International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation

A call in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic to form a fictive international committee as a method of forming a “we.” A “we” that matters as a socio-political reality; That has the potential to form a sympoietic, transdisciplinary network; able to transform the future and to formulate real performative possibilities. We, of course, did not know what would happen in the world of the “as if.” Immerse yourself in the assemblage of edited speeches by the committee deputies who met online in September 2021.

Christine Reeh-Peters, Fee Altmann

Speech to the Deputies of the International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation

Fictional entities from the future address the audience using an online video transmission that echoes through time and space. Their speech is dedicated to the delegates of the International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation.

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Machine Fabulations: Digital Tableaux Vivants (#1-15)

Fifteen video tableaus offer a meditation on the speculative agency of digital media: Can they, understood as digital machines, perceive and interact with their surroundings? Do they fantasize about what lies beyond them?

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Using Speculative Fabulation to (Re)Imagine the Materiality Of Digital Technology, Vanessa Graf

Rethinking Animism As Trans-Corporeal Existences, Alisi Telengut

Fatberg – A New Hybrid Intelligence, Sanja Anđelković

Sonic Fabulation: Rethinking Cybernetics In(Non) Human-Machine Interactivity, Florian Goeschke

Circle As A Methodology/ An Ethical Quest, Marie-Andrée Robitaille

Folk Tales As Territories For Post-Human Exploration, Roksana Niewadzisz

2021: Forward Can Not Be Backward, Raquel Felgueiras

River Dee Estuary: Visualising The Anthropocene, Paul Jones

The Settlers of Villa Futuro, Gonzalo H. Rodríguez

Re-Monstering Nature: Teratology As Eco-Propbetics, Josh Wagner

Sink Cinema: Neurodiversity & Material Fabulation, Anouk Hoogendoorn

Fables Of Pollution And Menstrual Cycles, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard

Let´s Talk About the Weather, Dovilė Aleksaitė

Wilderness Transcended, Szilvia Ruszev

Meme Culture, Hsiu-ju Stacy Lo

Moving Image-Topography as Ecocriticism, Elisabeth Brun

A Moab Tree Speculates Future Interweavings of Human with Vegetal Life, Doerte Weig

Cloudscapes, Lisa Walder

Filming-With Clarice Lispector, Belén Cerezo

International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation

Concept and direction: Christine Reeh-Peters, Fee Altmann

Committee Reports in cooperation with Dovilė Aleksaitė, Sanja Anđelković, Elisabeth Brun, Belén Cerezo, Raquel Felgueiras, Florian Goeschke, Vanessa Graf, Anouk Hoogendoorn, Kristin Johnsen, Paul R Jones, Stacy Lo, Roksana Niewadzisz, Marie-André Robitaille, Gonzalo H. Rodriguez, Szilvia Ruszev, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Alisi Telengut, Bela Usabaev, Joshua Wagner, Lisa Walder, and Doerte Weig

Image and zoom backgrounds: Christine Reeh-Peters, Damian Domes, Fee Altmann, Sarvenaz Zolfaghar

Editing: Christine Reeh-Peters

Design of credits panels: Damian Domes

Design and implementation: Damian Domes supported by Sarvenaz Zolfaghar

This project is part of the collective artistic research project Fabulation for Future.

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Earth, Fire, Water, Air

The exhibition contributions place the four basic elements of earth, fire, water and air in a posthuman perspective. They are examples of figures of thought on the subject of “nature” and “being”that stem from the Ionian origins of Western philosophy. This pre-Socratic thought was influenced by several ancient cultures, such as Babylon and Egypt, and developed in parallel with the Chinese concept of the five elements as movements. As well in many indigenous cultures, elements such as earth/plants, fire, water and air are interconnected and, often along with many other elements, form the very balance of the sphere of nature.

The iconic symbol representing the International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation refers to the four elements. Their reference is meant as an impulse and a starting point, a conundrum: if they were once categorical criteria for grasping the world and understanding what it is made of, we propose to rethink them today in the context of climate catastrophes and the agency of nature. Fabulation for Future stands for thinking in motion, conceiving of all entities and beings as multiply interconnected, unfolding in an interdependent entanglement of becoming.