The Anthropocene]]> Technology]]> 16 Nov 2018, Fri 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
NTU ADM (School of Art, Design and Media) Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

This lecture presents the Basel part of the exhibition series Eco-Visionaries. Art, New Media and Ecology after the Anthropocene, of which Yvonne Volkart is a co-curator. The exhibition is related to her research project Ecodata – Ecomedia – Ecoaesthetics which investigates new media, technologies, and techno-scientific methods (registering, collecting and interpreting data) in the arts in view of understanding their role and significance for the perception and awareness of “the ecological.”

Assuming that there is no escape of technology in our technosphere, the belief in technologies as tools for information and help is widespread in both technophile and critical discourses of the Anthropocene. Many artists use technologies like sensors and methods like Big Data to get in touch with what has been unknown for a long time. They try to “translate” earthbound signals into human perception, in order to deliver information and establish new relations between non-humans and humans. But what exactly do ecomedia and ecodata deliver/narrate? How do they affect us? Drawing on the Basel part of the group exhibition Eco-Visionaries, as well as on a further aesthetic projects and theories of media-ecology, this lecture discusses how ecomedia might enable (or not) participation and transversal thinking. What does the current euphoric take to the non-human imply, if we want to overcome the paralysis of the Anthropocene? At which point do come the people into play?

This programme is part of Nature and Urbanity: Acts of Life, a critical research residency and presentation project that seeks to explore the relationship between environments and humankind in times of rapid urbanisation and digitalisation. The project is transdisciplinary in nature and lends itself to discussions between fields of art, philosophy, sociology, urbanism, and technology. Acts of Life is a collaboration of NTU CCA Singapore and MCAD Manila, commissioned by the Goethe-Institut Singapore and Manila.]]>
Yvonne Volkart]]> Europe]]>
Biodiversity]]> The Anthropocene]]> Posthumanism]]>
We are now surrounded by the living products of our own ingenuity. Hybrid fish, transgenic corn, and Wolbachia mosquitoes. We tend to view such creatures with dread, thinking of them as unnatural hybrids that confuse boundaries and cross categories. But what if we found ways of loving our creations more? What if embracing these hybrids allowed us to find new ways of living with and in nature? New institutional, structural, and philosophical relationships to our genetically modified cousins might just help us survive in the Anthropocene.]]>
Hallam Stevens ]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]> North America]]>
Ecology]]> The Anthropocene]]> Regionalism]]> Geopolitics]]> Identity]]> Lucy Raven]]> Southeast Asia]]> Ecology]]> The Anthropocene]]> Regionalism]]> Geopolitics]]> Identity]]> Melati Suryodarmo]]> Southeast Asia]]> Nature]]> The Anthropocene]]> Oceans & Seas]]> Geopolitics]]> Nabil Ahmed]]> Asia]]> Oceania]]> Biodiversity]]> Botany]]> Ecology]]> Ecosystems]]> The Anthropocene]]> 4 October 2021 - 31 March 2022
NTU CCA Singapore]]>
Chua Chye Teck]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Embodiment]]> The Anthropocene]]> Sustainability]]>
Ergonomic Futures is a multi-part project that asks questions about contemporary “fitness” through the lens of speculative evolution. Consisting of seats designed for future bodies that currently serve as museum furniture, a website (www.ergonomicfutures.com), and a lecture, the work comes out of Tyler Coburn’s interviews with paleoanthropologists, ergonomists, evolutionary biologists, and genetic engineers. To each he has asked: What are future scenarios for imagining new types of human bodies and how might this thought experiment reframe conversations about body normativity in the present day?

In the lecture, Coburn will discuss genetic engineering, the founder effect, postplanetary living, and other matters that contribute to the biological, philosophical, and legal definition of the “human.”
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Tyler Coburn]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Design]]> The Anthropocene]]> History]]>
The current ecological, economic, social, and political crises point to a deeper ontological crisis: We are experiencing a transition from the hegemonic paradigms of modernity to a more fluid configuration of value systems. The artistic practice of Valentina Karga—which she calls “Designing Simulations as Art”—addresses this radical shift and experiments with the creation of social structures that allow for difference and sustainable forms of communal existence. Strongly process-oriented, her work often generates collective actions through the engagement of specific communities. In this talk, Karga will presents a selection of past projects and share about her current research interest in prehistoric matriarchal societies and early representations of the anthropos (the human being).]]>
Valentina Karga]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
Coexistence]]> The Anthropocene]]> 7 Mar 2019, Thu 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Studio #01-05, Block 38 Malan Road

The current ecological, economic, social, and political crises point to a deeper ontological crisis: We are experiencing a transition from the hegemonic paradigms of modernity to a more fluid configuration of value systems. The artistic practice of Valentina Karga—which she calls “Designing Simulations as Art”—addresses this radical shift and experiments with the creation of social structures that allow for difference and sustainable forms of communal existence. Strongly process-oriented, her work often generates collective actions through the engagement of specific communities. In this talk, Karga will presents a selection of past projects and share about her current research interest in prehistoric matriarchal societies and early representations of the anthropos (the human being).

The talk will take place in the artist’s studio.]]>
Valentina Karga]]> Europe]]>
Posthumanism]]> The Anthropocene]]> 2 Apr 2019, Tue 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM
The Lab, Block 43 Malan Road

Situating the post-humanist position between artificial intelligence and forces of nature, in this lecture Professor Bauer suggests that the current debate about future scenarios, reflecting economic and ecological circumstances of the present, is not about humanity in itself. Rather, Prof Bauer locates the source of tension to be within the pervasiveness of an anthropocentric perspective and action that dominates much of human life. Following the lecture, Prof Bauer will be joined by Sophie Goltz for more in-depth discussions.

Becoming Post-Human responds to the current research presentation in the Lab, Vapour Islands: to live and die well together in a thick present. The presentation quotes the seminal text by Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016), which has been read as a response to the rising sense of alarm surrounding ecological discourses on the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch named for the defining influence of human activity on the Earth’s ecosystems.]]>
Ute Meta Bauer]]> Sophie Goltz]]> Southeast Asia]]>