CARS WE LIKE Part 2 @ Chemnitz, 3000 Garagen

After our building phase in late June & early July we from the FuturamaLab are on our way back to Chemnitz to ride around town with our CAR(s) WE LIKE as part of the 3000 Garagen Project of the European Cultural Capital Initiative. We are very much looking forwad to this collaboration with the ConstuctLab! 

 

THE CARS WE LIKE

A humorous exploration of the future of the car

THE CARS WE LIKE is an art project that re-uses and re-purposes materials to construct vehicles through a variety of building techniques. Situated at the crossroads of art, technology, and urbanism, these mobile objects playfully undermine prevailing conventional concepts of urban mobility. Appearing in traffic as absurd and dadaistic vehicles, they humorously question the ways we move through our cities.

During a live building performance from June 28 to July 5, 2025, a human-powered truck was created with the collaboration of Michelle Grünberg, Carlos Kämpfe, and Tim Ellinger (trainees from the VW plant Chemnitz).

As part of THE SCHOOL OF GARAGE* (August 24–31, 2025), this truck will be technically refined together with workshop participants to take on diverse logistical tasks. In a series of street interventions, goods, metaphors, people, and ideas will be transported between the nine garages, creating a functional connection between these temporary studios and their artists.

The workshop will be accompanied by the collective -h- of the Cellule d'Action Rituelle (Cell for Ritual Action) of the ZAD NDDL - the biggest occupied zone in Europe. They will help us reflect on the relation of territoriality, capitalism and mobility and devise queer-ritualistic approaches with us that we will present on the 30th of August.

Our vehicle will be on display again in the Garagen Campus of the European Cultural Capital Chemnitz 2025 from September until end of November.



A project by FUTURAMA°LAB for “Chemnitz 2025 . European Capital of Culture”
Part of “THE SCHOOL OF GARAGE” by “Constructlab.Berlin” & “#3000Garages”

Artists: Kilian Jörg . Hanna Priemetzhofer . Rainer Prohaska
Format: Workshop . Exhibition . Performance
Duration Workshop & Performance: 25.–30.08.2025
Duration Exhibition: 28.06.–29.11.2025

Location: Garagen Campus . Zwickauer Str. 164 . 09116 Chemnitz . DE


PROGRAM “THE CARS WE LIKE” @ Garagen Campus
25.–30.08. Daily: THE CARS WE LIKE . Activities
25.08. 18:00 Public Keynotes
30.08. 16:30 Public Presentations . Guests: ”collective -h-”
28.06.–29.11.2025 Part of #3000-Garages – The Exhibition

Part of the FUTURAMA°DAYS 2025




SUPPORTED BY

Austrian Cultural Forum Berlin
Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs
Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport
European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025

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 

Salon Futur Spécial @ Semper Depot, Wien, 12.11

Next Tuesday, the 12.11, we of the Futurama°Lab will be presenting some of our works of this year and the next year as part of the Vienna Art Week. I will be talking about my new book "Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe" and our ongoing project the CARS WE LIKE, that will venture to Chemnitz next year as part of the European Cultural Capital 2025.

--> more info <--

 

SALON FUTUR SPÉCIAL About sketches, cars and mobile playfulness   AN EVENING WITH AND ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES OF THE FUTURAMA°LAB   12.11.2024 • 17:00 - 21:00 Atelierhaus of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna [Former "Semperdepot"] Lehárgasse 8 • 1060 Vienna • Austria   As a partner of VIENNA ART WEEK 2024, the FUTURAMA°LAB will present the artistic works of its resident artists from 2024, along with plans for 2025, to an art-interested public. The event will conclude with a vibrant vernissage of the illustration workshop "ABOUT SKETCHES, CARS & MOBILE PLAYFULNESS".   Cool drinks will be provided.   SALON FUTUR is a Format of the FUTRAMA°DAYS 2024

PROGRAM 17:00 – WELCOME     17:30 – Introduction by Rector Johan Hartle Speaker: Rector Johan Hartle     18:00 – FUTURAMA°LAB: Highlights 2024 & Plans for 2025   • Research and Knowledge Cluster: "Sustainability in the Arts" An Initiative by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna & the FUTURAMA°LAB Speaker: Rainer Prohaska   • Workshop Series: "Sustainability, What's the Point of Art?" An Initiative by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna & the FUTURAMA°LAB Speaker: Sabrina Rosina   • 2024 Highlights Speakers: FUTURAMA°LAB Team   • Plans for 2025 Speakers: FUTURAMA°LAB Team     19:00 – Scores & The [Anti] Dogma_26 Speaker: Tomas Zierhofer-Kin     19:30 – The Future of MS-FUSION A.I.R. Speakers: Captain Florian Sorgo in dialogue with Rainer Prohaska     20:00 – The Cars We Like 2025   • The Car and the Ecological Catastrophe • Author: Kilian Jörg Speaker: Kilian Jörg Discussing his New Book   • "The Cars We Like" and "The Cars We Hate" Speakers: Kilian Jörg in Dialogue with Rainer Prohaska   • Showcase of Workshop Results: "Sketching the Cars We Like" Speakers: Kathrin Kloeckl Stan & Kilian Jörg     21:00 – Kilian Jörg & Rainer Prohaska in a Musical Dialogue to Conclude the Evening     Moderators: Sabrina Rosina & Rainer Prohaska Supported by:  BMKOES Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport Vienna . Austria   WIEN KULTUR . MA7 Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien Vienna . Austria   YPSOMED AG Burgdorf . Switzerland

Sketching the CARS WE LIKE - Workshop, 2+3.11 at Akademie für bildene Künste, Wien

Zusammen mit Kathrin Kloeckl Stan, Rainer Prohaska veranstalten wir einen utopischen Zeichenworkshop als und mit dem Futurama°Lab. Es wird ein wunderbares kreatives Abhängen am ersten Novemberwochenende und ich hoffe, dass manche Zeit und Lust haben, mitzumachen - alle weitere Infos und Anmelde-Email weiter unten.

 Sketching the CARS WE LIKE

2. November, 14-18h & 3. November, 14-17h (mit Open End bis 20h) – in der Akademie für bildende Künste Wien, Raum tba

Radikale Veränderung fangt mit der Arbeit an unseren Imaginären und Bildern der Zukunft an. Da die die Welt der (noch) herrschenden Autos grau, eintönig und gesundheitsschädlich ist, lädt dieser Workshop zur imaginativ-utopischen Erträumen einer besseren Welt der Mobilität ein. Wie sieht die Welt der CARS WE LIKE aus, in denen sich die Fahrzeuge der Umwelt, und nicht mehr die Umwelt den Fahrzeugen anpassen muss? In dem die automobile Normalität Menschen und andere Lebewesen nicht mehr an die Peripherie drängt, sondern durch lebensbejahende und plurale Mobilitätsformen ersetzt werden?

Selbstermächtigt mit Bleistift und Ölkreide erkunden wir in diesem offenen Atelier zusammen die kleinen und großen Problemfälle, Ärgernisse und Perspektiven auf verrückte und ganz konkrete Ansätze, wie wir uns spaßiger, effektiver und gesünder durch unsere Lebensräume bewegen können. Geleitet von Kathrin Kloeckl Stan, Rainer Prohaska und Kilian Jörg und als Teil des CARS WE LIKE-Projekts des Futurama.Labs möchten wir einen gemütlichen Raum schaffen, um aus Humor und Hirngespinsten gemeinsam die Welten der Zukunft zu bebildern.

Teile der gemeinsam erarbeiteten Werke können auf der Vienna Art Week mit dem Futurama.Lab und auf dem nächsten größeren Auftritt der CARS WE LIKE im Rahmen der Europäischen Kulturhauptstadt Chemnitz 2025 gezeigt und weiter entwickelt werden – bis unsere Städte und Dörfer dann endlich wie unsere wildesten Träume und Skizzen aussehen.

Anmeldung unter futuramalaboratory@gmail.com

Mehr Bilder und Infos: https://www.futurama-lab.org/sketching.htm

Eine Produktion des FUTURAMA°LAB in Kooperation mit

BILDRECHT GmbH
Bildraum Studio
Absberggasse 27 . 1100 Wien . Austria
 
A...kademie der bildenden Künste Wien
Forschungs- und Wissenscluster . NACHHALTIGKEIT IN DER KUNST
Vienna . Austria 
 
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von
 
BMKOES
Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport
Vienna . Austria
 
WIEN KULTUR . MA7
Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien
Vienna . Austria
 
YPSOMED AG
Burgdorf . Switzerland 

the Cars We Like - Film-Documentation online

The film documentation of the CARS WE LIKE-Symposium that took place in Vienna, beginning of March 2024, just went online. It is a nice archive of discourse for radical transformation of mobility that adds up to the first edition of the "exhaust(ed) entanglement" series in Berlin.

Find the full showcase here. I have embedded the final workshop presentation below.

AIL_SYMPOSIUM: The Cars We Like / Part 6 of 6 – Presentation of Workshop Results from Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab on Vimeo.

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.

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.

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!

 

"PASSIVELY WATCHING THE WORLD CRUMBLE OR ACTIVELY ENGAGING IN THE PROCESS?" & "THE CARS WE LIKE" - two Panels at Futurama.Lab @ Vienna Art Week

In the background, I have been building and collaborating with a new network of artists, thinkers and makers that try to take the ecological catastrophe seriously, called FUTURAMA.LAB (inaugurated by wonderful Rainer Prohaska, who has also been the artists and mind behind the MS Fusion project of last year). We try to build a transdisciplinary hub that seeks to overcome the dichotomies between form and content that so often creates weird moralistic hybrids in the art world. We want to work on ways how art can actively and radically engage in the radical transformation needed without green- or white-washing (and perhaps in dissolving the category of "art" in the process). We have many upcoming projects and I am happy to announce that we will present some of them for the first time to the public at the VIENNA ART WEEK on 11th&12th of November.

You can find the full program here.

I have organized two panels about topics particularly dear to me. One about "ecological art-making" and what that could mean and the second one about a new project you will hopefully soon hear more about. Find the descriptions below.

 
"PASSIVELY WATCHING THE WORLD CRUMBLE OR ACTIVELY ENGAGING IN THE PROCESS?"
 
Panel Discussion
Sabrina Rosina, Alexandra Graupner & Tomas Zierhofer-Kin. Modeartion: Kilian Jörg
 
Despite its omnipresence in public discourse, we would argue that there is surprisingly little art that is engaged with our ecological predicament in creative, radical and enabling ways that go beyond mere doom-kitsch, romantisization of Nature or moral exhibitionism. In this panel bringing together curators, artists and philosophers, we want to discuss examples and ideas that show us a way forward.
 
 

 

"THE CARS WE LIKE"
 
Dialogue
Kilian Jörg & Rainer Prohaska
 
Going beyond "mere" critique of the current automobile-centered system, Kilian Jörg and Rainer Prohaska try to hack the car-system from within by inventing serious and dada-esque vehicles that follow a simple paradigm: it is no longer the environment that has to adapt to our vehicles, but our vehicles that have to become as fluid as our environments. In an open dialogue they will discuss the broader horizon of changing mobility patters by means of artistic research.