12 05-07
Synthetic Becoming, book editor and researcher Lenka Veselá has organized this “unconference and interdisciplinary, collective, reflexive, affective, and socially engaged research symposium in art, design, humanities, and social sciences” at Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. More info with keynotes and full program here.
11 29
Synthetic Becoming has appeared in the Chech online journal Clanky. Author Vit Bohal writes about the book: “Synthetic Becoming speaks from the position of a particular planetary politics that takes stock of a new, molecular commonality, and radically engages with the multiplicity of voices that speak through post-colonial, ecological and social critique. The book itself is constructed as a particular material artefact printed on recycled paper in order to mitigate its carbon footprint; but such paper is at the same time ‘weaker, less reliable, and potentially toxic’ due to the higher retention of toxins and bacteria in recycled paper generally. Its reading thus constitutes a material ‘commitment’ on the part of the reader – ‘a material choice to acknowledge dependencies, vulnerabilities, and sensitivities of contemporary life extending beyond our individual selves.’ For better or for worse, within this new molecular commons we never stand alone.”
11 8–9
Fieldguides for a Preternaturalist, artist and author Wendy Morris has organized a two-day gathering and public recital of the work in Antwerp and Brussels. Rooted Encounters: Fields, Forest, and other Imaginings is a symposium on pluralist entanglements of artistic thinking with other research ecologies and considers art’s potential for making a stand within current challenges. Thinking along with philosophies of plant biology, feminist critiques of biotechnology, colonialism, and science, histories of plants out of place, and bark beetles and bitter roots, participants explore the collaborative possibilities of ambulatory libraries, storytelling-as-method, and ecologies of listening. With: Kate Briggs, Paco Calvo, Alexandra Crouwers, Lukas De Clerck, Sepideh Karami, Laurens Dhaenens, Wendy Morris, Nele Möller, Rachel O’Donnell, Renée Turner, Catalina Valdez, and Els Viaene. Event details are here.
