on the car has just made it online with a preliminary cover and the first information. It will be released in September 2024 and I can tell you, it will be a blast. You can apparently already preorder it via Thalia or any other bookshop. I can't wait until this is finally out :)

Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe

Utopische Auswege aus der autodestruktiven Vernunft

Kaum etwas prägt die moderne Konsumgesellschaft so sehr wie das KFZ – Grund genug, unsere toxische Liebesbeziehung zu ihm zu analysieren und Auswege aus der planetaren Autodestruktion aufzuzeigen. Jenseits von Klimabilanzen und moralischen Vorwürfen unternimmt Kilian Jörg eine letzte Spritztour durch einbetonierte Vorstellungen von »Freiheit«, »Normalität«, »Vernunft« und »Natur«, die den Ökozid als alternativlos erscheinen lassen. Mithilfe von Beyoncé, Lynch und Le Guin begibt er sich auf eine Achterbahnfahrt durch Popkultur, faschistische Männlichkeit, Erdöl, Nationalparks, aktivistische Landbesetzungen und die Tugenden der Autofetischist*innen, um zu einer Utopie autofreier Welten aufzurufen.

--> mehr Info auf der Verlagshomepage

To those impatient to read it but not able to understand German, maybe now is the time that a translation into French is already being done right now and I am currently in negotiations about an English translation as well....

"Building Hope at the Edge of the Abyss" at Posthuman Social Club @ AIL, 23.4.2024

I have managed to bring the movie about Isabelle Stengers, "Building Hope at the Edge of the Abyss", to Vienna! Together with the Posthuman Social Club we will devote an entire evening to the vast body of thought of my favorite philosopher and teacher. I will be giving a short introduction to Isabelle Stenger's body of work and after the film screening I will host a "Nachbefühlung" (not "Nachbesprechung") of the film with Brigitte Wilfing and Samuel Toro Pérez titled "Slowing down in times of catastrophe".

 The Posthuman Social Club "Isabelle Stengers edition" will take place on the 23.4.2024 at AIL Vienna. Find more info here.

This 3rd edition of the ‹posthuman social club› is devoted to the philosopher Isabelle Stengers. We host the Austrian premiere of her bio-pic "Isabelle Stengers - Building Hope on the Edge of the Abyss", by Fabrizzio Terranova and are curating a program of performance, music, lecture and somatic experience around her' vast body of thought.
Isabelle Stengers is one of the leading influences not only for "post-humanist" discourses and practices, but for ecologically minded philosophy in general. Her decade-long work on sciences, politics and ecology has influenced many prominent scholars such as Donna Haraway or Bruno Latour,

With the 'posthuman social club' we want to think outside of the box of what has been labeled “the human realm of Reason” and develop new regimes of perception, sensuality and corporeality that can with care and afterthought lead us the way away from our humanist, modern form of making and thinking the world to more inclusive ways of sharing many worlds with other critters.
In the permeation of choreography and composition, with club culture, philosophy, ecology and media art we invite speculation of what a post-human social – or even a post-human society – could actually mean. We cannot overcome the euro- and anthropocentric, often misogynistic and racist tendencies of the „Enlightenment“ tradition overnight. The 'posthuman social clubs' are a sensual attunement, cultivation, celebration, exultation, differentiation and problematisation of these [post-human] desires.

SUSTAINABILITY - WHAT'S THE POINT OF ART?

Dear friends and colleagues in Vienna,

together with my colleagues from the Futurama.Lab, Sabrina Rosina and Rainer Prohaska, I am giving a course at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in which we will investigate the ZAD, bolo'bolo and other radical ecological endeavors and their implication for ecological art practices. The course is open to all and we will read and discuss some fine texts together in a collective and enabling manner. This is not for students only, but for finding a common politco-aesthetical-utopian ground which is why I took the liberty to invite you all in this post.

So if you want to study more intensely with us & see where I currently see the most potential for novel ecological utopianisms, please join us at the course "Sustainability - What's the point of art?". Find all the details below and don't hesitate to ask more questions.

All the best,
Kilian

SUSTAINABILITY - WHAT'S THE POINT OF ART?
A worshop at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Dear fellow artists, friends, colleagues, activists, environmentalists ...

We warmly invite you to this special lecture series hosted at the Academy of Fine Arts. In six sessions (three blocks of 2 modules) we will develop options and strategies within art projects as alternatives to a currently useless political and systemic approach. We demonstrate how to enable and possibly engage through artistic endeavors within the messiness of the now, how to nourish hope, humour and resilience and of coursehow to relate all this to current scientific developments in sustainable solutions.

We will investigate the cultural potential of the ZAD and bolo'bolo and will speculate about novel forms of radically ecological utopias and how to culturally produce them in a sustainable way.

Come along and journey with us through texts we will read and discuss together during lectures - from science-fiction to scientific papers and finally to practical realisations.

This course also serves as inspiration to further develop your own project(s) to be realized within the practical course of the following winter semester, forming a holistic workshop over the span of the year.

SUSTAINABILITY - WHAT'S THE POINT OF ART?

WORSHOP FACTS

LECTURERS: Rainer Prohaska (artist, art entrepreneur) together with Sabrina Rosina (ecologist, artist) & Kilian Jörg (philospher, artist)

WHEN & WERE:

16./17. April (3 - 6 pm) - Anatomiesaal, Academy of Fine Arts, Schillerplatz

14./15. May (3 - 6 pm) - TBA

4./5. June (3 - 6 pm) - TBA

Register via this link 

T.A.R. – Temporary Autonomous Region @Klimabiennale Wien

Together with the Futurama.Lab we are trying to learn from the ZAD NDDL and other radical-ecological practices for cultural production. For this reason, we have created a "Temporary Autonomous Region" at the Nord-West-Bahnhof-Gelände of the Klimabiennale (honestly as green-washed and extractivist an undertaking you can imagine under such a title...but we are trying to make the best out of it in our little zone) in which we will inhabit the space in manifold ways following Rainer Prohaskas Pool-principle. I am also curating a little discourse program around the topic in June of which I will inform you at a later stage. 

T.A.R. – Temporary Autonomous Region

T.A.R. ist eine Intervention, die am Gelände des Nordwestbahnhofs auf der begrünten Insel im Rahmen der KLIMA BIENNALE WIEN stattfindet. Eine ökologische Transformation erfordert die kunstvolle Schaffung alternativer Welten als Fluchtzonen aus der herrschenden, ökologisch katastrophalen Ordnung. Das FUTURAMA LAB baut einen experimentellen autonomen Lebensraum, der nicht nur den menschlichen Besucher*innen, sondern auch andere diversen Stadt-Bewohner*innen gewidmet ist. Ein Ort, in dem sich neue Werte, Rechte und Prioritäten entfalten können, aber auch ein Ruheraum für Festivalbesucher*innen, was für die Rolle einer "T.A.R." essentiell ist.

Begleitet wird diese reale Intervention von einem Diskursprogramm, bei dem die praktisch vorgelebten Konzepte theoretisch reflektiert und weitergedacht werden.

You can't really find us on the Klimabiennale's homepage (you can if you are extremely patient and good at mazes) but you can find us physically here. 

WHICH DANCES or how to imagine a future beyond extraction @Volkskundemuseum

I am very happy to join my long-time collaborator Sabina Holzer in her workshop week about Aluminum and Extractivism in Volkskunde Museum from 9th-14th of April. We have managed to invite my friend Esther Figueroa's film "Fly me to the Moon" and will host a somatic and theoretical workshop on the following day. We will think about possible futures beyond extractivism in which I will talk a little about my current researches about Zadism and radical activist cosmologies. 

--> https://www.volkskundemuseum.at/which_dances_2024

Zischende Klänge, funkelnde Lichter und schwerelose Beweglichkeit wollen sich der Schönheit des Materials, der Intelligenz des Bodens und der Erde, aus der es kommt, widmen. Es heißt ja, Metall habe kein Gedächtnis. Wir fragen, was würde uns Aluminium erzählen, wenn es eines hätte? Würden wir erfahren, dass der Bauxitabbau durch seine Auswirkungen auf Luft- und Wasserqualität, auf die Landwirtschaft und die Ökologie das Leben und die Lebensgrundlage der umliegenden Gemeinden beeinträchtigt? Würde es uns über die Zerstörung der letzten verbliebenen Naturgebiete in abgelegenen Teilen der Welt informieren? Würde es uns fragen, warum gleichzeitig riesige Mengen an Energie für die Herstellung eines Metalls verbraucht werden, das nur einigen Volkswirtschaften Wachstum und Modernisierung ermöglicht, und diese somit noch mehr Energie und Ressourcen erfordern? Würde es uns fragen, ob wir uns einen nachhaltigen Konsum überhaupt vorstellen können? Weil es eigentlich bedeutet, ein anderes Verständnis von Glück und Erfüllung entwickeln zu können, um so unserem Zusammenleben eine andere Richtung zu geben?

The CARS WE LIKE - some impressions from the workshop

Since it was such a blast, I want to already share with you some images of the first two days (!) of the five-day workshop of the Futurama.Lab by Rainer Prohaska and myself of last week. They form a really nice photo-story and can spark your imagination of how far we actually got on day 5, of which I am still waiting for the photos. Enjoy & see you on the streets soon!

 Photos by Rainer Prohaska. More info on the workshop see here.

"An Ecology of Morals" - Salon Futur #2 with Alexis Shotwell - 19.3 18:30

The March-edition of the now monthly "Salon Futur" by the Futurama.Lab will host a special treat: Alexis Shotwell and me will be presenting our emerging collaborative research entitled "An Ecology of Morals". The presentation will take place on the 19th of March, 18:30-20:30 at the Bildraum Studio of Ankerbrotfabrik, Absberggasse 27, 1100 Vienna. Find more information below and I am really looking forward to see you there!

"SALON FUTUR"

Das FUTURAMA LAB 
lädt herzlichst in den "SALON FUTUR" zum Thema
"An Ecology of Morals"


GAST: Alexis Shotwell 
HOST: Kilian Jörg & Sabrina Rosina
LOCATION: Bildraum Studio, Ankerbrotfabrik, Absberggasse 27, 1100 Wien 
DATE: Tuesday, 19th of March, 18:30-20:30

This edition of "SALON FUTUR" invites you to explore the tricky moral conundrum that environmental acting and thinking is encompassed with. Why, in a time were everybody feels the need to change, do we have such a hard time to ethically demand that change? Do we fear to be „moralizing“ more than to be continuing the ecocidal status quo?

Our invited guest will be the Canadian philosopher and sociologist Alexis Shotwell who will present their current collaborative book-project with Salon Futur-host Kilian Jörg. „An Ecology of Morals“ tries to stir clear of predominant fears of individualizing, woke-ness and cancel culture by regarding morals as a ecological practice. We seek to undo the little reflected dualism between “ethics” and “morals” by understanding morality as a oikos-based practice that should much rather be regarded as a collective environmental politics than an individualized obligation.

Since this collaborative research is at an early stage, Alexis and Kilian will be particularly curious to hear your stories on the matter. What are your experiences with addressing issues that everybody seems to agree on, but still nobody acts on? Do you sometimes avoid questioning your friends and colleagues for what you regard to be ecocidal behavior in spite of your desire to do so? We are particularly interested in your stories and would love to discuss them within the theoretical framework we will present in this Salon Futur. See you there, your FUTURAMA LAB-team

LINKS:
http://futurama-lab.org/salon.html
https://www.bildrecht.at/bildraum/bildraum-studio/rainer-prohaska-esistenza-integrale/
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rAC17m8co1giGYMq6

ABOUT: In the format "SALON FUTUR" experts are invited every month to enter into an open and transdisciplinary dialogue with FUTURAMA LAB participants and guests on a key topic. The "SALON FUTUR" is a format of the "FUTURAMA DAYS".

The FUTURAMA LAB and the "FUTURAMA DAYS 2024" event series are kindly supported by

Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport . BMKOES
Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien . MA 7
YPSOMED AG 
BILDRAUM STUDIO, BILDRECHT GmbH

Interview on the CARS WE LIKE & Full Programm online

I gave an interview about the CARS WE LIKE for the online presence of AIL. In it I talk about the project with the Futurama.Lab as well es about some thesis of my upcoming book on the topic. 

You can read it here in English, and here in German.

Furthermore, the detailed program of the symposium is now also online here.

Salon Futur - "Zukunft der Nacht" - 16.2.2024, 17-18:30

Als Teil des weiterhin wachsenden Futurama.Labs werden wir ab diesem Monat einen Salon zu einschlägigen Themen halten. Diesen Freitag geht es los mit der "Zukunft der Nacht". Mehr Info unten und ich freue mich auf Euer kommen! 

"SALON FUTUR"

Das FUTURAMA LAB 
lädt herzlichst in den "SALON FUTUR" zum Thema
"Zukunft der Nacht"

GAST: Dr. Günther Wuchterl HOST: Sabrina Rosina & Kilian Jörg
LOCATION: Bildraum Studio, Ankerbrotfabrik, Absberggasse 27, 1100 Wien
TERMIN: Freitag, 16. Februar, 17:00-18:30

Diese Ausgabe des "SALON FUTUR" widmet sich dem Thema der Nacht, der An- bzw. Abwesenheit von Licht und was das für menschliche und nicht-menschliche Akteur*Innen bedeuten kann. 

Als Experte eingeladen ist Dr. Günther Wuchterl, dessen Hauptarbeitsgebiet die Fluiddynamik der Stern- und Planetenentstehung ist. Er studierte technische Physik und technische Mathematik an der TU Wien sowie Astronomie, Philosophie und Zoologie an der Universität Wien. Außerdem ist er Vorsitzender der Österreich-Sektion der International "Dark Sky Association" zum Schutz der nächtlichen Umwelt. Dr. Günther Wuchterl wird gemeinsam mit der Ökologin und Künstlerin Sabrina Rosina in die Untiefen der sogenannten Lichtverschmutzung abtauchen. Künstler*in und Philosoph*in Kilian Jörg bedient sich extra einer schwachen Beleuchtung, um beim sichtbar Machen von sozialwissenschaftlichen Seiten der Rückzugsorte der Nacht niemanden zu verschrecken. Also, Kerzen und Taschenlampen einpacken, und macht es Euch gemütlich im "SALON FUTUR" zum Thema "Zukunft der Nacht".

Bis bald, Euer Team des FUTURAMA LAB

LINKS: 

http://futurama-lab.org/salon.html 
https://www.bildrecht.at/bildraum/bildraum-studio/rainer-prohaska-esistenza-integrale/
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rAC17m8co1giGYMq6  

ABOUT: In dem Diskursformat "SALON FUTUR" werden monatlich Expert*Innen geladen um mit Akteur*innen des FUTURAMA LAB zu einem Schwerpunktthema in den offenen und transdisziplinären Dialog zu treten. Der "SALON FUTUR" ist ein Format der "FUTURAMA DAYS".  

Das FUTURAMA LAB und die Veranstaltungsserie "FUTURAMA DAYS 2024" wird freundlicherweise unterstützt von: Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport . BMKOES Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien . MA 7 YPSOMED AG BILDRAUM STUDIO, BILDRECHT GmbH

The (fascist) locking-in of European Car Cultures - talk at KAOS Berlin available via podcast and radio (in German)

Hätte sich das Auto ohne Faschismus jemals so dominant in Europa durchsetzen können? Wann wurde es normal, den öffentlichen urbanen Raum als von täglicher Todesgefahr geprägt zu verstehen? Warum fuhr Kaiser Wilhelm schon 1906 ein Elektro-Auto?
Das Zentrum Für Demokratie Treptow-Köpenick und KAOS Berlin hat einen Podcast von meinem Talk letzten November hochgeladen, in dem ich einige Punkte der gewaltvollen Anfangsgeschichte des Autos erzähle. 

My talk about the (fascist) history of the locking-in of car cultures from November during the panel "Ist eine autofreie Stadt möglich oder eine Spinnerei?" at KAOS Berlin has been aired on the radio and is also available as a podcast of the Zentrum für Demokratie here (in German).

Some Images I used in the presentation (that isn't available in the podcast)

Kaiser Wilhelm in an electric car in front of Berlin's Marienkirche in 1906

The ideal of German Nature & it's fascist taming by means of the Autobahnen

The French railway-system in the 1930ies and today

"The entanglement of ‘wilderness’ and car infrastructure on the Pasterze glacier" @ This Is Not A Glacier, AIL 26.1.2024

Friday next week I will be speaking about a research I have started together with Guus Diepenmaat, Victor Kössl and Sandra Sieczkowski this year (a short-film is in the making about this. The title of my presentation will be "The entanglement of ‘wilderness’ and car infrastructure on the Pasterze glacier" and will be part of a Panel with the wonderful title "Guilt-tripping on the loss of Wilderness". Below you can find the abstract of both my talk and the symposium in general as well as all the necessary info. 

National Parks as zones for consuming Nature? The entanglement of the car with our love for the high peaks examined through the lens of the Glocknerhochalpenstraße

The Glocknerhochalpenstraße is Austria’s perhaps most famous street, leading directly to the countries biggest glacier, the Pasterze. Right next to its melting glory, you can find a 5-story parking house and an exhibition of racing cars. If you drive a bit further up the road that leads through the core protection area of Central Europe’s biggest National Park, you can drink an overpriced coffee at the Porsche Café and chat with car enthusiasts of all countries, who came here for a day ride to enjoy nature. The tarmac of the entire street is full of tyre tracks from the frequent drift races.

 In this input presentation of an ongoing research, I want to look behind the apparent contradictions of such Nature Protection zones to look for their hidden entanglements. Rather then regarding the car as “bad for Nature”, I regard it as a machine that produces Nature for us as something to be consumed. By examining the history of the development of National Parks, their expropriation of indigenous tribes and their agenda of “protection of Nature”, I want to raise questions for an environmentalism of the future and a re-diversification of what it means to be human. The challenge for National Parks of the catastrophic future might turn out to again disentangle humans from their self-identification with cars.

This Is Not a Glacier

Thickening Description for Thinning Ice 

26 Jan 2024, 15:00 

Glaciers are often portrayed as icons of global warming because of their physical loss through melting and the loss of climate records stored in glacial ice. This is an attempt at a more multifaceted, heterogenous and thicker description of a glacier, beyond its current reductive stereotype. 

--> Web presence 

 

(The Photos are screenshots from the film-project mentioned above) 

Lecture & Panels at nacht:leben, Innsbruck - 26.1

I have been invited to "nacht:leben", a meeting and conference of club comissions in Innsbruck to talk about my 2018 book "Die Clubmaschine" (co-written with Jorinde Schulz) and how my relation to it and club culture in general changed in the last years of multiple crises and further precarisation of life-worlds. On the 26.1, I will be discussing this and other topics with the wonderful David Prieth and I can't wait for it!
 

--> https://www.pmk.or.at/events/nachtleben-club-kultur-konferenz 

The CARS WE LIKE - Thinking and Enacting Radical Change in Mobility - Symposium from 4th to 8th of March 2024 at AIL Vienna

As a follow-up to the 2022 conference exhaust(ed) entanglements at FU Berlin, I will be organizing a 5-day symposium & workshop titled "The CARS WE LIKE - Thinking and Enacting Radical Change in Mobility" from the 4th to the 8th of March 2024 at the AIL of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In collaboration with the Futurama.Lab, we have invited an amazing array of speakers (Institut Momentum Paris (Agnes Sinai), Kilian Jörg, La Deroute des Routes (Enora Chopard), Marta Navaridas, Rainer Prohaska, Sand im Getriebe (Anna Raabe), Luc
Schuiten, Gretchen Sorin, Arthur Summereder, System Change not Climate Change (Mira Kapfinger), Verkehrswende Österreich, Markus Wissen, Conny Zenk) and will have an exciting 5-day building workshop for the CARS WE LIKE.

Mobility is one of the major challenges of global ecological transformation and yet our ideas for innovation seem to be very limited and one-sided – especially when it comes to automobility. In this transdisciplinary workshop and symposium, we will work towards overcoming this dead zone of imagination by prefiguring better worlds, beyond an auto-centered paradigm, for the many flourishing worlds of the future.

How can mobility become a source of inspiration in a devastated global society that mostly feels it has to or is obligated to move (to work, to the supermarket, etc.) and tends to forget the joys of doing so voluntarily and as a larger-than human practice?

The environment must no longer be adapted to the car, but the car to the environment is the leading motto of this 5-day-workshop led by the Futurama.Lab. It will focus on introducing plurality and fun to the gray monotony of mundane traffic jams. Participants will be able to build dada-esque, modular forms of radically ecological cars using recycled materials, found objects and bike waste.

The accompanying symposium seeks to go beyond mere critique by combining theory and practice in a novel way. Evening lectures, panels and screenings will investigate radical utopias of car-free worlds, the need to devise new safe spaces beyond the car, the car as a crucial nexus in the consumer-capitalist system and how the arts can take part in this transformation. International experts and visionaries whose perspectives are almost unknown in the German-speaking sphere will be introduced to stimulate a dynamic discourse for the radical change we need.

You can sign up for the 5-day-workshop (and see some more infos) here.

More Info on the detailed program etc. will follow shortly!