We’re always glad when they come. But also to see them go. The things that remain, the arches and ornaments, tell us of a life that has been lived. Single shards spell out eternity. Jars and vessels are libraries and witnesses all at once: the outlines of eternal travelers who never arrive, but shouldn’t be impeded. Decisions should only be made when one is aware of various possibilities. Retreat into one’s own existence. Dilute one’s identity. ‘I’ is only a construction, too. Swim. Be water my friend. So limpid as to provide a large area for the phantoms and projections of others. Transparent bodies. A heart of glass. Back in the days, people never got old enough to get cancer. Procedures. The representation of death as sickness. The metaphysical order of things. An understanding that living beings in the world are compositions standing side by side, tightly bound enough to make it through the day, and that in spite of everything they are of this earth, in life and death. And this way of being an ‘earthling’ is a kind of counterpoint to the transcendentalism of philosophy, science and politics, as well as all the other, different regimes that involve a commitment to deathlessness. The spider weaves the world.
In our project “Spaced Out in Outer Space” we will examine the history of the balance in cybernetics and biology and its influence on our contemporary conception of nature and society. We are interested in the question of the extent to which notions of “pure” nature, immortality and space travel have always been a fantasy in western science and art to escape a faulty existence and to change it instead of accepting its limits.
For this purpose, Paul Wiersbinski will create stories and shoot videos to examine narration itself as a political tool and to talk about what future communities might look like. Based on these narratives, Behrang Karimi will produce drawings and paintings. Our goal is to tell a story that is big enough and yet open to talk about current doomsday fantasies. As Donna Haraway says, "It depends on what thoughts think about thoughts."
Both artists have worked together several times, including with earlier funding from the NRW Kunststiftung for the exhibition “Dumb Pigs Smart Pigs” about the possibility of a utopian society of pigs and most recently at the Schauspiel Köln as part of the scenic dance installation “Flakon” together with Mara Tsironi.
funded by / gefördert aus Mitteln der Projektförderung des Bezirks Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg