In this online external seminar, the artist and philosopher Kilian Jörg will present some key concepts from his forthcoming book “The Car and the Ecological Catastrophe“. The book seeks to understand the car as a key element in why modernity is stuck in an ecologically catastrophic lifestyle. Rather than being a mere machine among others, the car can be seen as a prosthesis that produces a hegemonic relationship with the environment and has produced the “Homogenocene”. In this sense, the problem of the car is not its exhaust fumes, but that it produces Nature as a consumer product. Kilian will develop this thesis by showing the recently made film “Nature is a beast” (by the collective Auto Affaire) and will elaborate on the history of its development, with a special focus on the history of fascism, the quelling of rebellion in the early days of automobility, our mundane affective entanglement through pop culture, and the sensual normalisation of the current hegemonial mobility system. Drawing on examples of recent activism, they will conclude by outlining some horizons for a future of more sustainable, joyful and plural relations and ways of moving through a planet in ecological crisis.

Kilian Jörg works both artistically and philosophically on the topic of ecological catastrophe and how its transformative forces can best be imagined and deployed. Previous publications have been on club culture, the political backlash from an ecological perspective, cultivating distance in catastrophic times and a speculative religion of waste. His current research topics are the car as a metaphor for our toxic entanglements with modern lifestyles (released in book form as “Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe” in September 2024), the socio-psychological effects of living with ecocide and radical activist strategies of reclaiming land like the ZAD in France. He is working with the Futurama.Lab at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and is affiliated to the SFB Affective Societies at the FU Berlin.

You can now watch the recorded seminar HERE.