Propulsion: On Changing Futures

20. Oktober 2016 - 22. Oktober 2016
Ortsbezogene Kunst

Utopische Bauten und alternative Gesellschaftsmodelle – auf der Erde wie auch im Weltraum?
Angesichts realer und heraufbeschworener Krisen der Gegenwart scheinen uns die klassischen Zukunftsentwürfe des 20. Jahrhunderts verloren gegangen zu sein. Der Runde Tisch der Abteilung für Ortsbezogene Kunst versammelt Gäste aus Raumfahrt, Architektur und Kunst, um über vergangene und neue Zukünfte zu sprechen.

After last year?s first Round Table Humans Make Nature about ideas of landscape in the Anthropocene, the department?s Round Table 2016 (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/cat/round-table) addresses past and possible new futures.

November 2015: Four decades after The Limits to Growth, US president Barack Obama signs a law permitting American citizens and companies to exploit the virtually unlimited resources of asteroids.
August 2016: Scientists announce the discovery of Proxima b, an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light-years from us. Liquid water may be present on its surface, and one day, robotic probes may be sent there at one-fifth the speed of light.

Outer space was a pivotal point of reference throughout the twentieth century;
today, it has again come into focus due to recent scientific, technological, and economic developments. Current discourses of discovery, expansion, and resource exploitation bear a striking resemblance to terrestrial ideologies of past centuries and raise many transdisciplinary issues: How can we investigate the future cultural heritage of space without repeating colonial patterns of conquest? What do designs for space settlements and the architecture of Earth have in common? Who owns celestial bodies, and what responsibilities arise from our interactions with extraterrestrial places, objects, and materials even in the absence of alien life?

Meanwhile, on Earth we are facing economic, ecological, and social transformations whose intricacies and consequences are hard to grasp. With experts from the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, law, architecture and cultural studies, we want to discuss how we can think about the future today while we are in the midst of a crisis of ?futurity? as a linear, progressive, Western concept. Do transdisciplinary artistic practices offer an openness within an altered gravitational field where not only the complexities of our present can be addressed but also a ?potential past futurity? beyond simplifications?

Lectures/Events

Alice Gorman
Haunted Houses at Hypervelocity: Orbital Futures (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/view/alice-gorman/en)

Ralo Mayer
E.T.E.?“Extra-Terrestrial Ecologies, the Undergrowth” (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/cat/courses)

Douglas Murphy
Giant Envelopes and the Total Interior (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/view/douglas-murphy/en)

Vera Tollmann
Picturing the Universe: On Scale, Calculation, and Composites (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/view/vera-tollmann/en)

Saskia Vermeylen
The ?Invasion? of Chaos Theory and Science Fiction in Space Law (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/view/saskia-vermeylen/en)

Book Launch
Humans Make Nature (http://www.ortsbezogenekunst.at/notes/view/book-launch-humans-make-nature/en)

The Round Table-format is an annual mini-symposium organized by the Department of Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. For this year?s edition we invited Claudia Slanar who worked together with Ralo Mayer on the concept and its realization.

Department of Site-Specific Art
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Expositur Paulusplatz 5
1030 Vienna / Austria

Programm

THU, 20.10.16 | 2-4pm
Students? Workshop
Claudia Slanar and
Ralo Mayer

THU, 20.10.16 | 6pm
Introduction and
Filmscreening
Claudia Slanar

FRI, 21.10.16 | 2pm
E.T.E.?
Extra-Terrestrial
Ecologies,
the Undergrowth
Ralo Mayer

FRI, 21.10.16 | 3pm
Giant Envelopes
and the
Total
Interior
Douglas Murphy

FRI, 21.10.16 | 5pm
Haunted Houses
at Hypervelocity:
Orbital Futures
Alice Gorman

FRI, 21.10.16 | 7pm
Book Launch
Humans
Make Nature
Gabriele Mackert and
Michael Wagreich

SAT, 22.10.16 | 1pm
Picturing
the Universe:
On Scale,
Calculation,
and Composites
Vera Tollmann

SAT, 22.10.16 | 3pm
The ?Invasion?
of Chaos Theory
and Science
Fiction in Space
Law
Saskia Vermeylen

SAT, 22.10.16 | 5pm
Round Table
Concluding panel
with participants