THE DEPARTMENT OF XENOGENESIS

The Department of Xenogenesis (DXG) is a time space enacted by The Otolith Group for convening public online and offline discussions, performance, screenings and exhibitions with artists, filmmakers, theorists and musicians. The DXG takes place in the context of the exhibition The Otolith Group, Xenogenesis and builds upon the exhibition.

Conceived as part of the Department of Xenogenesis (DXG); The Otolith Group present a day of rich discussion and reflections with invited international artists, writers, and thinkers. Audiences and guests are invited to come together to think about complicated notions of time, both metaphysical and planetary, and the temporal impact on the racial, politics, capitalism and technology.

On Friday 27 January, 6.00pm
(Live Streamed)

The event opens with a Virtual Keynote Address – The Unpayable Debt by Denise Ferreira Da Silva (Academic, Artist and Professor and Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia) discusses her book that exposes how coloniality and raciality operate in the juridical, ethical, and symbolic systems that facilitate the expropriation of labor and extraction of land essential for the accumulation of Capital.

On Saturday 28 January, 11.00am – 5.30pm 
IMMA Lecture Room 

The in-person programme comprises stimulating Conversations, Presentations and Artists Talks. International speakers and contributions include: Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli (Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture); Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna (Italian philosopher, writer, podcaster); Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future with Bahar Noorizadeh (artist, writer and filmmaker, Goldsmith PHD candidate); The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán (recent participant of documenta fifteen);The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by Boris Ondreička (artist, curator) and others.

Guests will draw on exhibition themes and methodologies of The Otolith Group’s work that includes post-cinematic essayist films, videos and multiple screen installations, that address contemporary social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo/colonialism, the ways humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness.

Exhibition Details:

The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis, brings together a significant selection of works by The Otolith Group, the London-based artist collective founded in London in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun.

Featuring a cross-section of key works produced by The Otolith Group between 2011 and 2018, the exhibition reflects the artists’ ongoing commitment to creating what they think of as ‘a science fiction of the present’ through images, voices, sonic images, sounds, and performance.

Curated by Annie Fletcher, Director of IMMA.

DXG | The Department of Xenogenesis, Convened by The Otolith Group, 2023

Conceived as part of the Department of Xenogenesis (DXG); The Otolith Group present a day of rich discussion and reflections with invited international artists, writers, and thinkers. Audiences and guests are invited to come together to think about complicated notions of time, both metaphysical and planetary, and the temporal impact on the racial, politics, capitalism and technology. 

Track Details: The Department of Xenogenesis, The Unpayable Debt with Denise Ferreira Da Silva & The Otolith Group | Friday 27th of January, 2023 | Online. 

The event opens with a Virtual Keynote Address – The Unpayable Debt by Denise Ferreira Da Silva (Academic, Artist and Professor and Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia) discusses her book that exposes how coloniality and raciality operate in the juridical, ethical, and symbolic systems that facilitate the expropriation of labor and extraction of land essential for the accumulation of Capital.

Speaker Details:
Denise Ferreira da Silva is an academic and an artist and currently lives and works in Vancouver. She holds the following positions: Professor at the Institute for Social Justice – GRSJ, at the University of British Columbia, Adjunct Professor at Monash University Architecture, Design, and Art, Faculty at the European Graduate School, and the 2023 International Chair in Contemporary Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Paris 8. She is the author of Toward a Global Idea of Race (UMP, 2007), A Dívida Impagavel (OIP, LC, & Casa do Povo, 2019), Unpayable Debt (Sternberg Press, 20212), Homo Modernus (Cobogó, 2022). She is co-editor (with Paula Chakravartty) of Race, Empire, and the Crisis of the Subprime (JHUP, 2013) and (with Mark Harris) of Postcolonialism and the Law: Major Works (Routledge 2018) and Indigenous peoples and the Law: Major Works (Routledge, 2019). Her publications include the monograph Toward a Global Idea of Race (2007), and the edited volume Law, Race, and the Postcolonial – A Handbook (2015). Her artistic work includes collaborations such as the films Serpent Rain (with Arjuna Neuman, 2016) and From Left to Night (with Wendelien van Oldenborgh, 2014), as well as events and texts which are part of her Poethical Readings practice (with Valentina Desideri). She lives and works on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) people.

The Otolith Group was founded by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in London in 2002. Their work and practice are informed by an aesthetic of seeing and listening across media, or ‘seeing in the key of listening’ as they describe, or as ‘science fictions of the present’ in which installations, moving images, sonic speculations, performances, publications, lectures and gatherings explore intertemporality and interscalarity as the challenge of rethinking time in the process of worldmaking. Since 2002 The Otolith Group formed a research-based practice that studies time travel in multimedia formats producing transnational narrative challenges that evoke an expanded relationship to moving image and sound in the age of screens and technocapture.

The Department of Xenogenesis, The Unpayable Debt with Denise Ferreira Da Silva & The Otilith Group

Join The Otolith Group artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in person, for a specially curated series of talks and discussions, featuring contributions by an international mix of dynamic guests. Chaired by The Otolith Group contributors include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Federico Campagna, Susan Schuppli , Bahar Noorizadeh, Erick Beltrán and Boris Ondreička.

Track Details:
The Department of Xenogenesis, conveyed by the Otilith Group,  Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli | Saturday 28th of January, 2023 | Lecture Room

The in-person programme comprises stimulating Conversations, Presentations and Artists Talks. International speakers and contributions include: Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli (Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture); Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna (Italian philosopher, writer, podcaster); Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future with Bahar Noorizadeh (artist, writer and filmmaker, Goldsmith PHD candidate); The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán (recent participant of documenta fifteen);The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by Boris Ondreička (artist, curator) and others.

Guests will draw on exhibition themes and methodologies of The Otolith Group’s work that includes post-cinematic essayist films, videos and multiple screen installations, that address contemporary social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo/colonialism, the ways humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness

Speaker Details:
Susan Schuppli is a researcher and artist based in the UK whose work examines material evidence from war and conflict to environmental disasters and climate change. Current work is focused on learning from ice and the politics of cold. Creative projects have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, and the US. She has published widely within the context of media and politics and is author of the book, Material Witness published by MIT Press in 2020. Schuppli is Reader and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London where she is also an affiliate artist-researcher and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture. Previously she was Senior Research Fellow and Project Co-ordinator of Forensic Architecture. Prior to working in the UK she was an Associate Professor in visual/media arts in Canada. Schuppli received her PhD from Goldsmiths and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program after completing her MFA at the University of California San Diego. She is the recipient of the 2016 ICP Infinity Award.

The Otolith Group was founded by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in London in 2002. Their work and practice are informed by an aesthetic of seeing and listening across media, or ‘seeing in the key of listening’ as they describe, or as ‘science fictions of the present’ in which installations, moving images, sonic speculations, performances, publications, lectures and gatherings explore intertemporality and interscalarity as the challenge of rethinking time in the process of worldmaking. Since 2002 The Otolith Group formed a research-based practice that studies time travel in multimedia formats producing transnational narrative challenges that evoke an expanded relationship to moving image and sound in the age of screens and technocapture.

The Department of Xenogenesis, Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli & The Otilith Group

Join The Otolith Group artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in person, for a specially curated series of talks and discussions, featuring contributions by an international mix of dynamic guests. Chaired by The Otolith Group contributors include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Federico Campagna, Susan Schuppli , Bahar Noorizadeh, Erick Beltrán and Boris Ondreička.

Track Details:
The Department of Xenogenesis, Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna & The Otlith Group | Saturday 28th of January, 2023 | Lecture Room.

The in-person programme comprises stimulating Conversations, Presentations and Artists Talks. International speakers and contributions include: Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli (Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture); Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna (Italian philosopher, writer, podcaster); Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future with Bahar Noorizadeh (artist, writer and filmmaker, Goldsmith PHD candidate); The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán (recent participant of documenta fifteen);The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by Boris Ondreička (artist, curator) and others.

Guests will draw on exhibition themes and methodologies of The Otolith Group’s work that includes post-cinematic essayist films, videos and multiple screen installations, that address contemporary social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo/colonialism, the ways humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness.

Speaker Deatils:
Federico Campagna is an Italian philosopher based in London. His works revolves around the metaphysics of world-building and it mythological resonance. His latest books are ‘Prophetic Culture’ (Bloomsbury 2021) and ‘Technic and Magic’ (Bloomsbury, 2018). He is Critical Fellow at the Royal Academy School in London and Frances A. Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute in London. He is the host of the literary podcast Overmorrow’s Library, produced by the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. He works at the radical publisher Verso (UK/US) and at the philosophy publisher Timeo (Italy)

The Otolith Group was founded by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in London in 2002. Their work and practice are informed by an aesthetic of seeing and listening across media, or ‘seeing in the key of listening’ as they describe, or as ‘science fictions of the present’ in which installations, moving images, sonic speculations, performances, publications, lectures and gatherings explore intertemporality and interscalarity as the challenge of rethinking time in the process of worldmaking. Since 2002 The Otolith Group formed a research-based practice that studies time travel in multimedia formats producing transnational narrative challenges that evoke an expanded relationship to moving image and sound in the age of screens and technocapture.

The Department of Xenogenesis, Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna & The Otilith Group

Join The Otolith Group artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, for a specially curated series of talks and discussions, featuring contributions by an international mix of dynamic guests. Chaired by The Otolith Group contributors include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Federico Campagna, Susan Schuppli , Bahar Noorizadeh, Erick Beltrán and Boris Ondreička

Track Details: 
Department of Xenogenesis, Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future , with Bahar Noorizadeh & The Otilith Group | Saturday 28th of January 2023 | The Lecture Room.

Conceived as part of the Department of Xenogenesis (DXG); The Otolith Group present a day of rich discussion and reflections with invited international artists, writers, and thinkers. Audiences and guests are invited to come together to think about complicated notions of time, both metaphysical and planetary, and the temporal impact on the racial, politics, capitalism and technology.

The in-person programme comprises stimulating Conversations, Presentations and Artists Talks. International speakers and contributions include: Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli (Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture); Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna (Italian philosopher, writer, podcaster); Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future with Bahar Noorizadeh (artist, writer and filmmaker, Goldsmith PHD candidate); The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán (recent participant of documenta fifteen);The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by Boris Ondreička (artist, curator) and others.

Guests will draw on exhibition themes and methodologies of The Otolith Group’s work that includes post-cinematic essayist films, videos and multiple screen installations, that address contemporary social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo/colonialism, the ways humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness.

Speaker Details:
Bahar Noorizadeh looks at the relationship between art and capitalism. In her practice as an artist, writer and filmmaker, she examines the conflictual and contradictory notions of imagination and speculation as they suffuse one another. Her research investigates the histories of economics, cybernetic socialism, and activist strategies against the financialization of life and the living space, asking what redistributive historical justice might look like for the present. Noorizadeh is the founder of Weird Economies, a co-authored and socially-connected project that traces economic imaginaries extraordinary to financial arrangements of our time. She is pursuing her work as a PhD candidate in Art at Goldsmiths, University of London where she holds a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship.

The Otolith Group was founded by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in London in 2002. Their work and practice are informed by an aesthetic of seeing and listening across media, or ‘seeing in the key of listening’ as they describe, or as ‘science fictions of the present’ in which installations, moving images, sonic speculations, performances, publications, lectures and gatherings explore intertemporality and interscalarity as the challenge of rethinking time in the process of worldmaking. Since 2002 The Otolith Group formed a research-based practice that studies time travel in multimedia formats producing transnational narrative challenges that evoke an expanded relationship to moving image and sound in the age of screens and technocapture.

The Department of Xenogenesis, Teslaism, with Bahar Noorizadeh & The Otilith Group

Join The Otolith Group artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, for a specially curated series of talks and discussions, featuring contributions by an international mix of dynamic guests. Chaired by The Otolith Group contributors include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Federico Campagna, Susan Schuppli , Bahar Noorizadeh, Erick Beltrán and Boris Ondreička.

Track Details:
The Department of Xenogensis, The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán & The Otilith Group | Saturday January 28th, 2023 | The Lecture Room.

Conceived as part of the Department of Xenogenesis (DXG); The Otolith Group present a day of rich discussion and reflections with invited international artists, writers, and thinkers. Audiences and guests are invited to come together to think about complicated notions of time, both metaphysical and planetary, and the temporal impact on the racial, politics, capitalism and technology.

The programme comprises stimulating Conversations, Presentations and Artists Talks. International speakers and contributions include: Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli (Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture); Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna (Italian philosopher, writer, podcaster); Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future with Bahar Noorizadeh (artist, writer and filmmaker, Goldsmith PHD candidate); The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán (recent participant of documenta fifteen);The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by Boris Ondreička (artist, curator) and others.

Speaker Details:
Erick Beltrán (b. 1974, Mexico City, Mexico)lives & works in Barcelona, Spain. Beltrán analyzes and reflects on transversal knowledge constructions and figures, through diverse formats such as publications, installations, diagrammatic displays, or lectures. His work for documenta fifteen, Manifold(2022), is a study of the relationship between unity and multiplicity, and of the forms and images we create to represent that relationship. “It is well-known that the individual is an idea that emerged only recently, about 300 years ago,” says Beltrán. Manifold was inspired by the theories of Furio Jesi, Aby Warburg, & Horst Bredekamp, among others, Beltrán & researchers from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Kassel conducted interviews with Kassel residents, who were asked about the image that emerges when thinking about the image of power. The goal was to generate a projection between the interviewee(The unity) and their imaginative and iconographic relationship with forms of power, as mediated by social filters(the multiplicity). The resulting sequence, on display at the Museum of Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, displays the products of this research: a complete set of images that emerged from the interviews as well as the theories and diagrams that explain its relations.

The Otolith Group was founded by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in London in 2002. Their work and practice are informed by an aesthetic of seeing and listening across media, or ‘seeing in the key of listening’ as they describe, or as ‘science fictions of the present’ in which installations, moving images, sonic speculations, performances, publications, lectures and gatherings explore intertemporality and interscalarity as the challenge of rethinking time in the process of worldmaking. Since 2002 The Otolith Group formed a research-based practice that studies time travel in multimedia formats producing transnational narrative challenges that evoke an expanded relationship to moving image and sound in the age of screens and technocapture.

The Department of Xenogenesis, Project discussion with Erick Beltrán & The Otilith Group

Join The Otolith Group artists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in person, for a specially curated series of talks and discussions, featuring contributions by an international mix of dynamic guests. Chaired by The Otolith Group contributors include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Federico Campagna, Susan Schuppli , Bahar Noorizadeh, Erick Beltrán and Boris Ondreička

Track Details:
The Department of Xenogenesis, The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by/with Boris Ondreička & The Otilith Group.

The programme comprises stimulating Conversations, Presentations and Artists Talks. International speakers and contributions include: Learning from Ice project with Susan Schuppli (Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture); Technic and Magic with Federico Campagna (Italian philosopher, writer, podcaster); Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future with Bahar Noorizadeh (artist, writer and filmmaker, Goldsmith PHD candidate); The theoretical background of Manifold and The Image of Power projects with Erick Beltrán (recent participant of documenta fifteen);The genesis and work of the artist Suzanne Treister titled: TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS New Cosmological Models for Survival by Boris Ondreička (artist, curator) and others.

Guests will draw on exhibition themes and methodologies of The Otolith Group’s work that includes post-cinematic essayist films, videos and multiple screen installations, that address contemporary social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo/colonialism, the ways humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness.

Speaker Details:
Boris Ondreička (*1969) is an artist, curator, artistic director of viennacontemporary, based in Bratislava, SK and Vienna, AT. He co-runs participatory educational platform Class of Interpretation (Prague, CZ). He is former director of tranzit.sk (Bratislava) and curator at TBA21 (Vienna, AT). Amongst many he has co-curated Rare Earth, Olafur Eliasson „Green light—An Artistic Workshop“, Ephemeroptera, Supper Club (all TBA21), The Question of Will, OSF (Bratislava), Empire of the Senseless, Meetfactory (Prague); Manifesta 8 (Murcia, Cartagena, ES), Being The Future, Palast der Republik (Berlin). His artistic projects were presented at Bergen Assembly 2019, Manifesta 2 (Luxembourg), Venice-, Tai-Pei-, Athens-, Kyiv-, Jakarta- biennials; MoMA PS1 and New Museum (NYC), BAK (Utrecht), Smak (Gent), Tramway (Glasgow), Fondazione Sandretto re Rebaudengo (Turin), Le Plateau, Air de Paris (Paris), Badischer Kunstverein (Karslruhe), Würtembergischer Kunstverein (Stuttgart), HMKV (Dortmund); Kiasma (Helsinki); HKW (Berlin); Secession, Mumok, Kunsthalle (Vienna).

The Otolith Group was founded by the artists and theorists Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in London in 2002. Their work and practice are informed by an aesthetic of seeing and listening across media, or ‘seeing in the key of listening’ as they describe, or as ‘science fictions of the present’ in which installations, moving images, sonic speculations, performances, publications, lectures and gatherings explore intertemporality and interscalarity as the challenge of rethinking time in the process of worldmaking. Since 2002 The Otolith Group formed a research-based practice that studies time travel in multimedia formats producing transnational narrative challenges that evoke an expanded relationship to moving image and sound in the age of screens and technocapture.

The Department of Xenogenesis, TECHNOSHAMANIC SYSTEMS with Boris Ondreička & The Otilith Group

In the first of a series of discussions on the subject of Critical Race Theory and as part of IMMA’s What is_? series, Dr John Wilkins will provide an introduction to the subject of Critical Race Theory, and invites other responses by Temitope Bademosi and Fernando Sánchez-Migallón Cano.

Track Details:
What is _ Critical Race Theory? with Dr. John Wilkins & Guests | May 13, 2023 | Lecture Room 

NOTE* 
This Talk took place during an all-day event at IMMA, which was followed by a performance, talk and discussion from more Speakers & Guests. The following talk can be found under 'ALIEN EMBODIMENTS: A Critical Reflection' on our SoundCloud platform. This track is also a part of IMMA's 'What is _?' Series which can also be found on our SoundCloud Playlists and also co exists within IMMAs Department of Xenogenesis (DXG).

The IMMA What Is_? programme is a great way to find out more about the concepts and terms used in contemporary art.

In the first of a series of discussions on the subject of Critical Race Theory and as part of IMMA’s What is_? series, Dr John Wilkins will provide an introduction to the subject of Critical Race Theory as a framework to examine how conceptions of race and ethnicity shape legal, social, cultural and political institutions and will consider the relevance of Critical Race Theory in an Irish context. A discussion will follow with Temitope Bademosi and Fernando Sánchez-Migallón to provide reflections on this subject in response to Wilkin’s What Is_? lecture presentation.

What is _ Critical Race Theory? with Dr. John Wilkins & Guests

This event comprises of IMMA Talks – discussion and performance with project participants of Alien Embodiments. A body based, movement oriented out-reach programme led by artists/thinkers/educators Alice Feldman and Rajinder Singh in response to the IMMA exhibition The Otolith Group, Xenogenesis. 

Track Details: 
ALIEN EMODIEMENTS: A Critical Reflection | 13 May, 2023 | Lecture Room 

NOTE* 
This Reflection on Alien Embodiments was a part of a day-long event at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. This Reflection/ Talk held audio of digital works and performances, which have been edited out for upload purposes.

This event comprises of IMMA Talks – discussion and performance with project participants of Alien Embodiments. A body based, movement oriented out-reach programme led by artists/thinkers/educators Alice Feldman and Rajinder Singh in response to the IMMA exhibition The Otolith Group, Xenogenesis.

Alien Embodiments took place between September 2022 and May 2023 and comprised two strands: Guide which involved a core group of participants working online with Rajinder Singh developing embodied responses to the art works in Xenogenesis; and The Bureau of Decolonial Aesthesis led by Alice Feldman which involved participants working on site in IMMA’s Studio 8.


For more information on Participants & Speakers:
https://imma.ie/whats-on/alien-embodiments-a-critical-reflection/

ALIEN EMBODIMENTS: A Critical Reflection

IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. IMMA TALKS is an activated live programme of talks and events that opens up conversations around the core themes of our exhibition programme, and permanent IMMA Collection, bringing you deeper into the thinking and making of contemporary art.

For further information on IMMA TALKS please contact Sophie Byrne, Assistant Curator, Talks & Public Programmes, IMMA. Email sophie.byrne@imma.ie

DXG | The Department of Xenogenesis, Convened by The Otolith Group, 2023

IMMA Ireland