Part 1: Performance in exchange

The Influence of the feminist avant-garde on current biopolitic and ecofeminstic positions in austria
About speaker:
Ursula Maria Probst, Artistic director of the art projects in Fluc, art historian (project about and with Louise Bourgeois at New York), freelance curator (projects among others for Kulturdrogerie, Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory, vesch, Saracura, Rio De Janeiro, Organhaus, Congqing, Projektraum Medo, KulturKontakt Austria, KÖR, Public Art Lower Austria, freiraum Q21/MQ, FLUCA – Austrian Cultural Pavilion, Vienna Artweek, Galerie Krinzinger, K/haus, curator of the Austrian contributions to the Havanna Biennale 2015; Womenhouse, Panama City; toZomia space, Vienna), artist, DJane.
Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (focus projects in public art), visiting professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, jury activities (e.g. Public Art Committee Lower Austria and AIR programme BKA/KulturKontakt Austria).
Art and film critic (e.g. for Kunstforum International, Spike, Modern Painters, dérive, artmagazine, Umělec, springerin, Standard), co-editor of the publications FLUC. Dance the Utopia! (Falterverlag, 2015), Touch the Reality. Rethinking Keywords of Political Performance (Verlag der Moderne, 2016), co-initiator of the performance collective Female Obsession, 2019 Performance beim International Performance Art Festival 2019 Zero Plattform III, Yangon, Myrnmar

Part 2: Performance DOGman DOGmen

DOGman DOGmen is about formulating new urban legends on the base of old myths and about articulating them in various media and also site specifically.
The performance DOGman DOGmen plays with motives of 4000 years old myhs of human – animal hybrids and puts them in relation to science fiction like tales of contemporary science dreaming of creating new, hybrid bodies and beings through the use of genetic engineering.
Aschwanden uses the manyfold myths of monsterlike dog-humans which represent both the uncontrollable wildness of animals as well as the possibility to be tamed. The idea of hybrids exists since human culture exists. The old myths are actually full of them. Beings as a crossovers, as seemingly impossible types between humans and animals – they depict the impossible, often merging the imaginary and real powers of the animals involved.

In the light of new technologies appearing based on biological engineering, a new type of bodies can potentially be created: Technologically mediated analog bodies – growing in natural ways and existing „in nature“. This situation changes the old definitions between „natural“ and „artificial“ – merging the two. It also can have a deep impact on questions of identity – if until now questions of „otherness“ have often been negotiated in terms of race and gender – there can be completely new terms of that negotiation – because we can imagine any type of „body“ to be created.
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About Daniel Aschwanden:
Performer / Choreographer
Senior Lecturer
University of applied arts Vienna