Bodies in Trouble
July 10–14, 2019
The growing impact of technology on life as we know it brings changes to our bodies, our communities and the environment—what can we do? How can we understand and shape these changes collectively?
Blue Skies is a series conceived to run over several years that invites us to think together. Taking place at PACT from July 10 to July 14 under the title Bodies in Trouble, the first edition of the festival encompasses performances and contemporary art works, panels, discussions and workshops.
Unbridled technological advances and radical developments in biochemical research are increasingly interfering with life itself: hybrids of machine and organism are already reality, technical interventions and materials becoming one with the body. However, the latest developments in genetic engineering promise to make humans modifiable before birth. The foundations of our existence and of our social and public coexistence are changing profoundly. In the alluring technological promises of big corporations, the freedom to make the body, social dynamics and our environment completely shapeable and changeable sounds like a universal solution. Others fear a hopeless social scenario in which the individual’s power to act falls victim to comprehensive technical reductions, mathematical operations and filtered knowledge. But how or in what forms might critically nuanced responses to these polarizing positions find expression?
Over the course of five days, PACT and medienwerk.nrw shine an investigative light on active interdisciplinary perspectives on new narratives, speculative visions of the future and alternative practices in the company of international artists, scientists, activists, publicists, students and audience members.
Exhibition, performances & workshops
acting in concert, The Agency, Aliens in Green, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, FAM_, knowbotiq, Labsa, Xavier Le Roy, Mary Maggic, Špela Petrič, Paula Pin, Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Johannes Paul Raether, Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi) & Thomas Melle, Silke Schönfeld, Jenna Sutela, Nguyễn + Transitory
Discourse
Marie-Luise Angerer, Madeleine Böckers, Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Gabriele Gramelsberger, Jens Hauser, Oliver Kuchenbuch, Justus Pötzsch, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Tabita Rezaire, Emilia Sanabria, Paula-Irene Villa
Music
Asita Shirali, COOL FOR YOU, Odete, tryniti, N7zza
Tickets and registration
Admission to the talks, lectures and workshops (registration: info [at] medienwerk-nrw.de), concerts and exhibition is free. The working language is English. The complete programme, tickets and comprehensive information about the Blues Skies festival are available at www.pact-zollverein.de.
Schedule
Wednesday, July 10
6:30pm
Festival and exhibition opening
Opening speeches by Dr. Hildegard Kaluza (Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia), Fabian Saavedra-Lara (medienwerk.nrw) and Stefan Hilterhaus (PACT Zollverein), short statements by the participating artists
9pm
Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi), Thomas Melle & Münchner Kammerspiele: Uncanny Valley
Performance
10pm
knowbotiq / Lamin Fofana: Genesis Machines – La Pompa Agricultura Transsubstantia
Live music set in the installation
Thursday, July 11
10am–1pm
Aliens in Green: Xenopolitics, a performative workshop on hormonally active agents
Performative workshop
11am–1pm
Graduate college: Life Sciences - Life Writing
Madeleine Böckers, Oliver Kuchenbuch, Justus Pötzsch
Impulse lectures / talk
2:30–3:30pm
The Agency / Paula-Irene Villa
Artist talk
4–5pm
Johannes Paul Raether: Identitecture
Lecture
5:30–6pm
Marie-Luise Angerer: A new zone of nonconsciousness—where life and technology meet
Lecture
6–6:30pm
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky: Google Baby
Talk
7pm
Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi), Thomas Melle & Münchner Kammerspiele: Uncanny Valley
Performance
8:15pm
The Agency: Medusa Bionic Rise
Performance
9pm
Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi), Thomas Melle & Münchner Kammerspiele: Uncanny Valley
Performance
Friday, July 12
10am–1pm
Paula Pin: Biotranslab _ transOrgansOnChip!
Workshop
10am–1pm
Aliens in Green: Xenopolitics, a performative workshop on hormonally active agents
Performative workshop
10:30–11:30am
Bodies in Trouble
Talk with the participating artists & Mary Shnayien, Nada Schroer, Klaas Werner, Fabian Saavedra-Lara
12:15–1pm
Emilia Sanabria: Speaking Plants: decolonial perspectives on ayahuasca, animism and healing
Lecture
2:30–3:30pm
knowbotiq: Deep Access—molecular joy and abstract sex
Artist talk
4–5:30pm
Jens Hauser / Aliens in Green / Špela Petrič: Microperformativity and Biomediality
Impulse lectures / talk
7pm
Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi), Thomas Melle & Münchner Kammerspiele: Uncanny Valley
Performance
8:15pm
The Agency: Medusa Bionic Rise
Performance
9pm
Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi), Thomas Melle & Münchner Kammerspiele: Uncanny Valley
Performance
from 9pm
FAM_ events
Bar interventions / karaoke
Saturday, July 13
11–11:30am
Tabita Rezaire
Artist talk
11am–1pm
Labsa: DNA positiv DNA negativ—open workshop
Workshop
11:30am
Johannes Paul Raether: Transformalor—Transformella malor [4.4.6.13.]
Performance
12–1pm
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Artist talk
2:30–3:30pm
Luiza Prado de O. Martins: A Topography of Excesses
Lecture
4–5:30pm
Kaushik Sunder Rajan / Emilia Sanabria
Impulse lectures / talk
6–7pm
Gabriele Gramelsberger: Towards Wetware Computing
Lecture
7:30pm
Xavier Le Roy: Untitled, a lecture
Lecture / performance
9pm
Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi), Thomas Melle & Münchner Kammerspiele: Uncanny Valley
Performance
10:30pm
Nguyễn+Transitory
Music / performance
11:30pm
COOL FOR YOU
Concert
12:10am
Odete
Concert
1am
FAM_
DJ sets
Sunday, July 14
11am–1pm
Get-together
1–2pm
Silke Schönfeld: Dacă plouă, nu mă plouă / If it rains, it doesn’t rain on me (working title)
Film screening
Press contact:
Ann-Charlotte Günzel: T +49 201 289 4710 / ann-charlotte.guenzel [at] pact-zollverein.de
Supported within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
The Choreographisches Zentrum NRW Betriebs GmbH is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of NRW and the City of Essen. Tanzlandschaft Ruhr is a Kultur Ruhr GmbH project and is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of NRW.
The office of medienwerk.nrw and the festival Blue Skies – Bodies in Trouble are supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (the office is hosted by: Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund). Supported within the framework of the International Visitors Programme of the NRW KULTURsekretariat.
