In capitalist economies, money itself is fertile. Goethe’s Faust challenged the dry fertility of paper money long ago, and the aspect of a "biological finance" was pursued to explore the proximity of biological to economic reproductivity in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens.
In addition, in money-directed economies our phonetic repertoire, the lubricant of poetics, decreases in favor of informal language, as does the diversity of the microbial soup in our mouth. Do we run dry just to meet capitalist standards of money, language and antibiotics? Or, which assets would foster ecological diversity?
Exploring this question, lecturers in this performative LASER use three systems of reference: - they replicate specific phonemes, - to drive their oral acidity lower, thereby inducing their microbes’ fertility to switch. Eventually they breed a microbial probiotic - to mediate communal exchange.
This LASER talk was conceptualized by Klaus Spiess and Lucie Strecker.
The talk is coproduced by brut Wien, and the Munich Muffatwerk. Supported by FWF Project FWF V501, Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien, Medical University of Vienna, University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
Photograph: Mikrovaluta. Muffatwerk Munich 2018
Time: 27.10. 2018, 5 pm, begins punctually. Venue: 15 Kinderspitalgasse, Center for Public Health, 1090 Vienna.
Klaus Spiess is a specialist in metabolic psychosomatics and runs the cross-disciplinary Arts and Science program at MedUni Vienna, where he is Associate Professor. His performances/installations have been shown in Europe and the USA. He has published on the subject of his work in Leonardo, The Journal of Performance Research and The Lancet, among other publications.
Lucie Strecker is an artist and theatre director. She is currently working as a researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she conducts the FWF Elise-Richter-PEEK project The Performative Biofact. Her performances and installations have been presented at venues worldwide.
Oleg Soulimenko is a Russian performance artist living and working in Vienna. His performances have been presented at venues and festivals worldwide, including the Wiener Festwochen, Tanzquartier Wien, brut Wien and Impulstanz in Vienna, Performa in New York, Tanz im August in Berlin, and Kaai Theatre in Brussels.
Ann Liv Young is an American performance artist. Her work has been presented at major venues in the USA and Europe, including MoMA PS1, Danspace Project, Judson Memorial Church, The Kitchen, Impulstanz, Springdance, The Arches, Tanz im August, Kampnagel, brut Wien, Theatre de la Bastille.
Mark Rinnerthaler is a molecular biologist and geneticist, he works as Associate Professor at the Universität Salzburg Department of Biosciences. He has published widely on his work on aging in yeast.
Media art and programming was designed by media artist Joseph Knierzinger and interface artist Jürgen Ropp. Biotechnological procedures during the lectures are operated by Johannes Seiwerth.