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.
We have been working on this project for more than five years. An exhibition about petromodernities around the world and how they have been reflected by artistic works. Its preparation at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg—in the lion’s den next to the headquarters of VW and indirectly financed by this world leading car manufacturing company—has been interrupted and delayed by severe incidents: the unforeseen replacement of the museum’s director, the restrictions of a pandemic….
But now it is really going to happen! The first retrospective of petromodern art. Opening Sat, Sept. 4th.
With: Monira Al Qadiri, Ana Alenso, Francis Alÿs, Yuri Ancarani, Qiu Anxiong, Atelier van Lieshout, Kader Attia, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Klaus Auderer, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin, Lothar Baumgarten, Jennifer-Jane Bayliss, Wes Bell, Uwe Belz, Claus Bergen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ursula Biemann, Vanessa Billy, Brett Bloom, Mark Boulos, Margaret Bourke-White, Bureau d’Etudes, Edward Burtynsky, Warren Cariou, Christo, Tony Cragg, Walter De Maria, Mark Dion, Gerardo Dottori, Sokari Douglas Camp, Rena Effendi, William Eggleston, Hans Fischerkoesen, Sylvie Fleury, John Gerrard, Christoph Girardet, Claus Goedicke, Tue Greenfort, Carl Grossberg, Monika Grzymala, Robert Gschwantner, Hans Haacke, Ernst Haeckel, Eberhard Havekost, Romuald Hazoumè, Armin Herrmann, John Heartfield, Michael Hirschbichler, Bernhard Hopfengärtner, Murad Ibragimbekov, Aaditi Joshi, Peter Keetman, Matt Kenyon, Tetsumi Kudo, Ernst Logar, Mark Lombardi, Ellen Karin Mæhlum, Rémy Markowitsch, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Paul Michaelis, Kay Michalak & Sven Völker, Richard Misrach, Michael Najjar, Hugo Niebeling, Franz Nolde, Kate Orff, George Osodi, Alex Prager, Alain Resnais, Oliver Ressler, Martha Rosler, Miguel Rothschild, Ed Ruscha, Shirin Sabahi, Santiago Sierra, Taryn Simon, Andreas Slominski, Robert Smithson, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, Thomas Struth, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gunhild Vatn, Wolf Vostell, Entang Wiharso, Erwin Wurm, Yuts
Find here the german exhibition folder, downloadable as pdf. An english description of the exhibition can be accessed through the link on the bottom of the page.
Öffentlicher Vortrag der Klasse Klima, UdK Berlin, mit Alexander Klose
Die Petromoderne ist die durch Kulturtechniken des Erdöls und anderer fossiler Ressourcen geprägte Kultur unserer Zeit. Gehen wir davon aus, dass es mit ihr ein baldiges Ende hat. Was wird von ihr bleiben? In welchen Formen wird sie explizit und implizit weiterleben? In welchen Formen wird man sich zukünftig auf sie beziehen?
Der Kunsthistoriker Aby Warburg hat für das Überdauern antiker und archaischer Bildprogramme in der Kunst der Neuzeit den Begriff des Nachlebens geprägt. Dieser Sicht zugrunde liegt die Vorstellung von einer evolutionären Kulturentwicklung. Der Vorteil einer solchen Auffassung von Kulturgeschichte liegt aus heutiger Sicht darin, dass sie es erlaubt, kultur- und naturhistorische Phänomene analog zu behandeln. Denn eine der zentralen Erkenntnisse des Anthropozän-Denkens besteht darin, dass die lange für unser Weltbild konstitutive, grundsätzlich Trennung zwischen “Natur”- und “Kultur”- Machen weder ethisch noch im Lichte wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse noch haltbar ist.
Die manifest materiellen Hinterlassenschaften der Petromoderne – die Hinterlassenschaften von Tankerhavarien, geplatzten Pipelines, zerstörten Bohrplattformen, von gigantischen Verkehrsinfrastrukturen, vor allem aber CO2 und Mikroplastik – werden für Jahrtausende in den Ozeanen, in der Atmosphäre, auf der Erdoberfläche und in den Böden verbleiben. Sie werden die Biosphäre des Planeten nach menschlich-historischen Maßstäben für eine signifikant lange Dauer verändert haben. Wie aber steht es mit den weniger materiellen kulturellen Elementen unserer Zeit, den Verhaltensweisen, sozialen Organisationsformen, Glaubens- und Begehrensstrukturen? Wie wird man sich auf sie zukünftig beziehen? In welchem Verhältnis stehen sie zu den Monumenten petrochemischer Produktion und Mobilität und welche Rollen könnten diese spielen?
Anhand existierender Beispiele für petromoderne Kulturerbestätten und anhand der Entwürfe der Teilnehmer*innen der Klasse Klima diskutiert Alexander Klose in seinem Vortrag Szenarien zukünftiger Erinnerungs- bzw. Verdrängungskultur.
Digital Petrosalon on the presence and history of oil extraction and petroculture in Western-Sibiria and the post-soviet sphere
Conceived of and organized by Beauty of Oil in cooperation with Oxana Timofeeva and the research group “Imaginary Anthropocene: environmental knowledge production and transfers in Siberia in the XX-XXI centuries“ at the Center “Human, Nature, Technology” of Tyumen University and Goethe Institute Novosibirsk.
Participants: Evgeny Gololobov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Vice-Rector for Research, Surgut State Pedagogical University. Fedor Korandey, Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Historical Geography and Regional Studies, Tyumen State University. Alexander Sorokin, head of Department of Russian History, Head of Research Center “Human, Environment & Technology”, University of Tyumen. Igor Stas, Senior Research Fellow, Laboratory of Historical Geography and Regional Studies, and investigator of the project “Imaginary Anthropocene: environmental knowledge production and transfers in Siberia in the XX-XXI centuries”, Tyumen State University. Oxana Timofeeva, Professor and Leading Researcher at Department of Sociology and Philosophy, European University of St. Petersburg, founding member of the project “Imaginary Anthropocene: environmental knowledge production and transfers in Siberia in the XX-XXI centuries”, Igor Chubarov, Professor of Philosophy at Tjumen State University. Per Brandt. Director of Goethe-Institute Novosbirsk, Alexander Klose, Beauty of Oil, Benjamin Steininger, Beauty of Oil, And students of Tyumen State University.
Programme Per Brandt: Opening Alexander Klose, Benjamin Steininger: Introduction Fedor Korandey: And the Fourth will not be… How the Tyumen Oil region has become “the Third Baku” Eugene Gololobow: Oil in cultural life Surgut 60ies 70ies 80ies Ilya Kalinin: Soviet Oil and Russian Cosmism Igor Stas: Oil cities in the Russian Arctic (based on materials from the West Siberian sector of the Arctic) Benjamin Steininger: Oil history of Austria Alexander Klose: Druschba General Discussion
Event in English and Russian, Wed Dec 2, 12 – 3 pm CET on Zoom.
Нефть – это полезное ископаемое мирового значения. Двигатель внутреннего сгорания, самолет, пластмасса и синтетические удобрения уже стали частью мировой истории в контексте любой общественно-политической системы. По сути, весь переход нашей планеты в эпоху Антропоцена напрямую связан с использованием ископаемого топлива. В то же время глобальный масштаб приобрели и экологические проблемы, которые вынуждают человечество искать альтернативы углеводородам.
Тем не менее, исторический опыт добычи и использования нефти различается от региона к региону. Равно как и «модерн» – определение исторической эпохи, – «петромодернизм» не является унифицированным понятием. Нефть играет разную роль в капиталистической и социалистической экономических системах, в нефтедобывающих и нефтеперерабатывающих странах, в странах Запада и странах Востока, в Арктике и в Европе. И именно сейчас, когда мир начинает развитие в направлении отказа от ископаемых источников энергии, важно учесть все перечисленные перспективы для формирования комплексного представления о значении этой эпохи.
Online conversation on imaginary futures, how to conceive of, get there and avoid them
with Heather Davis, Elizabeth Hénaff, Timothy Furstnau, and Karen Pinkus. Conceived of and moderated by Alexander Klose and Chris Woebken. Hosted by 1014. With works by students of CUNY Citytech.
Thursday, Dec 3, 2020, 6-7:30 pm EST on Zoom.
A videorecording of the complete zoom talk can be seen on the bottom of this page.
Imagine, oil-eating microbionts had taken over, cleaning up our current environmental mess. But they had also done away with everything beautiful and essential made out of plastics.
Imagine, the use of fossil fuels and all fossil-fuelled technology had been forbidden without a proper energetic substitute. Everything eventually had to be driven down. Less mobility, less luxury, no exuberance. Deserted petromodern infrastructures refueled with petronostalgia.
Imagine the American Way of Life reloaded, a return of cheap oil due to some scientific and technical breakthroughs. More consumption, more mobility, more wars, more of everything. Utopia or nightmare?
The 1014 project space has been transformed into a hyper-reality testing environment. It is populated with experiential futures prototypes that investigate our relationships in a spectrum of post-oil scenarios. Through narrative techniques and design futures methods a design studio at CUNY Citytech led by participatory futures practitioner Chris Woebken and cultural researcher Alexander Klose has developed a series of bespoke design interventions and immersive installations throughout our upper east side townhouse project space. In a private walkthrough Heather Davis (Eugene Lang College, The New School), Elizabeth Hénaff (NYU IDM), Timothy Furstnau (Museum Of Capitalism) and Karen Pinkus (Cornell University, Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Ithaca) were invited to immerse themselves into these alternative imaginations that explore new values and imaginaries for a post-petro New York City. Please join us for an online talk with our guests to delve into these precarious scenarios, and discuss and respond to new values, myths, and cultural imaginations that might emerge while being shaped by the afterlives of petro-modernity.
For more information on 1014 project space visit 1014.nyc
Initially planned as a three part series of experimental workshops in a multimedia setting at project space 1014, this is the digital Corona-version and precursor of the physical events that will hopefully take place in 2021.
As an exercise in speculative design futures, students of an advanced studio in the Emerging Media Technology program of CUNY Citytech in the fall semester of 2020 were assigned to teamwork on the development of their own speculative media environments based on one of four scenarios handed out to them and located in one of four environments (or ‘zones’):
The Meadowlands: New Jersey, attaching East River and crossed by Hackensack River, the industrial hinterland and backwater of NYC;
Newtown Creek: a very heavily polluted canal on the boarder between Brooklyn and Queens, site of a continuous flow of oil spills that had been going on for 140 years and were altogether at least 50% bigger than the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill ;
Gowanus Canal: an industrial canal called by the name the indigenous inhabitants of this part of Brooklyn before the city gave its predeceasing natural waterstream, according to EPA (Unites States Environmental Protection Agency) one of the nation’s most seriously contaminated water bodies, now surrounded by heavily gentrifying areas;
Manhattan: the island that has been the zone per se in so many ficticious renderings of (post-)hyperurban life.
Proposal for 500-krone-note by Ellen Karin Mæhlum, from: Norges Bank, Forslag til motiver på ny seddelserie. Norges ny seddelserie: Havet, 2014.
In a musée imaginaire of the Norwegian history of extraction, a competition published by the Bank of Norway in 2014, calling for a new banknote design, could play a central role. The submitted sketches depict Norway as a land oriented towards the sea, in which the sea is simultaneously understood as an elementary space, a space of extraction and a molecular space of microorganisms and chemical compounds.
One of the unrealised banknote designs contrasts the natural form of a paleohistorical plankton particle that was part of oil formation with the technical shape of a drill head used for oil exploration. It is a complementary image of the molecular essence of oil technology and the opening up of natural history as a source of economic wealth by technological means. It may indeed be an image for the way Norway has approached its own petrol age.
Since the 1970s, Norway has been one of the most successful oil and gas extraction countries worldwide. Apart from other extraction countries, the depletion of fossil resources was anticipated before explorations began, giving rise to the notion of a sustainable post-oil future. Yet, the energetical base of fossil modernity on which Norway has built its social-democratic prosperity has become increasingly problematic. While the country has moved towards more sustainable means of energy production, it has not stopped its oil and gas extraction. New oil and gas fields are opening up and widening the area of exploration as far as the Arctic. The end of oil is being postponed, or so it seems. At the same time, Norway decidedly moves towards a post-fossil future by banning combustion engines on its own terrain and positioning itself as the sustainable“battery for Europe” thanks to its large reservoirs of hydro power.
We are witnessing a move from fishing to industrial whaling to oil extraction to hydrotechnology and back—and all at the same time. This event will focus from a petrocultural-comparative perspective on questions such as: How does Norwegian society cope with these ambivalent moves? How does it culturally represent its petromodern legacy? What are the grand narratives that were established to lead Norway into petromodernity and beyond? Have they changed?
Öl befeuert nicht nur die Maschinen, sondern auch die Phantasien. Wissenschaftliche und technische sowie metaphysische und spirituelle Vorstellungen und Erwartungen verbinden sich mit diesem schillernden Material – einem schwarzen Spiegel unserer Zeitläufte. TRUE OIL blickt dezidiert in diesen ebenso faszinierenden wie erschreckenden Spiegel, um den mannigfachen Bedeutungen des Materials Erdöl näher zu kommen.
