desert futures

Susanne M. Winterling

Symposium mit Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Glaser (Physische Geographie, Universität Freiburg), Dr. Nemiah Ladd (Ökosystemphysiologie, Universität Freiburg), Friedrich Neu (Geographie des Globalen Wandels, Universität Freiburg) und Susanne M. Winterling (The Kalpana)

Sa, 04.07.2020, 14–18 Uhr

Das Symposium Desert futures beschäftigt sich mit Fragen, die die Zukunft unseres Planeten vor dem Hintergrund des Klimawandels und der zunehmenden Desertifikation weiter Teile der Welt betreffen. Ein Fokus liegt auf Prozessen und Folgen von Trockenperioden und Dürren unter geografischer Perspektive sowie unter Laborbedingungen in der Biosphäre 2. Was können wir vom biodiversen Leben in der Wüste lernen, um eine trockenere Zukunft zu bewältigen? Welche Möglichkeiten und Grenzen liegen in der Verbindung von wissenschaftlichen, spekulativen und künstlerischen Ansätzen bei der Entwicklung realistischer Zukunftsvisionen? Was für Methoden und Lösungsansätze lassen sich entwerfen, die sowohl soziale als auch ökologische Gerechtigkeit berücksichtigen? Ausgangspunkt des Symposiums ist die aktuelle Ausstellung im Kunstverein Freiburg In desert times des Kollektivs The Kalpana: Die Präsentation ihres spekulativen Wüstenplaneten als Ort für Zukunftsimaginationen, Science-Fiction sowie von künftigen Spezies, Artefakten und Codes.

 

 

14:00–14:30 / Heinrich Dietz und Antonia Lotz, Begrüßung und Einführung

 

 

14:30–15:15 / Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Glaser, Desertifikation – Eine Einordnung aus geographischer Perspektive

 

16:00–16:20 / Dr. Nemiah Ladd, B2-WALD – Dürre in der Biosphäre 2

 

16:20–16:40 / Friedrich Neu, Fragen der Klimagerechtigkeit

 

16:40–17:00 / Susanne M. Winterling, Planetary sensing – In desert times

Pandora's Box

Good things, bad things. The good ones sometimes followed the bad ones, and this, against all odds, gave the impression of an actual improvement in collective desire. Poetic utterances can anticipate scientific advances by decades apparently. But this is never an obvious consequence, neither is it a direct effect of poetry. There must be salt... and there must be people who read the poetry... others who learn it by heart, some who write those verses again, with a few variations.
 

The best artists don't ever repeat themselves, they start over and over again from scratch, uncertain with each new attempt precisely where their next experiment will take them, but suddenly, spontaneously, and unaccountably, there comes something which your instinct seizes on as being for a moment the thing which you could begin to develop.
 

The Pandora project is a collective artifact which started with a group of artists, poets and cultural producers, as they suddenly began to talk to each other from different angles, unusual positions, far from the couch. – poet Isidore Ducasse once wrote “do not succumb / under-lie / move away from that couch.” – he was right.
 

These talks expanded each time these artists met, as they were bringing in their new friends, their greatest antagonists, their demonic persecutors. They became a long long series of dialogues, which were later collected on the soft fibers of a papyrus roll. Suddenly it became clear to them that, while talking, they were also transforming their mutual discourses, as well as the necessity that laid behind them. With the flow of the roll they were actually creating an artifact – a Pandora Box – a mischievous gesture that for as tiny and unassuming it was, could as well be capable of emanating extraordinary sounds and powers, redeploy the order of things, set free the anguish of their private, earthy mythologies.
 

So, this is just another story from a Pandoras box, and there is no better way to introduce it to you than by opening the lid.

Content is copyrighted to
Susanne M. Winterling

Thanks to:
Francesca Lacatena, Alain Siboni, Antonia Lotz, Chiara Figone, Archive Books, Susanne Pfeffer, Silvia Federici, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Elisabeth Povinelli, Franco Berardi Bifo, Suzana Milevska, 

Parts are supported by the research fund of Oslo National Academy of the Arts

Pandoras's Box

Good things, bad things. 
The good ones sometimes followed
the bad ones, and this, against all odds, gave
the impression of an actual improvement
in collective desire.

"Strange resonances as strategies and mimicry of play"Kinship and dissonance On heat Negotiating matters, dynamics of the undercurrents and woundedness (to living the non-fascist life) Sharing experiences: ...... the creative curve and the ethico-political task of an artist is not to represent from a comfortable outsider’s position, but to leave oneself exposed to the brutality of the world in the possibility of transforming it Blackwash [working title] desert futures Experiments in the ecology of phytoplankton community: the overall surface charge of clay and a HAB cell are opposite, hence they get attracted to each other like magnets Fractal sensing/thinking on a planetary scale Sharing experiences: … Science Fictionality and the dependence on other species, be those extraplanetary aliens or species that exist on the planet We like the lobster and... deeper forms of solidarity the best way to resist... (excerpt) G20 BlueLetter from the Future Safe spaces Fragments of living knowledge and Neuro-mutations (the mutating relation between the conscious organism and the inorganic sphere of technology) Dreams, nonlinear, fog, and breaths A knot untied in two parts Solidarity and Intersectionality: what can transnational feminist theory learn from regional feminist activism? Aesthetic Solidarity
Pandora's Box