How on Earth presents Biodemonology Night. On Practicing Xenobodies by Witches, Hackers and Nonhumans.

Can stories, rituals, and practices of care change the affective ties between mutated bodies and toxic landscapes, in times of environmental collapse and the overpowering mechanism of surveillance capitalism?

Join us for this event at AKI Enschede, where Agnieszka Anna Wolodźko and artists Špela Petrič, Sonja Bäumel and Mary Maggic will discuss how they improvise forms and stories of resistance, protest, and practices of care through the lens of toxic embodiment. Prior to their talk, we will present the film Apple Grown in Wind Tunnel (Steven Matheson, 2000). The film follows the activities of an underground network of people, that anonymously has created recipes and methods of care in a world where natural resources are disappearing.

Prior to the film screening, at 7 pm, a curator from Tetem gives a tour through the exhibition Xenobodies in Mutation. The program continues at 7.30 pm at the AKI Academy of Art & Design Auditorium.

Film: Apple Grown in Wind Tunnel by Steven Matheson (2000)

Synopsis:
While examining the meaning of health, disease, and well-being in the post-industrial world, the absurdist, microscopic film noir imagines the development of a culture at the margins, linked by illicit radio broadcasts, toxic waste sites, the highway, and ultimately by the overwhelming desire to find a cure.

About Steven Matheson:
Steven Matheson is a video-maker and installation artist working at the borders of both documentary and fictional narrative forms, exploring the ways that the "everyday" can be re-framed and opened up as terrain for fictional re-invention, aesthetic experimentation and social criticism.

How on Earth?
Do images move us? If so, in what direction? What has capturing “the world on fire” brought us, ranging from naïvely dangerous images of children playing with pebbles in cities during heat-waves to horrific birds-eye views of deforestation? Do we know better? Or are we just stunned and limited in our actions?

How we make something visible or invisible is an ecological act. On what grounds can we act, create and care in times of heightened ecological crisis? Can we even remain attached to artistic practices?

The film series How on Earth? is about creative practices that can teach us how we can endure life, and envision forms of co-habitation on this damaged planet. This series is dedicated to artists, filmmakers, activists, and theorists, who through their work refute the universalising logic of techno-optimism or pessimism, and eco-efficiency of petro-capitalism. Together with invited guests we will discuss how we are accountable for the visual propositions we make.