Artistic Performances

Lea Aigner and Rosalie Arendt are interested in the capitalization of nature and the cash flows within the climate sector. They critically question why certain narratives, such as the “climate overshoot,” are promoted and what economic interests may lie behind them.

In their performative installation, Lea Aigner and Rosalie Arendt envision a fictional, cult-like foundation called “The Last Capital Trust” (LCT), which offers support to researchers and companies engaged with sustainability and working on solutions for the climate crisis. At the Overshoot Conference, this foundation would present itself at a market-like space with a small stand that aesthetically blends with other formats at a scientific conference and its sponsors. Lea Aigner and Rosalie Arendt will perform as representatives of LCT, engaging with conference visitors. They will advocate for the best solutions against the climate crisis (from CO vacuums for home use to climate change detox capsules), offer CO₂ cookies (captured and stored through eating), provide climate stress tests and climate counseling (as we know, fighting a crisis can wreck your nerves), and feature a confessional box (for your worst climate sins).

Lea Aigner is a performance and installation artist as well as a policy maker, currently serving as a scientific advisor in the Berlin City Parliament with a focus on mobility politics.

Dr.ing- Rosalie Arendt is an Assistant Professor in Carbon Neutrality and Life Cycle Assessment at the University of Twente (UT). Her research explores the boundaries of emission reduction potential—identifying which emissions are avoidable versus unavoidable (residual) in the transition to net-zero.

The odds for life evolving in our universe have been calculated as one in a 100 million planets (ref. F. D. Drake). Life, as we know it, is possible only under a complex set of conditions, and then only within a very narrow band of environmental conditions. One of the central physical parameters is temperature. An increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in the average annual global temperature profoundly impacts biology and evolution by accelerating habitat loss. This warming leads to shifts in ecosystems as species migrate poleward or to higher altitudes, but many cannot move fast enough or face barriers, resulting in population declines or extinctions.

Friedrich Bliem is a painter of Science Art in traditional fine art technique. For this exhibition they have chosen works that highlight the above aspect. The main work that they propose is an oil painting called “From Evolution to a short Death by Heat”, which represents the emergence and evolution of a tulip from a pattern of physical nature. The painting extends into strongly sun-lit section in which the tulip dies and the evolutionary pattern, too, is scorched to ruins in the sun. This is an oil painting, on cloth, composed in sections and covering a total area of 210×120 cm. A second smaller accompanying painting has a size of 50×65 cm.

Friedrich Bliem began to explore scientific themes, which eventually culminated in a large solo exhibition, termed “Art in vivo”, in Cambridge in December 1984. The growing interest in what we today refer to as Sci-Art had yet to be born. Friedrich devoted 20 years to science, business and academia, before again returning to art and continuing their endeavor of expressing the aesthetics of the microcosm in painting.

Listening, documenting, translating, mourning – tracing glaciers across emotional, somatic, and geological layers. Eiszeit – wenn Orte verschwinden, denen ich nie begegnet bin is an audiovisual performance which explores the landscape and sensory dimensions of the glacier Schlatenkees in East Tyrol and the significance of its retreat for the surrounding environment and population. In this journey, the audience will hear texts abstracted from the impressions gathered during the artistic research process, accompanied by instrumental improvisations shaped by the glacial soundscape. The acoustic dimensions are complemented by film footage, showing excerpts from the field research that the et art. collective conducted at Schlatenkees in September 2023.

02: Wasser is an audio-visual zine by the artist collective et art. The study Evolution of debris cover on glaciers of the Eastern Alps, Austria, between 1996 and 2015 (F. Fleischer et al., 2020), dealing with the effect of the climate crisis on the glacier retreat in Austria and the role of water in the change of landscape, served as the scientific point of departure for creative engagement within a multi-disciplinary artistic process.

et art. is an Austria based artist collective that uses artistic strategies to connect scientific knowledge with emotional experience, opening up new ways to engage with effects of the climate crisis. Working with selected research on climate in Austria, et art. develops audio-visual and literary translations of scientific papers and thus initiates innovative, interdisciplinary climate narratives.