Green Rules: Thementag Wachstum

Just one week before the definitive end of the world and to conclude this year’s key topic Green Rules, brut will investigate the relationship between culture and nature on a theme day and explore the question of whether we can imagine civilisation’s advancement beyond accumulation and gain. The focus is on the concept of “growth” as basic economic principle of the free market economy. While biology knows no growth without decay, political efforts to further boost the growth of the gross domestic product in a struggle against stagnation and recession are getting increasingly short-winded, especially in “Old Europe”. At the same time, calls for sustainability are getting louder: interests in all-too-fleeting profits should be smashed in favour of resource-conserving forms of living and production. When culture creates the fertile soil for social co-existence, when art processes society’s waste – a waste that cannot be used to create value – then artistic production has more to do with composting than with prosperity. Does art have productive approaches for dealing with nature in a new way? What does sustainability mean in a society that insists on growth? Can the dichotomy of culture and nature be reconceptualised by moving beyond mere polarisation?

From 4:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | foyer
Hendrik Quast and Maika Knoblich (Berlin): Kränzen [Garlanding] (workshop/installation)
A public “garlanding” – traditionally a get-together for neighbours – will be taking place in the brut-foyer. Over the course of six hours a garland of heather and pine will be plaited together with the audience in the brut foyer. The artists will be providing insights into their engagement with nature in theatre and the artistic practice of stage gardening.


4:00 pm to 7:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | hall
Janez Janša (Ljubljana): Wailing Wall (video installation)
A wall is a construction that separates, intimidates, isolates. It is a manifestation of political power: the Chinese, the Berlin, the Israeli-Palestinian Wall. Janez Janša’s video installation presents a wailing wall of ice that develops its meaning through the process of melting.


From 4:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | bar
united sorry/Frans Poelstra & Robert Steijn (Vienna/Amsterdam): Green Conversations (happening)
Frans Poelstra and Robert Steijn will be hosts in the bar im Künstlerhaus presenting the results of their previous four Salons in Nature and offer glimpses into their new production, ghost exit. www.unitedsorry.com


5:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | hall
Janez Janša (Ljubljana): Wailing Wall (lecture)
Janez Janša will speak about the audience reactions and interactions which his installation Wailing Wall triggered in public space. He will also discuss artistic approaches around the theme of “growth”. www.maska.si


7:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | hall
Helmut Haberl (Vienna): Wachstum, Nachhaltigkeit und sozioökologische Transitionen [Growth, Sustainability, and Socio-ecological Transitions] (lecture)
The growth paradigm is in crisis. Increasing numbers of people are having misgivings about the idea that continuing on the path of growth can be the solution in view of the recent financial meltdown, growing poverty and inequality, and rapid climate change. Climate change especially fundamentally calls our development model into question: emissions are growing practically unchecked. The previously dominant strategy of eco-efficiency, meaning reducing the environmental burden per unit of economic output, is apparently not enough to reverse the trend. Supposed solutions turn out to be ineffective, even counterproductive. Helmut Haberl from Vienna’s Institute for Social Ecology analyses the problems by the example of the concept of socio-ecological transition. The greening of individual consumption is an important contribution toward a sustainable society. What is at least as important, however, is to actively participate in debates about which future we want.


8:30 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | hall
Elisabeth von Samsonow (Vienna): Geld Kaputt/Geohör Pracht Echo [Money Broken/Geohearing Splendour Echo] (lecture/performance)
What happens when the principle of “growth” gets back its true meaning so that it now only applies to living things that really grow and decline? Artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna) reminds us of the capital of the growing goods WOOD FIELD HERD that are covered by urban cultures. The relationship between body and money will be mercilessly scrutinised in the process. A human voice – that of the philosopher – and the voices of the trees will be heard in equal parts in a harmony of growth (YUMMY TONES). The urgent song of the forest contributes its own arguments to the analysis.


10:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | hall
Davis Freeman (Brussels): 7 Promises (performance)
Drinking for a better world. Artists Davis Freeman and Jerry Killick will finish off the impending ecological disaster with performing-missionary zeal. Working together with the audience, the ecological footprint will be transformed in thirty minutes and with quite a few litres of vodka, glass by glass! www.randomscream.be


11:00 pm | brut im Künstlerhaus | hall
Lichenisierung (Vienna): Lichenisierung [Lichenisation] (performance)
Lichenisierung [Lichenisation] describes the process of a sprawling growth of lichens that results from a symbiosis between a fungus and one or more photosynthetic partners. This loose collective made up of nine artists will reveal to the audience its collective, organic working method via visual and auditory means. www.lichenisierung.net

A House on Fire project. With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.

€ 8/€ 6 with the brutkarte*