NEUES BUCH: "Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe - Utopische Auswege aus der autodestruktiven Vernunft"

Nun ist es endlich erschienen! Mit großer Freude kann ich teilen, dass das Buch "Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe - utopische Auswege aus der autodestruktiven Vernunft" seit Freitag käuflich zu erwerben ist. Es lässt sich hier online oder - noch besser in Euren Lieblingsbuchladen um die Ecke bestellen! Im November und Dezember stehen Buchpräsentationen in Wien, Berlin und Hamburg an - wenn Ihr noch weitere Ideen für Vorstellungen habt, kontaktiert mich gerne!

Das Buch ist viel mehr als eine weitere Kritik des KFZs - denn in ihm unternehme ich eine philosophische Nabelschau unserer manisch gegen die Wand fahrenden Gesellschaftsmaschine und untersuche, wie wir alle libidinös, kulturell und wirtschaftlich an ihrem Autodestruktionskurs hängen. Das Problem am Auto ist demnach dann nicht nur, dass es die Umwelt verschmutzt, sondern dass es die Natur im modernen Sinne produziert. Durch Prothesen wie das Auto wurde Natur als der menschlichen Kultur äußerlichen Kulturgut für alle erfahrbar. Natur ist dann das, wo wir am Wochenende zum entspannen hinfahren und das, aus dem die für diese Reise benötigten Ressourcen extrahiert werden. Die Hirngespinste Descartes' wurden durch das Auto materielle Praxis all derjenigen, die am modernen Guten Leben teilnehmen wollen. Es ist der komfortable Schutzraum, der uns an die ökologische Katastrophe libidinös bindet.

--> Link zum Buch

“Living Ecological Politics”: Thinking with ZADisme @ Climate Commons, Ottawa

Together with Alexis Shotwell, I will have a more in-depth discussion of ZADism and what we can learn from it in eco-politics on Tuesday, the 1st of October as part of the Climate Commons-Research group in Ottawa.

“Living Ecological Politics”: Thinking with ZADisme

With Austrian activist & writer Kilian Jörg and Carleton prof. Alexis Shotwell

Tuesday October 1, 2024: 4 – 5:00 p.m.

Dunton Tower, Room 2017

“ZAD,” or “zone à defender,” has entered the European lexicon as a general term for direct collective action against large-scale development projects that would damage the environment. First coming into prominence in the collective opposition to airport construction in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, the approach and tactic has spread widely.

In this conversation, visiting Austrian activist and writer Kilian Jörg will discuss the practice and theory of the ZAD. Then they’ll be joined by Alexis Shotwell for a conversation about how zadiste praxis offers some interesting provocations for those of us interested in direct action for the environment in Canadian contexts.

In their shared writing, Kilian and Alexis are considering the concrete world-building exemplified in the ZAD as a model for how to be with land differently.  If we think of our values as situated, place-based, as growing out of the earth and the places we live, what forms of collective care and practice would we need to create? We are interested in how zadism practices allow us to become differentiated, non-universal, specific, particular, while at the same time collective and inherently political. Can proliferating autonomous relations to territory, in turn, contribute to pluralizing and proliferating multiple ways to be alive together?

Sponsored by the Carleton Climate Commons & the Punch Up Collective

Take in the Film Screening of a film about Zadiste direct action followed by Discussion with Kilian

“An Island and One Night” (Une Ile et Une Nuit)

Oct. 1, 6:30-9:00 p.m.

St. Paul’s University, Social Innovation Workshop, 195 Clegg St.

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Liberating land from ecocide: “An Island and One Night” - Talk & Screening @ Social Innovation Center, Ottawa, 1st of Oct 24

As part of my tour through North America I will give a talk about ZADism and screen the film "Une Ile et une nuit" at the Social Innovation Center in Ottawa on the 1st of October. Find more info and links below. Thanks to the Punch Up Collective for the invitation!

 “ZAD,” or “zone à defender,” has entered the European lexicon as a general term for militant direct collective action against large-scale development projects. First coming into prominence in the collective opposition airport construction in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, (still the largest self-organized autonomous zone in Europe) the approach and tactic has spread widely. To be a “zadiste” is defined in the Le Petit Robert dictionary as “a militant occupying a ZAD to oppose a proposed development that would damage the environment.” In the Canadian context, we know relatively little about these concrete fights or the conceptual formation of this idea. Come hear from a visiting European radical who has spent time on many ZADs over the last years and will share insights and an autonomously created film illuminating this tendency.

What does life feel like in zones liberated from ecocidal capitalism? Will its residents – moved together by war and climate change – develop a kind of relation with the land they live on that simply abandons the bureaucratic methods of the last “green capitalists”? Residents of the Quartier Libre des Lentillières in Dijon, one of the most famous occupied zones in France, have produced an auto-fictional cinematic firework in a self-managed and collective manner, which makes the desire for radical-ecological change sensually comprehensible. It gives a magnificent insight into current radical French activist scenes around the strategy of the ZAD and can serve as a generous starting point for a trans-Atlantic discussion on how liberatory strategies of reclaiming territory can look and feel like in a world tainted by settler-colonialism, fascism and other toxic forms of exclusion.

The film An Island and One Night (“Une Ile et une nuit”) has screened widely in the European context, but is normally only shown when one of the activists from Lentillieres is with it. Activist/artist Kilian Jörg will be visiting North America for two months in the Fall of 2024, and was invited by the group who made the film to share it with us. Ottawa is one of the very few screening sites in North America!

https://www.punchupcollective.org/reo-calendar/liberating-land-from-ecocide-an-island-and-one-night-une-ile-et-une-nuit/

https://www.facebook.com/events/902794978333482/

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Addition: 

I will roughly give the same talk & screening already on the 27th in Kingston, Ontario. Find more info here.

"An Ecology of Moralizing" - Talk at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada - 26/09/24

The main reason I am in North-America is - thanks to the kind funding of Carleton University and the Futurama.Lab - to research on Alexis Shotwell's and current research project "An Ecology of Moralizing". We are really excited - and sometimes nervous - about it and will be sharing our thoughts on this at various places in North-America in the next weeks. The first public one is on the 26th of September at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.  Find more info below and if you are around, we are very curious to hear your critical remarks and thoughts - both of us wouldn't have believed a year ago that we would once work on a positive concept of moralizing...but we really think we discovered a blind-spot in our thinking that is revealing and productive to current ethico-political problems of discourse.

--> link to the lecture

"Une Ile et une nuit"-screening and talk about "ZAD Partout" @ L'Achoppe, Montreal 21.9

I am very honored that the collective of the Pirates de Lentillières has entrusted me with becoming some kind of ambassador of their unique film "Une Ile et une nuit" in North-America (usually they only show it with their personal presence). I will be showing the film - accompanied by a little input on the political pholosophy of "ZAD Partout" and it's political background in France - in Montreal, Ottawa and Kingston (and perhaps Chicago - tbc). I have written before how incredibly important I find this film. For me it is the best document I know that can transpose the somatic joy of rebellion and reclaiming territory behind ZADism that gives me so much political hope and horizon in these otherwise dark times. 

The Montreal-screening will be held at the Centre Social l'Achoppe and you can find more info about them on the Facebook page and post about the event. 

What does life feel like in zones liberated from ecocidal capitalism? Will its residents - moved together by war and climate change - develop a kind of relation with the land they live on that simply abandons the bureaucratic methods of the last "green capitalists"? Residents of the Quartier Libre des Lentillières in Dijon, one of the most famous occupied zones in France, have produced an auto-fictional cinematic firework in a self-managed and collective manner, which makes the desire for radical-ecological change sensually comprehensible. It gives a magnificent insight into current radical French activist scenes around the strategy of the ZAD and can serve as a generous starting point for a trans-Atlantic discussion on how liberatory strategies of reclaiming territory can look and feel like in a world tainted by settler-colonialism, fascism and other toxic forms of exclusion.

About the film: An Island and One Night (“Une Ile et une nuit”) is a fictional film made collectively over the past two years by the residents and users of the Quartier Libre des Lentillères, a self-organized area on the last remaining market garden land in the city of Dijon. These 8 hectares have been occupied and recultivated since 2010, in resistance to a concrete "ecocity" project that still threatens them today. In the middle of the city, these fallow spaces and abandoned houses have been transformed into a self-managed, multi-purpose district, where collective housing, market gardening, self-construction, festive and cultural events, etc. intermingle. It's a place of struggle and solidarity of all kinds, as well as a veritable reserve of biodiversity.
https://www.piratesdeslentilleres.net/en

"The Car as Everyday Catastrophe" - 19.9 @ Concordia University, Montreal

For the first time in a long time I hoped a plane (see here for some intimate thoughts on that) and am now on the North-American continent for the next two months. I will give plenty of talks, presentations and screenings at various places. The first of which are in Montreal - where I will give a talk titled "The Car as Everyday Catastrophe" on the 19th of September at the CISSC of Concordia University:

--> Find all the info here <--