ReproReality HackLab 005 – 006, FertilityCave 1.0.7

»ReproReality HackLabs« are a series of gatherings of likeminded and associated as well as individuals to discuss ideas and develop tools around Reproductive Technologies. They aim to extract these Technologies from their biopolitical determination. »ReproReality HackLabs« are hosted by a lifeline of Repro-communal organisers that call themselves Transformellae (Transformella generalis, Transformella ikeae, Transformella malor).

»ReproReality HackLabs« give harbour to unconventional or radical thinkers, subdued practices, experimental failures, strange subjectivities, scientists and writers who are likely to be at home on the margins of discourse. They feature an an-academic methodology incorporating alien knowledges and techniques. They intervene into discourses that are dominated by theoretical formalism, professional knowledge barriers and corporate instrumentalisation. Their format itself is a chimaera, building on a new mythological dream: To make kin against biological essences.

Wednesday, January 11th, 2017

18:00
Andreas Bernard (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg): Making Children. An Introduction to Reprotechnological Machines and their History
Steve Kurtz (Critical Art Ensemble): (Revisiting) The Flesh Machine. A lecture on works and texts of the Critical Art Ensemble, revisiting their 1998 book ›The Flesh Machine‹

Thursday, January 12th, 2017

16:00
Felicita Reuschling (kitchen politics, Berlin): Sie nennen es Leben, wir nennen es Arbeit. [They call it life, we call it work]
Öffentliches Seminar
(Constructing) The ReproTechnoTribe, Appearance by the psycho-realist Avatara Transformalor (a.k.a Johannes Paul Raether) discussing its Reprotechnological Diagrams

Andreas Bernard (Germany) is co-speaker of the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University. He studied Literary Criticism and Cultural Studies in Munich and holds a PhD from Bauhaus University Weimar, for a dissertation on the History of the Elevator (2005). In 2014, he published his book on reproduction technologies and kinship, »Kinder machen: Neue Reproduktionstechnologien und die Ordnung der Familie; Samenspender, Leihmütter, Künstliche Befruchtung.«

Steve Kurtz (USA) is an artist, writer, educator and co-founder of the art collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). His work with CAE is situated in the context of politically engaged art, interventionist practices, cultural research and action in the field of biotechnology and ecological struggle. Formed in 1987, CAE’s focus has been on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism.

Johannes Paul Raether (Germany) is an artist whose research and performances revolve around the construction of various drag research avataras, incl. Transformellae and the WordWideWitch. Raether holds a professorship at the Art Academy Düsseldorf and is currently an Artist in Residence at the Leuphana Arts Program of Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Felicita Reuschling (Germany) is a curator and author. Her work is about Feminist Economic Critique, especially care work, reproductive work, the history of feminist theory and the connecting lines between materialistic social criticism and gender relations. She is part of the collective Kitchen Politics – Queer-feminist Interventions, which publishes books and articles about leftist political debates and queer-feminist topics and perspectives.

A project by Leuphana Arts Program in cooperation with Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg.