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."

Ecological Reasonings - Talk at Uni Wien online

Mein Talk über "Ecological Reasonings" auf der Universität Wien ist jetzt auch online verfügbar! Danke an Arno Böhler und Sonja Fiala für die wunderbaren einleitenden Worte und die gelungene Veranstaltung. Das Buch gibt es online für viel zu viel Geld zu kaufen - wer sich das nicht leisten kann, soll mir bitte eine Email schreiben.

 

Ecological Reasonings - book presentation @ FB Philosophie der Universitätsbibliothek Wien, 24.3

I am thrilled to be able to present my book Ecological Reasonings, that started out as a PhD at the University of Vienna, at its library on the 24.3 - the place where I have spent countless hours of going mad with the manifold and uncountable reasonings I describe in the book. The presentation with be introduced by my dear supervisor Arno Böhler. Furthermore, I am presenting two of my books within a week at University of Vienna - which is especially gorgeous since I have always planed those two books as "twin books": while Ecological Reasonings is the more strictly speaking philosophical book, I try to show in Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe (that I am presenting at the same location on the 20.3) how a regime I term "Monorationalism" is being inscribed into our modern life-worlds, thus forcing us to all embody this limited version of reasonabilty (whether we like it or not). 

Welche Rolle hat die „Vernunft“ bei der Bewältigung der katastrophalen ökologischen Situation im frühen 21. Jahrhundert? Kann dieses althergebrachte Konzept seine problematische Rolle in der westlichen Epistemologie ablegen und einen neuen Platz und eine neue Funktion im Umgang mit dem Anthropozän finden? In "Ecological Reasonings" argumentiert Kilian Jörg, dass wir die Vernünfte auf unsere Gefahr hin ignorieren.

Das Buch dreht sich um die Idee, dass wir "die Vernunft" in die gegenwärtige Bewegung zur Pluralisierung der Schlüsselkonzepte der westlichen Philosophie einbeziehen müssen, um sie zu retten – wo wir früher von der Natur, der Wissenschaft und der Technologie sprachen, sprechen wir heute von Naturen, Wissenschaften und Technologien. In gleicher Weise ist es an der Zeit, die Vernunft als "Vernünfte" neu zu konzeptualisieren – als vielfältigen und multiperspektivischen Reichtum an mehr-als-menschlichen Intraaktionen, der eine vitale Alternative zum akademischen Mainstream-Denken schaffen kann.

Unter Rückgriff auf ein breites Spektrum theoretischer Traditionen, darunter neuer Materialismus, Ökofeminismus, verkörperte Performance und spekulative Philosophie, verwebt Jörg unzählige Stimmen und Aspekte miteinander, um die reiche Textur seiner*ihrer pluralistischen Vision zu demonstrieren. Der Einfluss dieser neuen "Vernünfte" auf die drängenden Herausforderungen unserer Zeit zeigt sich in der schieren Bandbreite der Gegenstände dieses Buchs, von der Rolle der künstlichen Intelligenz über Post-Truth bis hin zur Frage, wie Wissenschaften unser Selbstverständnis prägen können.

--> Alle Informationen hier <---

Ecological Reasonings - Out Now!

Many of you know I have been working on what could be understood as Reasonability in the Anthropocene for more than 8 years. Well, what has been my PhD has now been released as a book titled Ecological Reasonings with Bloomsbury.

"Beautifully and carefully intervening in what have been perhaps too-settled waters, the book offers a compelling account of the sensuous and situated reasoning practices we might craft in confronting the multiple ecological catastrophes we face. Understanding reasonings as a collective endeavour, built in relationships among beings, actants, and our unevenly shared milieux, Jörg offers an inspiring call to building a different “we” that can playfully and in an ongoing way contribute to shared life in a living world."

This is how my dear friend Alexis Shotwell describes the work and I wholeheartedly invite you to take a look for yourself. Unfortunately, it is only out as hardcover as of now (meaning it has a ridicolous price), but maybe you can ask your trusted library to get it for you. Otherwise I encourage you to win the lottery, rob a bank or wait for another 18 month, which I am told is when the paperback (for 28€) will be released.

Also, if you know of any podcasts, conferences or symposia that might be interested in the work, I would be happy to present it and be forwarded by you to the occasion!

You can find the book here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/ecological-reasonings-9781350372139/

What role does 'reason' have in tackling the catastrophic ecological situation of the early 21st-century? Can the concept shrug off its problematic role in Western epistemology and find a new place and function in dealing with the Anthropocene? In Ecological Reasonings, Kilian Jörg argues that we ignore reason at our peril.

This book revolves around the idea that in order to salvage reason, we must include it in the current move to pluralize the key concepts of Western philosophy – where we once talked of nature, science and technology, we now talk about natures, sciences, and technologies. In the same way, it is time to reconceptualize reason as reasonings – a diverse and multi-perspectival wealth of interactions that can create a vital alternative to the mainstream academic thought. Drawing on a broad span of theoretical traditions including new materialism, eco-feminism, embodied performance and speculative philosophy, Jörg weaves countless voices and aspects together to demonstrate the rich texture of his pluralized vision. The impact of these new reasonings on the pressing challenges of our time can be seen in the sheer scope of these elements, from the role of artificial intelligence to the post-truth society and how science can shape our own self-understanding.

"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.

Dissident Practices: Posthumanist Approaches to a Critique of Political Economy (Symposium @ TU Wien & Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 4.12)

Monday next week I will be joining a symposium on "Posthumanist Approaches to a Critique of Political Economy" at TU Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts. It is open to the public and I will speak about my critique of AI as a governmental technique - a thesis I develop in a chapter of my forthcoming book Ecological Reasonings (Bloomsbury 2024) and which will be re-published in updated form in the forth-coming volume of "Dissident Practices". Please feel free to join, as I hear it will be held in a quite experimental practice open for intervention and non-hierarchical ways of though-expression. 

Find all the info here.

"Messy Utopia" - Essay with Rasa Weber published at Ztscript #39

 

 

 

Two years ago, my good friend and designer Rasa Weber and me started to write a text on an idea that we have touched many times in our exciting conversations: the idea of a certain "messy utopia" - a new, yet minoritarian utopianism that shimmers through "newer" discourses such as New Materialism, Post-Humanism, Living Architecture, etc.  In this utopianism, the messy and the unclear are no longer to be avoided, but some sort of ideal state for the more-than-human living (and thriving). 

As it goes, two years later, we both felt a bit further in our thinking than back then, but I still enjoyed reading these ventures out into a "messy utopia" and I would even argue that I have found an almost concrete political program that is behind this messy utopianism (among so much else) by now: ZADism and the anarchist cult-book bolo'bolo. I will also keep working and publishing on this concept of "messy utopias", for I still find it very useful to think with.

You can find more about ZTScript, the wonderful Magazine that published our text, here: https://www.ztscrpt.net/

There will be a little release event tomorrow, Saturday the 16th of September 2023, in Vienna at NKW. More info here.

For now I will leave you with the opening lines of the text, which sets the tone for the rest:

How can we put aside our all-too-modern notions of human control over an orderly cosmos and learn to find forms of utopian engagement within the mess of a much-more-than-human planet?

A white, orderly and rectangular world in which the human is in control: When hearing the word "utopia," most would probably associate it with sleek, clean and smooth shapes. We all know such images from various Sci-Fi Movies and architectural renderings. You could say they look like Le Corbusier’s wildest dreams come true. Even in their greenwashed, more contemporary version, one feature remains: No mess is allowed in these ideal places. Everything is under (human) control. However, in certain progressive niches of discourse across various disciplines, we are witnessing a phenomenon we propose to call “messy utopia”. We seem to be experiencing a valorization of the messy, the impure and dirty, stimulated by microbiology, chaos theory, quantum physics, New Materialism and other post-anthropocentric models of thought. A new but still underrepresented utopianism seeks to set aside all-too-modern notions of human control, clean surfaces, and orderly forms, and learn to find intricate, unruly and feral ways of utopian engagement in the mess of a much more-than-human planet.

 

Lecture in the Dark @ Posthuman Social-Club on 14.9 at Zentrum Fokus Forschung Wien

 

I have been invited to participate in a new trans-disciplinary format called the POSTHUMAN SOCIALCLUB and will hold its inaugural lecture titled "What is the Post-Human Social Club" next week, the 14th of September at Zentrum Fokus Forschung in Vienna. Come by, I will hold the lecture in a very experimental manner and the whole thing is designed to become something like a bigger trans-disciplinary jam session - excited how this will end up :)

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 [posthuman] desires.

 

Works by
Isabella Forciniti ·Julia Grillmayr · Kilian Jörg · Bruno Liberda ·
Jorge Sánchez-Chiong ·Samuel Toro Pérez · Las Chulas [Angélica Castelló, Natalia Dominguez Rangel, Lorena Moreno Vera, Lucía Simón Medina] · TE-R [Louise Linsenbolz, Thomas Wagensommerer] · Brigitte Wilfing

--> all the info on FB

 

Reeking Environments – Senso-Poetical Experiments with Undoing Nature - Workshop @ KC GRAD tomorrow

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. 

 

"'Raus aus der Natur' oder 'Weg mit der Natur'?" - Workshop im Werk X am 25.3

 

In genau einem Monat, am 25.3, werde ich einen Workshop unter dem Titel ""'Raus aus der Natur' oder 'Weg mit der Natur'?" im Werk X in Wien halten. Im Vorfeld zur Inszenierung von "Onkel Wanja - La dèrniere rébellion". Hier die längere Beschreibung:

Manche Alpenländler*innen kennen „ihre Natur“ am besten über das, was nach einer schönen Spritztour an ihren Stoßstangen klebt. Sie mögen sich dessen vielleicht sogar bewusst sein, dass es „5 vor 12“ steht und „unsere Zivilisation“ vor dem ökologischen Kollaps steht. Sie kaufen brav Bio und halten ihre Nation für eine umweltschützerische Vorzeigenation. Das alles vom luxuriösen Alpenchalet aus, welches über den Schwager gern für Jahre vorreserviert wird, damit sich auch ja kein anderer („von außen“) einnistet.

Dieser Workshop möchte sich auf performative, philosophische und literarische Weise der Frage annähern, warum sich eigentlich so wenig ändert angesichts des mittlerweile medial kaum mehr zu ignorierenden Katastrophenzustands der Erde. Wir werden das Bild des „Weltenendes“ kritisch hinterfragen, Theorien zum fossilen Faschismus reflektieren, spekulative Ausflüge in eine Welt nach der Moderne unternehmen und den sinnlichen Bezug zur Umwelt jenseits der Natur am eigenen Körper erforschen.

 Mehr Informationen hier.

Wir brauchen Öko-Punks!

"Wirf Spinat gegen Basquiat und Spagetti gegen Giacometti."

 

 

Nach meinem Vortrag in Innsbruck zu "there is no rave on a dead planet" und dem für mich sehr inspirierenden Austausch mit einer paar spannenden Leuten der ErdeBrennt-Bewegung, habe ich ein paar Gedanken zu Subkultur und Ökologie niedergeschrieben, die nun in der TELEPOLIS erschienen sind.

 

"Aktivisten der Letzten Generation pfeifen auf die Vernunft der Mehrheitsgesellschaft und sind damit vielleicht auf der Spur einer wichtigen kulturellen Innovation." "In der Gesellschaftsordnung des liberalen Kapitalismus ist es gleichzeitig vernünftig, ein akademisches Paper über die katastrophalen Auswirkungen von fossilen Brennstoffen zu veröffentlichen und seine Pension durch das Investieren bei Shell und Gasprom zu sichern."

 

Zu selten denke ich zwei meiner Forschungsinteressen - die ökologische Katastrophe einerseits und Subkulturen andererseits - gemeinsam. Hier ist mir das mal wieder gelungen. Ich glaube, dass öko-aktivistische Strömungen zur Zeit das Potential haben / sich gedrängt dazu fühlen, die herrschende Vernunft zu verweigern. Dies birgt natürlich viele Gefahren, doch wenn man es richtig framed, birgt es ebenso großes Potential. Denn mit einer Verweigerung der herrschenden Vernunft hinterfragt man auch die hegemoniale Triade von Wisschenschaft-Natur-Vernunft und ihr koloniales Erbe. Damit würde sich die bisher zu meinem großen Leidwesen theoretisch eher unterreflektierte Öko-Aktivismus-Szene an andere Diskurse und Kämpfe intersektional anschließbarer machen und so einige blinde Flecken ihrer vielfach weißen Priviliegien reflektieren können. Es ist meines Erachtens also Zeit, die Öko-Aktivsmus-Szene theoretisch besser zu informieren - "Wir wollen die Natur beschützen" ist nicht mehr genug. Stattdessen werfen wir lieber Tomatensauce auf allgemein anerkannte Kulturschätze und wiederholen die Rufe aus den französischen ZADs: "Wir verteidigen nicht die Natur, wir sind die Natur, die sich verteidigt."

 

--> zum Artikel <--

 

Teaching @ "Temporäre Schule zur Entwicklung schöner Gesten"

Next week I will give a workshop at the newly established "Temporäre Schule zur Entwicklung schöner Gesten" by Claudia Heu and Philipp Ehmann. We will also have a publication open to everybody on Saturday, the 23rd from 11:30 - 13:30 - drop by, I am already very excited to be able to contribute to this very interesting new format of teaching and transferring knowledge!

"The OPEN SPACE completes a four-day laboratory with invited experts Tina Auer (AT), Stephen Hodge (UK), Kilian Jörg (AT/DE), Michael Pinsky (UK) and Ursula Reisenberger (AT), who share their questions and artistic, as well as theoretical approaches to the topics of public space, play, presence and art.

The OPEN SPACE is a kind of world café, in which these topics are publicly discussed, deepened and further reflected upon. We cordially invite interested guests to join us.

The OPEN SPACE – ART.PUBLIC SPACE.PRESENCE takes place within the framework of the Temporary School for the Development of Beautiful Gestures – a concept by Claudia Heu. The school begins in early April 2022 and is part of the four-year format Schule@Im_flieger, which combines transgenerational and transdisciplinary knowledge transfer, artistic research and production, and discourse. Under the artistic direction of performance artist Claudia Heu and theater maker Philipp J. Ehmann, the project will focus on the theme „Performative Art. Public Space. Presence“ at the intersection of art and social issues with the following selected artists: Adriana Cubidis, Jakob Egger, Ella Felber, Kim Groneweg, Magrethe Meierhofer-Lischka, Bri Schöllbauer and Joanna Zabielska. The focus is on exploring new contexts, ways of working and forms of artistic interactions in public space, as well as questioning and deepening one’s own artistic practice."

Reasonable Messages from Unreasonable Dances - Workshop with Sabina Holzer at Impulstanz 2022

 

After working, writing, dancing and quarreling together for many years, Sabina Holzer and me will now finally be able to give a workshop on some of those topics we obsess about (writing, reading, moving, reasoning, etc.) at Impulstanz 2022! My now completed work on Reasonings in the Anthropocene will equally play a part as Sabina's life-long research and questing of the poetics of bodily movement and matter, additionally we will include our more recent research topics of flow, liquidity and toxic entanglements into this long-delayed workshop! 

The program of Impulstanz now finally went online and you can book your slot here. 

Yes! — there are vast territories with which one can only get in touch with as moving i.e. dancing bodies. Everything seems different there: pasts connect with futures; the self and the collective intermingles, strange creatures – plants, animals, anorganic particles, microbes, and humans – create assemblages we somehow feel entitled to call “ours”. How can we share these experiences? What kind of messages can we bring from these exquisite, mysterious places? What kind of reasonings linger within this troubled mattering of the vivid chaosmos? How can we render them less mysterious and more ... reasonable – even much more reasonable than occidental’s old reasoning!

Reason – a big word for occidental philosophy – doesn’t come up often in the field of dance practices. And why should it? Most of the history of philosophy is concerned with repressing the body and its corporeal relating to matters. A reasonable thought has – for the longest time – been regarded as one that abstracts the most radical from bodily matters to attain outer-worldly clarity. However, in times of ecological catastrophe we feel that these abstractions bring more harm than good. We need to find ways of relating and reasoning that stay in with the manifold troubles of this planet.

While connecting with our speaking, dreaming, thinking, desiring and inventive bodies, we charter traces of wishes and wisdom about ourselves and the world we live in. Relating to this nonverbal writing in space and time, we invite some philosophies and fictions to bridge science / theory / fiction and experiences. While exploring the spaces around the words and ways to listen to this polyphony between all sorts of bodies, we are mesmerised. How to approach the intelligence of the body without subordinating the body to that big word of Reason? How to follow and set free the manifold reasonings of bodies? A whole different ecology of attention awaits us here and wants to share its potentials.

 

"Was für eine Geschichte ist das Weltenende?" - published in Dritte Natur 04

In my contribution to the 4th Editon of Mathes&Seitz' magazine DRITTE NATUR, I philosophically examine the notion of the world's end and it's contemporary eco-apocalyptic variants as in "5 to 12"-rhetorics. With the help of Donna Haraway, Eduardo Viveiro de Castro and Deborah Danowski I argue that we need to develop a philosophical reasoning behind the end of the world. In getting rid of the end of the world as a unitary concept, we can develop a pluralized and more inclusive philosophy of many worlds, reasonings, sciences and natures that form a patchy chaosmology beyond the apocalyptic Anthropocene. This point is illustrated with examples from nuclear semiotics & current eco-capitalist politics of attempting to save the Alpine glaciers and Danube river banks via geo-engineering the otherwise crumbling Status Quo into an "everlasting" zombie.

The text is printed in German in the DRITTE NATUR and can be (partly) read and ordered here. An English translation will appear in the TOXIC TEMPLE-Book, to be released in April 2022.

Ecospiracy: Das konspirative Klima im Anthropozän @ Lectures4Future

Next Thursday, the 18th of November, I will give a talk about Conspiracy Theories and their relation to ecological crisis together with the sinologist and literary theorist Johannes Kaminski at the Lectures4Future. I will depart from my recently completed PhD "Affirmation of Ecological Reasonings", which breaks with a classical enlightenment picture of ONE Reason as opposed to many stories and instead seeks to understand conspiracy theories through the prism of pluralized reasonings and their relation towards eco-sensitive story-telling. This will lead me to develop quite unconventional strategies of countering and re-affirming conspiracy theories that are inspired by situated knowledge and affect theory. In the end, I will give examples from contemporary art works. 

The Lecture will take place from 10:15 to 11:45 CET and can be accessed online here: https://moodle.aau.at/course/view.php?id=32256, Gastschlüssel: L4F_WS2021.

 
Find our German abstract below:

Ecospiracy: Das konspirative Klima im Anthropozän

von Kilian Jörg und Johannes Kaminski

Durch die ökologische Krise werden nicht nur immer mehr Lebenswelten prekär, sondern auch epistemische Grundmauern und Referenzsysteme: kaum etwas erscheint als einfach gegeben und unumstößlich real und wirklich.

Die ökologische Krise stellt nicht allein die Logik der extraktivistischen Globalwirtschaft in Frage, sondern rüttelt auch an den Möglichkeiten von Kritik und Erkenntnis. In dieser Zeit sprießen die Verschwörungstheorien allerorts, unter anderen die Idee des Great Reset, der zufolge die Bevölkerung demnächst zu nachhaltigen Lebensweisen gezwungen werden soll.¹ Überhaupt handle es sich beim Klimawandel um eine chinesische Verschwörung, die den alleinigen Zweck verfolge, die US-amerikanische Wirtschaft zu schwächen.² In China wiederum hieß es lange Zeit, internationale Maßnahmen gegen den Klimawandel dienten allein dem westlichen Anliegen, den Aufstieg Chinas zu verhindern.³ In Anbetracht solcher gewaltiger Narrative wirken europäische Initiativen wie der Action Plan against Disinformation wie ein hilfloser Versuch, den Geist der Aufklärung wiederzubeleben.

Wir fragen uns: Welche affektive Funktion erfüllen Verschwörungen in einer Situation der existenziellen Verunsicherung? Können sie auch Bewusstsein für tatsächlichen Machtmissbrauch fördern, wie Klein, Clutton und Dunn behaupten?⁴ Inwiefern bildet das Grundgefühl der Verschwörung ein authentisches Gefühl ab, das nicht zwingend in Verleugnung münden muss, sondern auch für eine ökologische Agenda eingespannt werden kann? Welches epistemische Potential haben Verschwörungstheorien für künstlerische und spekulative Arbeit?

Für ein erfolgreiches world building im und jenseits des Anthropozäns wollen wir aktuelle künstlerische Arbeiten (z.B. von der österreichischen Video-Künstlerin Karin Ferrari) rund um Verschwörungstheorien reflektieren und ein spekulative Begehren in ihnen verorten. Durch dieses künstlerisch-forschende Prisma deutet sich die Möglichkeit an, das konspirative Klima des Anthropozäns für emanzipatorische Praktiken zu kultivieren, ohne sich bloß an alten Denkbildern von Aufklärung und debunking zu orientieren.

Guest appearance @ Ö1 Radiokolleg "Das spekulative Zeitalter"

 

Next week I will have a guest appearance in Austria's first national radio station, at the Ö1 Radiokolleg on "Das spekulative Zeitalter" ("The speculative age"), made by the wonderful Julia Grillmayr. 

I will talk briefly about speculation as an artistic and philosophical strategy in and beyond the Anthropocene (as in my project Toxic Temple) and about the relation of conspiracy theories and a generally acknowledged need for speculative story-telling. By this I try to develop an approach of thinking with (as opposed to: against) conspiracy theories that is more productive than "mere" reactionary debunking in the tradition of an old notion of enlightenment ("Aufklärung") - later this year I will also give a lecture on this topic at the Lectures for Future in Vienna together with Johannes Kaminski - stay tuned. 

You can listen to Ö1 Radiokolleg either online here or at 92.00 wavelength on the earthly territory many humanoids call "Austria from 9:05-9:30 Monday to Thursday next week. 

"Reasonability is not a reproduction of universal laws declared from above" - Interview at Freedom News

 

 

I am very honored to have the opportunity to think about the ongoing Corona crisis in relation to my research in an interview led by Jaroslava Tomanová for Freedom News, the oldest anarchist press and largest bookshop in the UK. I was able to embed the matter in my ongoing (and almost finished) project about Ecological Reasonings and try to understand the current crisis in the larger field of the global ecological turmoil that will last for decades, if not centuries. I try to argue that the Covid crisis might be a good opportunity to develop an ethics of openness and experimentation in a time of growing precariousness and catastrophes. 

In the words of Jara the article "is about the tricky questions regarding ethical judgements, reasonability, differing positions of the leftists towards state-imposed restrictions and the necessity to think critically about generalisations such as “the health care system” and “responsibility”.

"I have the feeling that the growing (and very worrying) polarization and nervousness of society is also a result of not looking and differentiating carefully enough. We tend to put people into abstract boxes we took from elsewhere without looking at their personal histories, experiences, fears and motivations. Social media and social distancing accelerate this superficial mode of “social boxing” a lot.

If we would instead look and talk with them, we might understand their personal relation to this unprecedented time that is stressful to us all and makes us react in various chaotic and difficult manners. We might learn to understand that person A’s particular aversion towards state restrictions stems a lot from her traumas of a past totalitarian state she or her ancestors might have suffered under. Or that person B’s very strict obedience can – among other factors – also be explained as a certain rebellion against the “I don’t give a fuck” mentality of her closest relatives. Every position, situation and fear are understandable if we take care and time to trace them back to its specific ecology. Such a practice of differentiating and examining more carefully and closely is an ethical counter-practise to the current hegemony of too-quick generalizations and judgements."

Read it here:

https://freedomnews.org.uk/reasonability-is-not-a-reproduction-of-universal-laws-declared-from-above-a-conversation-with-kilian-jorg/

Denkkollektiv #4 – Körper und Vernünfte (29.-31.7.2020, im_flieger Vienna)

Denkkollektiv #4 – Körper und Vernünfte

29. - 31. Juli 2020

Vernunft und Körper waren sich Jahrhunderte lang Fremde, so erzählen manche. Sie wollen sie lieber als monolithische Einheiten in misstrauischer Distanz zueinander betrachten. Als ob die (menschlichen) Körper für die Vernunft ein vergängliches, vernachlässigbares Etwas wären  – ein Hindernis am Weg zur reinen Erkenntnis. Die Vernunft, andererseits für die Körper nur autoritärer Zwinger – mit der spontane Freiheit nicht machbar ist. Zwischen diesen Opposition bewegt sich ein flüssiger Untergrund, in dem sich die schlammigen, unreinen Gemengelagen der ökologisch prekären Gegenwart tummeln.

Im vierten Denkkollektiv möchten Sabina Holzer und Kilian Jörg gemeinsam und mit Stoffwechsel – Ökologien der Zusammenarbeit auf Tauchstation gehen und diese dreckigen Assoziationen bergen, fühlen, riechen, schmecken, tanzen, denken. Im Schmelztegel unserer Ordnungskategorien fallen die Begriffe zusammen und schimmern gleichzeitig in unüberschaubarer Farbenpracht: plötzlich begegnen wir so vielen Körpern und so vielen Vernünften, dass der strenge Ordnungswille über Bord geht und wir vielmehr in frei-assoziativen Spiel schillernd bunte, mannigfaltige Tanzpartner_innen unter den Vernünften und Körpern suchen. Wie fordert man eine Vernunft zum Tanz auf? Wie tanzt sich ein vernünftiger Gedanke? Wie ist man/frau mit der Hüfte vernünftig? Wie stecken Gedanken Körper an und Körper Gedanken? Mit welcher Bewegung fühlen sich Vernünfte und Körper als plötzlich eins?

 

 Denkkollektiv #4 - Körper und Vernünfte

 29. - 31. Juli 2020

 16.00 - 20.00 @ Im_flieger & andere Orte (am 30ten: Spaziergang vom Flieger zum Karlsplatz, am 31ten: Schwarzenbergpark)

Veröffentlichung: 30. Juli, 17.30 Im_flieger - mit anschließendem angeleiteten Walk zum Karlsplatz (mit performativer Exkursion in mein Buch "Backlash - Essays zur Resilienz der Moderne")

 

"Nietzsche and Ecological Reason(s) in the Anthropocene" published at The Trumpeter - Journal for Ecosophy

I was able to publish a chapter of my ongoing PhD-project "Affirmation of Ecological Reason(s)"at The Trumpeter - Journal for Ecosophy. In it, I argue how Nietzsche can be regarded as a key-figure within the emergence of some "ecological reason" within occidental main-stream discourses. Find the abstract below and the paper here. 

"Ecosophical discourses around the ecological condition that is sometimes referred to as the “Anthropocene” require a fundamental rethinking of key concepts of occidental philosophy, including reason. Nietzsche’s body of work offers manifold tools for the rethinking of reason, and this paper seeks to apply them to achieve a “new ecological image of thought.” It will demonstrate 1) how there is a clear ecological awareness motivating Nietzsche’s affirmative critique of reason, 2) how one can find rudiments of a pluralization of the concept of reason in Nietzsche's body of work, as well as 3) traces of a new, qualitatively different form of ecological reason for the time called the Anthropocene – with all its problems and possibilities. In doing so, this paper will demonstrate how Nietzsche can be very productively applied to contemporary eco-philosophical discussions."

"Affirmation of Ecological Reason(s)" - Presentation at the SFB Affective Societies of FU Berlin

Next Monday I will present my ongoing research "Affirmation of Ecological Reason(s) - how to be reasonable in a universe gone queer" at the Colloquium of Jan Slaby of the SFB Affective Societies of Free University Berlin. After a general introduction to my work and its framings I will focus on Descartes and Spinoza as two variations of one modern, epistemic regime. By doing so I want to question the all-too-easy (as it seems to me) identification of Descartes as the bad and Spinoza as the good guy for ecological reasoning and thereby evoke a deeper understanding of the ecological mess we are in.

The lecture will start at 17:15 next Monday (16.12) at the "Seminarraum" of the Institute for Philosophy, Habelschwerdter Allee 30, 14195 Berlin.