BLUE SKIES #1 – BODIES IN TROUBLE
PACT ZOLLVEREIN
WED, 10.07.2019 – SUN, 14.07.2019
With the growing impact of technology on life, our bodies, our communities and our environment are changing – what to do? How can we understand and shape this change together?
The unstoppable pace of technological change and the revolutionary developments in biochemical research are increasingly intervening in life itself: hybrids of machine and organism are emerging, technical interventions and substances are becoming one with the body. The latest developments in genetic engineering, however, promise to make humans modifiable even before birth. The foundations of our existence and of our social and public interaction are changing profoundly. In the promises of technological corporations, the power over completely modifying our bodies, social dynamics and our environment sounds like a universal solution. Others fear a hopeless social scenario in which the individual’s power to act falls victim to extensive technological reductions, mathematical operations and filtered knowledge. But what might the critical overtones of these polarizing positions sound like?
The festival was the fifth conference of the office medienwerk.nrw and at the same time the start of a new series of events by PACT Zollverein. In the coming years it will be dedicated to active and interdisciplinary work on urgent current issues in the field of tension between technology and society, new narratives, speculative visions of the future and alternative, empowering practices.
More info about Blue Skies
With contributions from
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, Johannes Paul Raether, Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi) & Thomas Melle, Silke Schönfeld, Nguyễn + Transitory and others
Discourse
Marie-Luise Angerer, Madeleine Böckers, Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Gabriele Gramelsberger, Jens Hauser, Oliver Kuchenbuch, Justus Pötzsch, Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Tabita Rezaire, Emilia Sanabria, Paula-Irene Villa and others
Music
Asita Shirali, COOL FOR YOU, Odete, tryniti, N!zza
FESTIVAL OPENING
WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2019
6.30 p.m. Welcome, introduction & opening of the exhibition
9 p.m. Münchner Kammerspiele, Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi) and Thomas Melle: “Uncanny Valley“
Concept: Stefan Hilterhaus, Fabian Saavedra-Lara
Team Office medienwerk.nrw: Kirsten Möller, Nada Schroer, Mary Shnayien, Klaas Werner, Sonja Wunderlich
In cooperation with: PACT Zollverein
Notes. Admission to the talks, lectures and workshops only with registration. Free admission to the concerts, the exhibition and the party. Tickets for the performances “Medusa Bionic Rise” by The Agency and “Uncanny Valley” by Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi) could be ordered on the PACT Zollverein website.
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the alliance of international production houses. The office of medienwerk.nrw and the festival ‘Bodies in Trouble – Körper in Aufruhr’ were supported by the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Office hosted by: Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund). Supported by the “International Visitors Program” of the NRW KULTURsekretariat.