»The chemical industry knows no waste«, claims an industry propaganda film from the GDR in 1968. Today, the whole Earth seems to have been turned into a planetary plastic waste heap. Thus, the statement sounds weird. Nevertheless, it carries some reasonability in a country and economy relying on stewardship of its scarce resources. Doesn’t that also sound familiar? A good twenty years earlier, a US propaganda film for its war-boosted chemical industry preparing to become civic again had announced that the depicted “world of the molecule belongs to us all. It is yours to explore, your new frontier.”
GDR propaganda poster for the anti-fascist socialist chemical industry, 1960
The plastic turn had a utopian potential that actualized in different political ideologies. From a certain historical point, to be modern meant to be living in plasticized environments. But the problem with plastics, one may assume, was not caused mainly by its “supernatural” materiality, but by the social and economical organization of its distribution. Consumerism was the civil religion of the American century. Also the socialist regimes gave in to it as a means of manifesting freedom and prosperity in a modern society. That may have been one major nail in their coffin, as a communist idealist might argue. It certainly was another milestone in the advent of the plastocene.
The talk traced the course from plastic crazes in West and East to today’s global plastic waste crises and further to queer and square plastic futures.
The talk took place on the first day of the three-day-symposium Wast3D-Care, on friday july 8, at 5:30 pm. Festival and symposium Wasteland were conceptualized and organized by Yannik Güldner & Leon Lapa Pereira.
time:
July 8, 5:30 pm
location:
The Grey Space in the Middle
Paviljoensgracht 20
2512 BP, The Hague
The Netherlands
Demonstrating the basics of a chemical cultural theory. Photos by Xue Mu.
In the context of the congress »Unearthing the Present« (19.5.-22.5.2022), one of the final events after ten years of Anthropocene research and debate at HKW, together with the members of the Anthropocene-Working-Group Barbara Fiałkiewicz-Kozieł (PL) and Neil Rose (UK), Benjamin Steininger will be giving the seminar »Combustion: Reading the Ashes« on Friday, 20.5.2022, 5 pm. It is part of a series of presentations on Friday.
Microplastics in bodies of water or organisms or the accumulation of radionuclides from nuclear weapons tests – anthropogenic markers have a political, technological and ecological history behind them. Developed from the online publication Anthropogenic Markers, researchers of the Anthropocene Working Group, humanities scholars and artists provide an insight into the laboratory practice of “Anthropocene forensics.” Eight sessions examine chemical and biological fingerprints as demarcations for the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene. Registration for individual workshops is now open.
Ausstrahlung auf ARTE: Mittwoch, 22. Juni 2022, um 21:45 Uhr und auf arte.tv bis zum 22. Juli 2022
Der fossile Rohstoff Erdöl hat sich in vielen Facetten unseres Lebens manifestiert und in den letzten 150 Jahren nicht nur unsere Maschinen befeuert, sondern auch unsere Fantasien, Wünsche und Träume. Im Zeitalter der Petro-Moderne wurde Erdöl in unseren westlichen Gesellschaften zu einem Katalysator für Wachstum und Konsum – und damit zum Sinnbild für Freiheit, Moderne und Wohlstand. Heute neigt sich dieses Zeitalter dem Ende entgegen und uns wird schmerzlich bewusst, wie abhängig sich die moderne Gesellschaft von diesem Stoff gemacht hat.
Das HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt) forscht bereits seit Jahren in verschiedenen interdisziplinären Projekten zum Anthropozän, dem vom Menschen gemachten Erdzeitalter. Der Ausbeutung planetarischer Rohstoffe wie dem Erdöl kommt hierbei eine wichtige Rolle zu.
Der Regisseur Mathias Frick hat sich gemeinsam mit den Kulturwissenschaftlern Benjamin Steininger und Alexander Klose auf die Reise zurück in die Petro-Moderne gemacht. Der Film erzählt entlang von Kunstwerken aus verschiedenen Teilen dieser Welt, wie tief unser Leben von den Kreisläufen des Erdöls durchdrungen ist. Zur ARTE-Filmpremiere im HKW laden wir Sie herzlich ein.
Vor dem Film: Einführung durch Bernd Scherer (Intendant HKW). Nach dem Film: Gespräch mit Mathias Frick, Alexander Klose, Benjamin Steininger und der Produzentin Eva Rink (Vive la Dok).
Bernd Scherer, noch Intendant des HKW, hält die Begrüßungsrede und verknüpft die Petromoderne-Forschung mit seinem eigenen, wichtigsten Forschungsfeld der letzten zehn Jahre, der Frage nach dem Anthropozän.
Engagierte Frage-Antwort-Runde nach dem erfreulich gut besuchten Film-Screening.
Zwei Aspekte aus dem Buch greifen wir für das Gespräch heraus: Die Verflechtungen von Öl, Kunst und Kapital am Beispiel des “Teheran Museum of Contemporary Art”, sowie das Wiener Becken als Schauplatz eines sehr spezifischen Oil Encounters im 20. Jahrhundert und damit als lokales Schaufenster hinein in die globale Petromoderne.
Seit 3. September 2021 und bis zum 9. Januar 2022 war »Oil« unter großem Medien- und Publikumsinteresse am Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg geöffnet – erfreulicherweise ohne einen einzigen Tag Corona-Ausfall.
Jetzt schreitet der Abbau mit Riesenschritten voran. Leihstücke aus aller Welt und in tatsächlich allen Erscheinungsformen treten die Heimreise an: vom 14 Meter breiten Wandrelief von Tony Cragg bis zur 3 mm kleinen Ölfliege aus Kalifornien.
400 Liter Öl aus dem Ölspiegel wurden abgepumpt und wiederverwertet, getreu dem Motto unseres Ausrüsters Avista-Oil: »Jedes Ende ist ein neuer Anfang« (siehe unten, Aufschrift LKW).
Wir bedanken uns noch einmal ganz herzlich auf diesem Weg beim gesamten Museumsteam in Wolfsburg für die tolle Zusammenarbeit und wünschen alles Gute für den unmittelbar anschließenden Aufbau von »Macht! Licht!« (Eröffnung am 12.3.2022)!
dieses und alle anderen Fotos in diesem post von Jan Michalko/CCN
In drei Kapiteln (I Sonde, II Raffinerie, III Erdölmensch) sprachen und diskutierten Benjamin Steininger und Alexander Klose über zentrale Aspekte ihrer kuratorischen Erforschung der Petromoderne. Das Motto des Festivals, “Planet schreibt zurück!”, diente dabei als Ausgangs- und Endpunkt unserer eigenen Überlegungen:
Wie schreibt man so, dass ein Planet auch antworten kann? (Über Exploration und Wissensformen des Untergrunds)
Was schreibt er uns? (Fossiles Wissen, deep time und Systemökologie als Kollateraleffekt der Explorations- und Extraktionstätigkeit)
Welches Bild des Menschen sendet uns der Planet zurück? (Wir Petromodernen, im schwarzen Spiegel des Öls)
Zu Videomontagen von Bernd Hopfengärtner las die Schauspielerin Franziska Krol Textpassagen aus unserem Erdölatlas.
Im Rahmen von “planet studiert” – Beiträgen des HU Germanistik-Seminars “Climate Fiction” (WS 2021/22) zum Festival “Planet schreibt zurück” – entstand retrospektiv folgende Skizze:
Alena Naima Knüppel, Probebohrung in der Hölle
»Es schien mir, als wenn alle Menschen um mich her in der bejammernswürdigsten Unwissenheit leben, und dass alle ebenso denken und empfinden würden, wie ich, wenn ihnen dieses Gefühl ihres Elends nur ein einziges Mal in ihrer Seele aufginge.«(Tieck: der Runenberg)
»Inspiriert vom Panel 8 „Die Petromoderne(n) – eine Retrospektive“ mit den Kulturwissenschaftlern Alexander Klose und Benjamin Steininger habe ich mich an einer Karikatur versucht. Eingestiegen sind die beiden mit Dantes Vorstellung der neun Kreise der Hölle. Sie interpretierten Dantes literarische Höllenvision als Schichtmodell der Erde, lange bevor die Wissenschaft dasselbe zu träumen wagte.
Der Titel des Festivals „Planet schreibt zurück!“ wirft jetzt die Frage auf, wie man überhaupt so schreiben kann, dass der Planet antwortet?
Nach Klose und Steininger könnte man „seismisches Wissen“ in diesem Sinne interpretieren: Vibrationsdruck sendet Signale in die Erde und der Planet antwortet, indem er die Signale zurücksendet und je nach Beschaffenheit unterschiedlich reflektiert. Durch die Wellensignale entsteht eine Vorstellung von der ‚Unterwelt’, allerdings nur als Hypothese. Die Antwort muss von Geophonen aufgefangen werden, der ‚Briefverkehr’ mit der Erde ist also hochtechnologisch. Dieses Wissen wird unter anderem Ölkonzernen zur Verfügung gestellt, die es ihrerseits dazu verwenden Hypothesen aufzustellen, wo Öl zu finden ist.
Meine Karikatur stellt nun folgendes dar: Angesichts der Klimakrise scheint mir ein derart imaginierter Briefverkehr, als bohre man gradewegs ein Loch in die Hölle.« (Alena Naima Knüppel )
Wir wurden in einen Rausch an einem Stoff hineingeboren, der uns einst grenzenlose Freiheit, die Moderne und Lebenskomfort versprach. Das Erdöl, mit seiner schier endlosen Produktpalette, hat wie kaum ein anderer Stoff unsere moderne Gesellschaft geprägt und verändert. Und unsere Welt gleichzeitig in großes Leid gestürzt. Heute ist unser Öl-Rausch zu Ende, die Dämmerung des Erdölzeitalters hat begonnen und der Film blickt mit Künstlern und Künstlerinnen zurück auf die Petromoderne – unser Zeitalter des Öls.
Und er stellt sich die Frage: Was hat das Erdöl nur mit uns gemacht und warum fällt es uns so schwer, uns von dem schillernd schwarzen Rohstoff zu lösen?
Produktion: VIVE la DOK Filmproduktion und Navigator Film (Österreich) in Koproduktion mit ZDF/ARTE, 2021, Regie: Mathias Frick, 52 min
What might it feel like to live in New York City after fossil fuels?
One year later as planned and only with the help of an NIE (National Interest Exception) they are finally happening with Alexander Klose physically in New York City, and together with New York-based speculative designer Chris Woebken: three successive precognitioning sessions taking place on Oct 28/29/30 at tenfourteen. space for ideas, 1014 5th Avenue, New York, NY!
Collage by Adeline Chum, Jules Kleitman, Aditi Mangesh Shetye, 2021
The fossil energy regime of coal, oil and gas has to and will end eventually, coal rolling and the renewed celebration of excessive fossil fuel consumption having been merely petromelancholic rebound effects… This is the backdrop for our ongoing research project on the histories and afterlives of petromodernity. How do we want to live in a post-fossil future? How and with whom will we develop new kinships after the social bonds connected to the resource economy and the exuberant promises of our ‘Western Way of Life’ are untied? Will we actively delve into a world of living materials and microbiological entanglements? Will we get beyond racism and patriarchy? Will we cease to privately own land?
Join us at one of three successive precognitioning sessions at 1014! Play out visions of urban renewal, societal reformation, and a post-extractivist approach towards natures and societies after the possible endings of fossil energy regimes.
Collage by Tashania Akemah , 2021
Through narrative techniques and design futures methods a series of bespoke design interventions and immersive installations transform 1014 into a hyper-reality testing environment. Using guided speculative role play and co-created moments of immersion, participants are encouraged to experiment with new values and beliefs that might emerge in a post-petro world. The scenarios and installations have been developed in collaboration with an architecture course at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, led by participatory futures practitioner Chris Woebken in partnership with cultural researcher Alexander Klose.
The idea of precognition: Being neither driven by big corporations nor by governments, the precognition process takes up the project of working with and on futures in an explicitly non-technocratic, experimental way. It avoids statistics-based “scientific” methodologies. Instead, it relies on collectively crafted visions and material-based artifacts and embodied roleplay. An archeology of the fossil presence: surveying infrastructures, collecting images and narratives that at the same time manifest all kinds of afterlives and hint to possible escape routes.
You’re invited to join us as a participant on one of the evenings Oct 28, Oct 29, Oct 30. In two groups of max 15 people, visitors will walk through the installations and the precognitioning process accompanied byAlexander Kloseand Chris Woebken and different ‘lead speculators’ from varying fields of practice and knowledge for each evening. We will explore and respond to new precognitioned values, myths, and cultural imaginations that might emerge while being shaped by the afterlives of petro-modernity.
Thursday 10/28, 6:30 – 9 pm with lead speculators Dan Taeyoung and Dr. Elizabeth Hénaff
Friday 10/29, 6:30 – 9 pm with lead speculators Aristilde Kirby and Frank Morales
Saturday 10/30, 6:30 – 9 pm with lead speculators Ayodamola Okunseinde and Ben Holbrook
For more information on the lead speculators scroll down.
Precognitioning Post-Oil is realized in cooperation with GSAPP Columbia University
Dr. Elizabeth Hénaff is a computational biologist with an art practice. Her academic trajectory started with a Bachelors in Computer Science, followed by a Master’s in Plant Biology (both from UT Austin) and a PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of Barcelona. At the center of her work is a fascination with the way living beings interact with their environment. This inquiry has produced a body of work that ranges from scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, to projects with landscape architects, to working as an artist in environments from SVA to the MIT Media Lab. She has made contributions to understanding how plants respond to the force of gravity, how genome structure changes in response to stress, and most recently has turned her attention to the ubiquitous and invisible microbial component of our environment. She currently holds an Assistant Professor position in the Technology, Culture and Society department at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in New York City.
Ben Holbrook is a Brooklyn-based (originally from NC) playwright and filmmaker whose works have been produced, developed, or commissioned by: Fundamental Theater Project, Ruddy Productions, The New York International Fringe Festival, The Memphis Fringe Festival, The Motor Company, Voices of the South (TN), Ugly Rhino(LA), Seoul Players (SK), Holiday House, Find the Light (LA), The Irish Arts Council, 45th Street Block Association, and Paper Lantern Theatre Company (NC). His films have been seen at the Big Apple Film Festival, The Imaginarium Convention, The Comedy of Horrors Festival, The Sickest Short Films Festival, and The Films Open Mic Festival. He’s been awarded the Edward Albee Foundation fellowship, the Drama League Rough Draft Residency (partnering with Sam Underwood), Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup Residency, The New Concepts Theatre Lab at UNC-Greensboro, Magic Time at Judson Church, and is the inaugural recipient of the Peter Shaffer Award for Excellence in Playwriting. Ben is also the co-owner of Full Metal Workshop.
Aristilde Kirby (she/they, b. 1991) is a poet, like the play of the ripples on the water. Daisy & Catherine², her latest chapbook, is out in November via Auric Press. Past works include Daisy & Catherine (Belladonna, 2017) & Sonnet Infinitesimal / Material Girl (Black Warrior Review & Best American Experimental Writing 2020). She has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing from Bard College. You can just call her Aris, like Paris without the P.
Frank Morales
Episcopal Priest, Writer and Housing Activist
Frank Morales is a legendary New York City housing activist, a radical Episcopalian priest who has been squatting in the South Bronx and on the Lower East Side since 1978. Morales was the housing organizer for Picture the Homeless, a homeless-led grassroots group that developed a multipronged program of direct action to secure housing for homeless people, alongside groups like Miami’s Take Back the Land.
Morales currently co-leads Organizing for Occupation, a group of New York City residents from the activist, academic, religious, homeless, arts, and progressive legal communities who have come together to respond to the housing crisis. The group believes that safe and affordable housing is a human right and that, given the failure of government and the private sector to address the crisis, it is up to those who are most directly affected by it to secure that right through nonviolent direct action. The group intends to create housing through the occupation of vacant spaces and to protect people’s right to remain in existing housing through community-based anti-eviction campaigns.
Ayodamola Okunseinde
Nigerian-American Artist, Designer, Anthropologist and Time-traveler
Okunseinde studied Visual Arts and Philosophy at Rutgers University where he earned his B.A. His works range from painting and speculative design to physically interactive works, wearable technology, and explorations of “Reclamation”. He was nominated for the 2021 inaugural Knight Art + Tech Fellowship and is a 2021 fellow of the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought. His works exist between physical and digital spaces; across the past, present and future. Okunseinde’s works ask us, via a technological lens, to reimagine notions of race, identity, politics, and culture as we travel through time and space. He holds an M.F.A. in Design and Technology and an M.A. in Anthropology from The New School. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at The New School for Social Research and serves as an Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design at Parsons School of Design.
Dan Taeyoung is a learner, facilitator, spatial designer, and technologist. His practice involves around collaborating to create architectural spaces and social collectives that embody how we might want to live together, as well as researching design and social tools that change the way we work together. He teaches at Columbia University GSAPP and NYU IDM; is a founding member of Soft Surplus, a co-founder of Prime Produce, a guild for social good, the NYC REIC, an real estate investment cooperative working towards anti-displacement and community land ownership.
