The Anthropocene Project

Mississippi. An Anthropocene River

A Collaborative Research and Public Outreach Project (2018–19)

Anthropocene Lectures

The Anthropocene – the geological epoch of humans – has established itself as a key concept within a wider scientific and social discourse. In the midst of the dramatic and destabilizing changes wrought by it, new potential for human action upon the Earth demand exploration, asking: Which forms of cooperation could arise from a new awareness of the human role in interlacing nature and technology?

The Anthropocene Project. A Report

Exhibitions, Discourse, Publications, Workshops, Media Competition

With the traditional methods of knowledge acquisition mankind has reached a limit. What can we do, how can we know? With what means, methods and senses can we encounter the world of our own creation? In A REPORT, an extensive program of events in conclusion to the Anthropocene Project, the HKW will be exploring precisely these questions.

A Matter Theater

Positions, Roundtables, Dialogs, Screenings, Performances, Workshops

In the Anthropocene, it will be necessary to reformulate a variety of phenomena and processes of being in the world and making the world. Rapid climate change, biodiversity shrinkage, or the dispersion of anthropogenic materials take on a life of their own: what practices, knowledge-forms, and modes of participation are required within the Anthropocene?

Anthropocene Observatory

Exhibition

This project by Armin Linke, Territorial Agency (John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog), and Anselm Franke develops film productions on questions and implications of the thesis of the Anthropocene.

Anthropocene Curriculum

Demanding structurally novel commitments, the Anthropocene predicament offers the opportunity to make previously uncharted, transdisciplinary connections visible and to experiment with new forms of higher education. A deep integration of cross-disciplinary thinking, mutual learning, new modes of research, and civic commitment seem key for the future of universities, academies, research platforms, and cultural institutions as situated spaces of knowledge production and its dissemination.

The Whole Earth

Exhibition, Conference

The exhibition and the conference The Whole Earth are dedicated to the story of the image of the “blue planet” which has become one of the most influential images in history.

The Anthropocene Project. An Opening

Discourse

'Nature as we know it is a concept that belongs to the past. No longer a force separate from and ambivalent to human activity, nature is neither an obstacle nor a harmonious other. Humanity forms nature. Humanity finds itself embedded within the recent geological record.' This is the core premise of the Anthropocene thesis, announcing a paradigm shift in the natural sciences as well as providing new models for culture, politics, and everyday life.

Unhuman Music (Unmenschliche Musik)

Concerts, Symposia, Performances

For some time now, the Western musical canon has been expanded by an interest in non-European music. But it is now time to go a step further: in the age of humanity, with “Unmenschliche Musik” (Inhuman Music) HKW will take a look at compositions by machines, animals, and chance.

Evil Music (Böse Musik)

Concerts, Discourse, Films

“The evil has no songs,” or so goes an old German saying. Yet an English saying contradicts this point of view: “The devil has all the best tunes.” More than any other art form, music seems to tend to romanticize violence, be it in gangsta-rap, death metal, mafia songs, the rembetiko, warrior songs, or old ballads in praise of murderers.

Forensis

Exhibition, Conference, Workshops

How do mortal remains, DNA samples, and satellite images become forensic evidence? What role do imaging techniques and methods of representation play in the investigation of crimes or political acts of violence? How are objects made to speak?

Stupid Music

Concerts, Performances, Talks, Films

Theme of Stupid Music is escapism: the flight from everyday life, from reality, from bad news, and the role music can play in this – music that dulls our senses, deafens and numbs us, and makes us “stupid.”