Link to Event: https://stream.lifesizecloud.com/extension/12627650/edf0a4e1-a920-44e8-8744-5dacc2c88b7c
ABSTRACT: This talk will present an overview of Joanna Zylinska’ performative method of working within an academic context, as a theorist and artist. Departing from the problem of the constitution of the human as both a species and a historical subject, Zylinska will use the geological probe of ‘deep time’ to analyse the emergence of the human in conjunction with the surrounding technologies. These include tools and other artefacts but also communication in its various modes, be it everyday language, storytelling, ethics, art and media. The planetary perspective of Zylinska’s work – as highlighted in the theoretical concepts and practical projects presented in her talk – finds its anchoring in the socio-political concerns of the here and now: from the ecological and economic crises through to the problem of individual and social coexistence. It is through the notion of praxis that an encounter between thinking, seeing and making in Zylinska’s work yields both a methodology and a ‘minimal ethics’. Bringing the two together, the talk will negotiate the complex set of responsibilities that need to be exercised by humans not just towards one another but also towards nonhuman beings – including planet Earth as our habitat.
