"Soiled love: May it last long" - Stoffwechsel Lab 2023

 

Part of my visit at Longo Mai this April/May I was able to spent with my long-time research cluster and good friends of "Stoffwechsel - Ecologies of Collaboration". I remember our time in the french Provence, discussing forms of commoning, reading loads of texts on ZADism and smelling the fragrances of rosemary and lavender everywhere with such great intensity and fondness. I am particularly overjoyed to present some of our results at our Open Lab this year on 12th of September at im_flieger. Michael Hirsch and me are also now working on a text on ZADism which is turning longer and longer - it is one of these texts that have developed a life of their own and we are curious where it will lead us. We will present some of that text and its process at the Lab in the form of a discursive walk.

Find all info here.

The Provençal word Longo Mai means “May it last long” in English. This year, the metabolism collective is exploring the questions of soil and earth, radical ecology and concrete utopias of alternative forms of life. In this context, we also visited the Longo Mai commune as part of a working week in the south of France in June 2023 and got to know their experiment, which has now been going on for decades, with a different cultivation of the soil and a different collective way of life beyond growth, intensive agriculture and capitalist wage labor.  

The lab focuses on speculative questions, practical exercises and experiences with the phenomena of earth, soil, land and home; “prefiguration” in the sense of models of future other ways of living in the now, and the productive tension between revolutionary-anarchist and radical-reformist models of action, politics and society.  

We invite you to the practice of walking through the Vienna Woods followed by a gathering with food in the Im_flieger Studio. Our guest and discussion partner is Alexander Behr, political scientist, journalist and long-time member of the Longo Mai collective.

 

Territory beyond state and property (Aug 21-26 @ Bravos Foundry, Gallicia)

I have been quite inactive on this blog for a while. This is because I was mainly operating in the clandestine and autonomous zones of France and Spain recently and this is nothing I would publish freely. However, I can tell you that I am learning a lot and there will be a few publications around certain experiences coming up, among which a publication about the slogan "ZAD partout" as a political program (with Michael Hirsch) and a presentation of our visit to Longo Mai with Stoffwechsel in September. More on this in due time. 

Currently I am on my way to various autonomous meetings, among which are Les Resistances in Larzac and the Rencontres de luttes paysanes in Bure. At the moment I feel extremely fortunate to be able to get to know these related "eco-anarchist" scenes in France and I feel the germano-phone sphere could really learn a lot from their practices and experiences. I will try to start more of this "translation-work" in the future - if you are curious, do not hesitate to contact me in person. I feel the Rhine is still such a huge frontier of political cultures and - perhaps unsurprisingly - I feel France is a little more advanced in understanding the eco-political struggles we are all facing (whether we want to or not).

So much about this short update from my side. I will also attend a workshop on related topics in The Bravos Foundry in Gallicia, Spain, where I will talk about the role of car as a vehicle of homogenization and how to work with it in rural communes. The whole week-long program is called "Territory beyond state and property" and will happen from 21-26th of August. Here is the abstract of my presentation:

Driving the Homogenocene
Not all earthlings are affected equally by the catastrophes of our times. While some lifeforms are entrenching their privileges, others face extinction, expulsion or violent adaption. The term “Homogenocene” seeks to understand these two dynamics in relation: the modern form of the Good Life paves and normalizes our expectations, desires and interactions in a monolithic way that absorbs the air to breath and ground to stand on for a plurality of the living. In this workshop, I propose to understand the car as a main driver and embodiment of this Homogenocene and want to discuss possibilities of undoing its auto-destructive homogenisation of landscapes, desires and economies. The car will be thought of as a metaphor for our being dead-locked in an ecologically catastrophical way of relating to the planet. With it, I want to engage a discussion about our own entanglements with automobile infrastructure in our utopian imaginations as well as practical necessities and horizontally seek strategies for active resistance and alternative worlding that promotes plurality as a radical practice. Roots have a hard time spouting through pavement after all.

You can find the full program here. I am sure it will be a blast. If you are close, please come by!

Extrem Reaktionsfreudig for TQW

I was invited to write a text-reaction to Sabina Holzer's which dances by TQW Magazine on Aluminium. Find the text here - it will also appear in translation in the upcoming days.

"Die letzte Waschung" @skug Straßenfest

 

Hi there! After weeks away in French autonomous zones like the wonderful Longo Mai (more soon), I will be back in Vienna this weekend and will - with the wonderful Sabrina Rosina - perform the "Letzte Waschung" / "Last Washing" as a public intervention for the skug Straßenfest. It will take place on Saturday 10th of June all day. Please pop by, there will be a great program all day at the "occupied" (as they call streets that are used as public space and banned for cars) Taborstraße. Find more information here and a video documentation of our last performance of "Die Letzte Waschung" here.

"Schrott Fiction" and "Neue Vorsicht" - two appearances in Berlin

 

This week, I am speaking on two occasions in Berlin. 

The first one is at the panel "Schrott Fiction: Wiederverwertung zwischen Nachhaltigkeit und Trash" at the Metropol Con at Silent Green on Thursday, 18.5. 18:30. I will be sharing the panel with Julia Grillmayr, Rudi Nuss, Philipp Böhm, Dominik Irtenkauf and Dilman Dila. Find the program here.

The second one will a little book presentation of my publication "Neue Vorsicht - Philosophie des Abstands im Zeitalter der Katastrophen" on Sunday, 21.5 18 at Clánndestino in Berlin Kreuzberg. Find all the details here. 

 

POLITICISING NEW MATERIALISM AGAINST THE TOXIC ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE NOW - Towards a New Materialist philosophy of the car

I am still at donaufestival, and this shot taken from the actual TV-news of the Austrian Public broadcasting ORF from the report on Toxic Temple is the perfect segway to a publication of mine that has just come out. It has the not fully melodic title "POLITICISING NEW MATERIALISM AGAINST THE TOXIC ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE NOW - Towards a New Materialist philosophy of the car" and is one of three (upcoming) more academic papers that I wrote as a kind of precision / warm-up / focusing for my book on the car I am currently working on. I have found a very nice and devoted publication-outlet for it and am very happy to work along with them in the future. Do check out there well selected program at becoming.press 

Abstract: Contemporary ecological discourses that go by names such as “New Materialism” identify modern, “Cartesian” cosmologies as something old and ecologically problematic they deem necessary to overcome. In this paper, I want to address a certain romantic tendency within many such discourses that focus on what they call the “new” without thoroughly reflecting their own material entanglement with the “old”. To expand this argument, I will demonstrate that “old” Cartesianism has, by means of the car as an prosthesis central to the partaking in modern life, become a material practice vital to all modern dwellers. When Cartesianism is, by many New Materialist thinkers, deemed to be “no longer available to think with”, this might be because its features need no longer be philosophically thought and taught at universities, for they have become an embodied practise for everybody living a “modern” way of everyday life. Central Cartesian features such as the body-mind dualism, the relegation of the environment to a mere “given” and a ocularcentic and logocentric bias are reproduced by the car. An unfolding of the inherent political potential of New Materialist discourses should include such reflections about our very toxic entanglements with the “old” that still forms so much of our ecologically catastrophic now.

 --> find the paper here

Zur Kultivierung der Katastrophe – philosophische Restmüllverwertung des Toxic Temple @ donaufestival 6.5.2023

 

Wow, this week of Toxic Temple at donaufestival was a blast! Trashing an old art institution and then leading a procession of 250 people caring random trash objects through a conservative town in Lower Austria to completely mess up an old church is nothing you do every day. I am so glad we had the chance to do this & we are already sprawling with ideas what to do next. Let me just say for now: Doom Porn and a filmic voyage to less artsy institutions perhaps. The Toxic Temple will spread on!

 

For now, let me just alert you to the philosophical workshop I will give next weekend in the ruins of the Toxic Temple at the second week-end of Donaufestival. Here is the description (it's gonna be in German):

Zur Kultivierung der Katastrophe – philosophische Restmüllverwertung des Toxic Temple

Ecological catastrophe is typically conveyed in abstract numbers, but what does it actually feel like in sensory terms? What goes astray when we take it merely as an imperative to exercise restraint? Can we cultivate a desire for waste, destruction, and pollution, or must we suppress it? With excursions through atomic semiotics, queer and dark ecologies, and philosophies of waste, Kilian Jörg will introduce some of the philosophical impulses behind Toxic Temple in this workshop.

A 2-hour workshop for a limited number of people and unlimited amount of waste.

Also, since we of the cult have thought a lot already about how to avoid becoming a full spectacle for an art-loving cultural bourgeoisie, I want to share the MESS I spoke when departing for the PROCESSION yesterday. It is also in German for now and will be translated soon.

 

Meine lieben Heid*innen, wir sind hier zusammengekommen wegen eines EXODUS, wegen der Migration des Toxic Temple raus aus den Hallen der
Künste und hin zu einer altertümlichen Glaubensstätte – einer so
genannten “Kirche”, welche, mit Eurer Hilfe, in einen Schrein der toxischen Verehrung gewandelt werden soll!

Bisher haben wir vom TOXIC TEMPLE in den Welten der Künste eine Heimat gefunden - doch nun erscheint es uns, dass wir bloß als eine Bespassung fürs Kulturbürgertum fungieren!
Wie ein neuer indigener Stamm wurden wir von Euch als Touristenschwarm überfallen – als Souvenir auf Instagram und Gesprächsstoff bei der nächsten Dinnerparty verwandelt!
Doch der Besuch im Toxic Temple soll Euch als keine Erheiterung zwischen den zwei Dienstreisen erscheinen – und auch nicht als Feigenblatt, mit dem ihr Euch als „auf der richtigen Seite“ verstehen könnt – um dann mit dem elektrisch betriebenen SUV den Alltag zu bestreiten!

Meine lieben Heid*innen, höret die Zeichen: elektrische SUVs brennen sogar noch viel länger und es mag sein, das ihre Dämpfe uns den nächsten Schritt als Zeichen in den Himmel schreiben werden! Kommt ab vom Glauben der „richtigen Seite“! Alle rechtenWege führen verästelt in die Herrlichkeit der Katastrophe! Es ist unser aller Normalität, die toxisch ist – und wir im Toxic Temple verhelfen ihr zur Metamorphose! Verharrt nicht im Normalen und Trivialen! Führt Eure Alltäglichkeit zu Altar, damit ihr Euch wieder bewegen könnt! Erhebt das Toxische in
den Bereich des Göttlichen, um die große Transformation zu
spüren!

Deswegen sagen wir: Praise the better Nature!
Im Plastik verwirklichen sich Fantasien vom Überkommen der Natur, die Jahrtausende alt sind. Im Atommüll strahlt der Heilige Geist als Kommunikationsmedium mit dem Ewigen Reich!
Unser aller Transzendenzgelüste sind immanent geworden und berauschen den Planeten!

Zieht mit uns, liebe Liebhaber des Toxischen, durch die Stadt zu einer alten Kirche, die noch vor kurzen heidnische Glauben praktizierte.
Es gilt dem Toxischen im Anthropozän die Tempel zu weihen, damit uns dort neue Visionen erscheinen können! So wie uns einst im Christentum die Visionen dieser wunderschönen Erdzerstörung erschienen, sollen uns im Toxic Temple die Dämpfe des Jenseitigen überraschen!

Folgt uns, meine lieben Heid*innen und Kulturbürger*innen, zieht mit uns zur Kirche, die wir in unser aller toxischen Begehren neu kleiden werden! Der Kulminationspunkt Eurer Kultur ist genau hier – im Überschäumen des Planeten. Hierauf haben wir alle hingearbeitet!
Die alten Strukturen sollen erstrahlen in neuer Übersteigerung, als Gebet für das Nach-uns, das Unbekannte und Jenseitige!

Lasst uns also diese Pilgerreise machen
Lasst uns zur DOMINIKANERKIRCHE gehen und allen
verkünden:
das ewige Paradies ist auf die Erde herabgestiegen
die Transzendenz ist Immanenz geworden
Praise the better Nature!

Oh yes, and of course you always can find more on our Instagram.

Photos: David Visnjic/donaufestival