What does the futures of monster theory hold? And what stories can we tell about its origins? The Monsters of the Anthropocene Halloween symposium ‘Unruly Origins, Strange Futures’ explores the pasts and futures of thinking with monsters through art, politics, storytelling and scholarship.
The symposium is free. Find the programme and sign up here.
In this workshop, which forms part of the Monsters of the Anthropocene Halloween Symposium, we invite you to bring your own work (whether artistic, academic or both) in order to explore the realm of monster-sensorial perceptions and what these can mean as active agents in experimental research. Before we engage in the interactive exercises of the workshop, Katja Aglert gives a short introduction to her artistic practice, focusing on her work with more-than-human-storytelling and methods of more-than-human-participatory research. She shares examples of processes where she explored multi-sensorial perceptions and how they can become means to materialise stories and knowledge beyond the human-centred narratives. This artistic practice and research draws from her principal question; how can we use language and simultaneously avoid the confirmation of the order we attempt to question?
As participant of the workshop, we invite you to bring – irl, imaginary, or in other ways – a figure that in some way is part of your own work (the figure can be a physical figure, a concept, a character from a book, or something completely different related to your work). You are also invited to explore together with any of the figures that Katja Aglert brings to the session, such as slugs, snails, fish, and a mosquito.
About Katja Aglert
Katja Aglert is an independent artist with a transdisciplinary artistic practice situated in feminist and more-than-human imaginaries. Her projects has been exhibited widely in venues such as Foundation Fiminco, Romanville, France (2021); Solyanka State Gallery, Moscow, Russia (2019); Fotogalleriet, Oslo, Norway (2016); Biologiska museet, Stockholm (2016); Museum och Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile (2015); Marabouparken, Stockholm (2014). Her work has been featured in journals and publications such as Karib: Nordic Journal for Caribbean Studies, in the Special Collection: Poetics of Space – Archipelagos and Wanderings, edited by Tiina Peil and Michael Wiedorn (2021); Animal Places: Lively Cartographies of Human-Animal Relations, edited by Jacob Bull, Tora Holmberg and Cecilia Åsberg (Routledge, 2019) and OEI Naturbegreppet [EKOEI] #75/76, edited by Johan redin (2017). She is a professor of art at Tema Genus, Gender Studies at Linköping University, Sweden, and the artistic leader and co-director of The Seed Box – an environmental humanities collaboratory. See website for more info.
This workshop forms part of the Monsters of the Anthropocene Halloween symposium ‘Unruly Origins, Strange Futures’, October 29, 12:00 – 17:00 CET. You can see the full programme and sign up for the symposium here. The symposium is free and online.
29 October, 12:00 – 17:00 CET
What does the futures of monster theory hold? And what stories can we tell about its origins? ‘Unruly Origins, Strange Futures’ explores the pasts and futures of thinking with monsters through art, politics, storytelling and scholarship.
The symposium is free, and you sign up and get the Zoom link here. The symposium will be live captioned and the two panels, ‘Collective voices and manifestos in monstrous times’ and ‘Storytelling and the arts of monsters’ will be recorded for use on the Monster Network website.
Programme:
12:00 – 13:30
PANEL 1: Collective voices and manifestos in monstrous times
This panel discussion revolves around community building as well as structures of inclusion and exclusion. In times of crisis (ecological, political, medical, technological, etc.), for whom is something an emergency, whose concerns are recognized and whose are silenced? Who get to belong and who are marginalized and potentially monsterized? We invite a discussion on the politics, ethics and aesthetics of communities and collective voices – such as labs, collectives, and manifestos – in order to explore the promises and limitations of monstrous kinship, family and community in the now, the past and potential futures.
Chair: Aino-Kaisa Koistinen (The Monsters of the Anthropocene Collaboratory)
Speakers:
14.00-15.00
PANEL 2: The Feeling of a Wild Slug Chewing – art-based methods workshop with artist Katja Aglert.
Bring your scholarly or/and artistic work in progress and learn some new monster methods! Katja Aglert guides you in an exploration of how we can speculate around multi-sensorial experiences with monsters through forms of writing.
15.30-17.00
PANEL 3: Storytelling and the arts of monsters
We invite a panel discussion on the role of the monster in arts and storytelling practices, with a particular focus on how stories of monsters – as well as the monstrous as an analytical perspective and methodological tool – may (and may not) both challenge our understandings of the past and open up to unexpected and potentially more promising futures. We also ask: what are the limits to the figure of the monster? And what are the challenges when working with the monstrous in arts and storytelling? The panel can engage with a broad range of art and storytelling, from science fiction to performance, visual arts and tv series, novels and comics, etc.
Chair: Line Henriksen (Monsters of the Anthropocene Collaboratory)
Speakers:
Unruly Origins, Strange Futures is organised by the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities collaboratory Monsters of the Anthropocene. The event is free and will take place on Zoom. Follow this link to register and get the Zoom address.
On October 29th the Monsters of the Anthropocene Collaboratory throw its first workshop – Unruly Origins, Strange Futures – in honour of Halloween. The workshop explores the pasts and futures of thinking with monsters, whether through art, politics, storytelling or theory, and you are invited! Participation is free and online.
The workshop begins at 12:00 CET and ends at 19:30 CET. We will return soon with more information about speakers and programme, so save the date & join us!
It’ll be perfectly safe.
We promise.
The Monster Network has written a chapter on monster methods for the exciting new anthology, Monstrous Ontologies: Politics Ethics Materiality, edited by Caterina Nirta and Andrea Pavoni. The anthology collects the contributions from the conference Monstrous Ontologies, which took place at University of Roehampton on July 1st 2019. Our chapter, ‘Collective Voices and the Materialisation of Ideas: The Monster as Methods’, is based on our keynote from that conference. The keynote is also available as a Monster Talks podcast episode.
The Monster Network 