Hi Everybody!
This is an invitation to contribute to the brainstorming on the Aerocene Symposium at Palais de Tokyo, October 26th 2018. Together with @tomas @sofia @camilla and others I have been working on a document with some initial ideas for topics, conversations and formats, but it would be wonderful to get more comments, suggestions and critiques from the Aerocene community which is here!
The text pasted below is the current state of the working document. In order to highlight the activities of the community, there is an attempt to connect active Aerocene community fellows with other scholars, voices and thinkers who can inform, provoke and add to the conversation. A few formats are proposed, but new ones are welcome.
Please share, comment, critique, shift, re-arrange and add suggestions for topics and people, all of this is much appreciated!
Best,
Aerocene Symposium at Palais de Tokyo - Working Document
Draft summary:
The Aerocene Symposium on 26th October 2018 initiates the OnAir Public Programme at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Bringing together Aerocene friends and fellows with expertise in aerosolar transportation, atmospheric law and justice, environmental monitoring and activism and aero-geography, the symposium will animate and intensify the ongoing conversations, experiments and questions of the Aerocene epoch. The public of Paris are invited to contribute to these processes, joining the Aerocene community in discussion, free-flights and hands-on workshops. To reflect Aerocene’s non-hierarchical ecologies of practice, the symposium will favor generous dialogical formats that privilege audience involvement and feature encounters with the materials and imaginaries of the Aerocene.
Aerocene is an open-source activist endeavor that envisions a new epoch of Earth’s planetary history, an epoch in which environmental awareness, ethics and politics are critical social values. In the unfolding of this history, Aerocene proposes forms of moving and sensing that embrace solar energy, wind currents and infrared radiation. Aerocene Explorer sculptures float without burning fossil fuels, without using solar panels and batteries, and without helium, hydrogen and rare gases. In this way, Aerocene sculptures follow the energetic and elemental gestures of our planet and its nearest Star, in doing so enabling citizen-led environmental research and novel patterns of aerial transportation.
In the next section there are listed Aerocene Fellows (active collaborators and contributors) alongside potential Amateurs (scholars, thinkers, inspiring people). The rationale for doing this is the following: in each conversation, it makes sense to foreground the voice and practice of one-two of the Aerocene fellows, so that their work comes into contact with the public of PdT and the invited scholars - in this way we build into the infrastructure of the Symposium a dimension of exposure for Aerocene activities, people and projects; also, in each conversation there is an ‘anchor’ of community-based work in which the conversation can find some tethering (if needed).
(Some people of course cross boundaries between amateur and fellow, theory and practice! Therefore these categories are contingent, moving, only helpful to a certain extent)
Aerocene Fellows… Aerocene Amateurs
(active community (inspiring people, scholars and thinkers)
members)
Deborah Swistun …Heather Davis
& Joaquin Ezcurra Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Nick Shapiro
Liz Barry
Nick Shapiro …. Maria Puig de la Bellacasa
Lorraine Daston
Elizabeth Povinelli
Anna Feigenbaum
Sarah Sharma
Derek McCormack…Erin Manning
Luce Irigaray
Frédérique Ait-Touati
Timothy Choy
MIT:
Bill McKenna……. Luciana Parisi
Lodovica Illari (?) Lorraine Daston
Brian Hoskins (Exhibition Road)
Air corridors:
Erik Vogler Violeta Bulc
Sofia Lemos James Bridle
Pete Adey
Joyce Chaplin
Frédérique Ait-T…. Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
Steven Connor
Rob La Frenais
Thandi Loewenson
Pete Adey… Louise Amoore
Nerea Calvillo
Anna Feigenbaum
Potential Panel Topics and Constellations*
*Based on the above brainstorm of Aerocene fellows and inspiring scholars and voices, these are some possible (not final!) arrangements of topics & speakers. There is some overlap between areas.
Choreographing the Political: Activating practices, forming communities
Erin Manning
Derek McCormack
Frédérique Ait-Touati
Liz Barry
Nick Shapiro
Villa Inflammable and Community-based environmental activism
Deborah Swistun
Joaquin Ezcurra
Nick Shapiro
Heather Davis
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Ecologies of Toxicity and Practices of Care
Nick Shapiro
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa
Lorraine Daston
Elizabeth Povinelli
Elemental Uncertainties, Anomalies, and Paradigms of Drift
Bill McKenna
Lodovica Illari
Brian Hoskins (exhibition road)
Luciana Parisi
Brian Holmes
Envisioning Epochs: Narrative Experiments, Performance, Scenography
Frédérique Ait-Touati
Bruno Latour
Steven Connor
Andreas Philippopoulos Mihalopoulos
Thandi Loewenson
“Susurrus” performance / intervention (Maria Nurmela and Renae Shadler with Kalle Ropponen and Sam Hertz)
Air Corridors: Diagrams of Free Movement and Solidarity
Sofia Lemos
Erik Vogler
Violeta Bulc
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Pete Adey
Inter-Hemispherical Solidarity: Rerouting energetic potentials
Sofie Lemos
Boaventura de Soussa Santos
Debora Villa Inflamable
Joyce Chaplin
Stefan Schaffer
Françoise Vergés, Paris
Michael Marder
Matteo Pasquinelli
MacKenzie Wark, US
Listening (to) the Aerocene / Sounding, Resonating on the Air
Danny Bowman (NASA)
Douglas Kahn
Gascia Ouzounian
Sam Hertz (artist)
Witnessing Aero-geographies
Anna Feigenbaum
Louise Amoore
Nerea Calvillo
Pete Adey
The Electromagnetic Undercommons: Radio amateurs and activism
Sven Steudte
Liz Bruton
Mark Wigley
Fred Moten
The lists below include Aerocene fellows and amateurs from which the above constellations were generated - these lists do not include ALL Aerocene experts and external voices, they are made taking into account the space of the PdT, public speaking qualities, and other factors. Please add, extend, contribute!
Aerocene Fellows (in no particular order)
Deborah Swistun
Joaquin Ezcurra
Erik Vogler
Nick Shapiro
Sven Steudte
Bill Mckenna
Grace Pappas
Lodovica Illari
Sofia Lemos
Bronislaw Szerszynski
Derek McCormack
Andreas Philippopoulos Mihalopoulos
Harriet Hawkins
Tim Ingold
Pete Adey
Brian Hoskins
Carlo Rizzo
Sam Hertz
Maria Nurmela
Renae Shadler
Aerocene Amateurs (in no particular order):
Bruno Latour
Isabelle Stengers
Erin Manning
Frédérique Ait-Touati
Nerea Calvillo
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa
Fred Moten
Rosi Braidotti
Luce Irigaray
Anna Feigenbaum
Anja Kanngieser
Sarah Sharma
Renisa Mawani
Heather Davis
Mark Wigley
Douglas Kahn
Christophe Bonneuil
Louise Amoore
MacKenzie Wark
Timothy Choy
John Tresch
Lorraine Daston
Steven Connor
Bettina Stoetzer
Joyce Chaplin
Matteo Pasquinelli
Willow Brough
Mark Hansen
Rob La Frenais
Emilie Hache
Françoise Verges
Luciana Parisi
Philip Steinberg
Kimberley Peters
Brian Massumi
Nigel Clark
Anne Jungblut
Ronald Jones
Estelle z. Manguel
Christophe Bonneuil
Melanie Sehgal
Stefan Schaffer
Mark Lawrence
Eyal Weizman
Libby Robin
Roman Brinzanik
Brian Holmes
Kathryn Yusoff
Michael Marder
Possible Formats for Symposium Engagement:
(in the spirit of disrupting asymmetrical lecture-style presentation)
Encounter: Two or more invited fellows + experts in conversation with a work in the exhibition, or if they wish, a non-human entity, being, force, etc. Issues around accessibility, space for public, arrangement of gestures and movements need to be taken into account.
Reversal: Invited fellows, experts and voices ask questions of the public/ audience. Aim is a discussion amongst both fellows and public. Same issues around accessibility and access apply.
Performative: Two or more fellows stage a performative lecture or a performative dialogue: a hybrid performance lecture & conversation.
Praxis: a fellow or Aerocene expert ‘activates’ a workshop at the PdT, before, during or immediately following a public conversation. Need to account again for accessibility, access, public disposition, etc.
Discussion: continued or moderated conversation and sharing between two persons and the audience regarding their current research concerns in relation to the panel theme;
Plenary: moderated conversation and sharing between three or more persons and the audience regarding the panel theme preceded by short individual presentations;
Other ideas?