Nomeda Urbonas
Fellows & Affiliates
In his talk Martin Guinard will share the curatorial vision he and Bruno Latour have for the project that attempts to map a new reorientation of dealing with the condition of Earth. Their project that identifies some of the shifts in political affects, has been drawn up to differentiate between the global and the “terrestrial” – the realization that we are not on Earth but in it, a part of its condition, as are all its life forms. He will discuss focus on affects that makes the notion of scientific and artistic aesthetics a central aspect of the project.
The Critical Zones exhibition is envisioned to create a landscape that allows the public to grasp what curators call “the New Climatic Regime,” a term chosen to connect the material and political transformations in the relations of humans to their terrestrial conditions of existence and that is suggested to be less controversial than the proposed name “Anthropocene” for the present geologic epoch. Opening up a space for common action and discussion to recompose the world we live in, the exhibition (that is conceived as a scale model) will simulate the spatial novelty of this new land as well as the diversity of relations between the life forms inhabiting it. It will serve as an Observatory of Critical Zones allowing visitors to familiarize themselves with the new situation. This special combination of thought experiment and exhibition was developed by Peter Weibel and Bruno Latour in their previous collaborations at ZKM. Iconoclash in 2002, Making Things Public in 2005, and Reset Modernity! in 2016 constitute the three former “thought exhibitions” (Gedankenausstellungen) that resulted from their intensive working relationship which now spans 20 years.
Martin Guinard is an artist and curator, with a degrees in History of Art and Fine Arts from Concordia, McGill, and Central Saint Martins. He has worked at the Palais des Beaux-arts in Paris under the direction of Nicolas Bourriaud. Working in collaboration with philosopher Bruno Latour, he was a co-curator of “Reset Modernity!” at ZKM. Continuing his collaboration with Latour in 2020 Martin Guinardwill co-curate Taipei Biennial edition 12th, and Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics at ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.
This lecture is organized by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas with the assistance of Rae Yuping Hsu, current ACT Graduate Student.
