Demonstrations

The Fog of Meaning in a Voiceless Demos
Elizabeth A. Povinelli (Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York)

A performance. The protagonists: a meteorological entity and a geological entity. The problem: how do the differences among such entities become a difference that makes no difference under the pressure of the Anthropocene? The apparatus: an aquarium populated by plants and a little frog; a large handheld magnifying glass; a blindfold; a mortar and pestle; a digital projection. What results: a transformation.

Begin, Seedy Being!
Geoffrey C. Bowker (School of Information and Computer Science, University of California at Irvine)

This demonstrationapproaches seeds as simultaneously points of origin and ending. In a performative reading of a set of seeds, cycles of growth, regeneration, and extinction are considered as a motion that propels itself forward, while also rewinding back. A set of observations will be developed while handling the seeds, reflections on temporal alignment, timescales, and material processes of inscription.

A Politics of Departure, it Effects in Being Affected
Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri (artists, New York) with Ben Morea (artist, USA)

A politics of departure is a politics that attempts to destitute the anthropos of capitalism: a politics that affirms the belonging together of life and form, being and use; in which the fundamental concepts are no longer production and praxis, but unworking, use, becoming-with; which does not separate the vital and reproductive activities as unpolitical; and/or a politics no longer centered on the human.

Thanks to: Dr. Stephan Schultka from the Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Museum für Naturkunde for the support of the Demonstration Begin, Seedy being!