The third edition of the Postnatural Independent Program (PIP) will explore the new implications of postnature as a framework for contemporary creation. In the form of an experimental educational platform, we will speculate and question not only contemporary ecologies but also new academic approaches and radical notions of learning together.
This seminar will establish a critical analysis and approach to the separation of nature and culture, one which has its roots in Western philosophy, where the natural world has often been viewed as a passive backdrop to human activity, a mere resource to be exploited. This anthropocentric worldview has led to a hierarchical relationship, one in which matter has been conditioned by the vertical understandings that categories and taxonomies that Western science has imposed on them. Living and non-living, sentient and nonsentient, productive, beautiful, matter has also been captured within its moral, aesthetic and political systems. However, this perspective fails to acknowledge the intricate interconnections and interdependencies that bind all forms of life and matter.
Earth's symphony extends far beyond the ozone layer, weaving its way into the very fabric of life and the cosmos. From the tiniest microorganisms to the vast expanse of matter, we are constantly transformed, both mentally and physically, by the sonic and cultural vibrations of our urban and natural environments. Yet, these intricate entanglements often go unnoticed by a culture fixated on the visual, failing to recognize listening as a powerful tool for self and collective care. By Giving attention to the sounds around us, we can unlock exciting possibilities for forging new systems of kinship and interconnectedness.
The second edition of the Postnatural Independent Program (PIP) will explore the new implications of postnature as a framework for contemporary creation. In the form of an experimental educational platform, we will speculate and question not only contemporary ecologies but also new academic approaches and radical notions of learning together.
This seminar will examine the glossaries that characterize new ecologies, analyzing inter-species articulations, cultural productions, ecological awareness, and the challenges of artistic, design, research, and curatorial practices in today’s climate crisis.
Cyberwitches and Feminist Technologies is a seminar series designed to place feminist theory in close dialogue with the complexities of cyber-space, technology, and the many philosophical formations that configure digital worlds. Approaching feminism as plurality and spatiality, we will discuss multiple iterations of feminist efforts on a global scale – and work through ways of engaging feminism in developing artistic practices, inside, outside, and between digital environments.
The intricate postnatural tangle that we live in is composed of a multitude of infinitely entangled threads that clash and interact, pointing to the fact that "nature" has progressively become an immense reservoir of resources for globalized human societies; in many cases, without attention to its finiteness and scarcity. The idea of the Earth as an "anonymous mother" (that some self-identified “eco-feminisms” uncritically maintain) is intrinsically linked to the conception of both nature and women as indefinitely exploitable sources of (re)production and wealth and has led us to collide with our planet’s real ecological limits.
Hydro Futures / Memory Ecologies is a program in which to explore the relationship between Afrofuturism and ecological thinking. Afrofuturism is a means to redefine the connections of land and space and to imagine kinships that can become technologies (as a way of connecting people), through water as an archive and time travel.
We will play with the political potential of imagining new worlds through academic research and artistic proposals. In the process of creating desirable futures and collaborative healing, we may find unexpected joys that unite us in the contemporary ecological crisis. This experimental seminar requires active participation.
At the scale of the individual—the organism—Queerness is mutability: it is the power of transformation; of shapeshifting, fluency, and the freedom to move from form to form; of code-switching, mimicry, flamboyance, delight; of subtlety, grace, and the embrace of fluidity. It plays in contrast to rigidity, permanence, and stasis; to one way of being. It is a metamorphosis and a constant becoming.
We want you to travel and think with us. We invite you to be part of our first virtual research group. Join us in the browsing and investigation of some of the most interesting, complex and intriguing postnatural landscapes through six virtual journeys.
To make sense of the broad constellation of practices that emerge from Queer Ecology, we examine at two scales: the individual and the collective. As we explore, the binary distinction between these scales quickly blurs and blends.
We believe that "the edge" can be one experimental space, and "thinking at the edge" one of the practices to enable us to open the possibility of thinking and imagining beyond the categories and boundaries that hold us captive.
The idea of a romanticized nature as a background scenario or neutral framework where human activity takes place is no longer valid and must be replaced by a broader and more complex reflection.
This seminar consisted of theoretical and practical sessions that allowed us, by guiding us through different case studies, to prepare ourselves to resist the present and thus create a new earth for the world to come.
he seminar will have six sessions, which will focus on different aspects from which speculation can lead us to a fluid and proactive practice through this watery medium. Designers, writers, thinkers and creatives will share their practices and thinking during the conversations, open to participants, in order to understand the urgency of incorporating design processes into the contemporary ecological debate.
In the seminar Echoes from the South we will delve into research and practices that analyze and propose responses to the mechanisms, manifestations, representations and consequences that the colonial enterprise has provoked, from its beginnings to the present day, through the subjugation of nature as a commodity for the pursuit of its economic and political interests. Six authors will give voice to pre-existing and coexisting ontologies in different contexts, vindicating other histories that have been annulled through Western models.
