Which strategies are needed to deal with our technical present? Between the climatic shifts of the earth, political changes, and globally distributed economic exchanges, these planetary scale dynamics are both too vast and too complex to put into graspable terms. In artistic and discursive formats, Life Forms asks for means of collective agency and the values shaping them.

In an open-floor auditorium, historian of science Sophia Roosth engages in research conversations with anthropologist Elizabeth A. Povinelli, literary scholar Melody Jue, author Hu Fang and others to explore different approaches to the notion “lifeforms.” The setting for these conversations is structured by choreographers Xavier Le Roy and Scarlet Yu, whose work, based on elements of their performance Temporary Title, 2015 translates questions of individual and social transformation into the space. Sound contribution by Marina Rosenfeld. Three themed days ask: How Long Is an Echo? When Can You Call It Technology? Who Do We Care For?

Further contributions by Lisa Baraitser, Luis Campos, Grégoire Chamayou, Louis Chude-Sokei, continent., Maya Indira Ganesh, Maria Chehonadskih, Yuk Hui, Noël Yeh Martin, Luciana Parisi, Sascha Pohflepp, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Jenna Sutela, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Gary Tomlinson, John Tresch