24. 4. 2024 seminar of accidental wisdom: Vít Bohal
seminar of accidental wisdom: Vít bohal
24.4.2024
Xenologies: the ‘xeno’ today
Xenoeuphoria, Xenoarchitecture, xenofeminism – the xeno- has over the past decade become a cultural item which has been increasingly used in various theoretical and artistic projects – Xenotopia, xenoestrogens, xenosystems… What might this say about today’s cultural production and contemporary aesthetics? How has the xeno – xenomorph, xenocapital, xenobuddhism – evolved from a signifier of hospitality, to one of privilege and exit, and back again?
The lecture will focus on the development of the xeno since the 1990s until today, using examples from art, theory and design, and aim to frame some preliminary points of comparative xenology.
Vít Bohal holds a PhD from the Center for Critical and Cultural Theory at Charles University Prague where his work focused on xenology, feminist theory, critical cultural theory and philosophy of technology. He is currently a researcher at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic as part of a project focusing on early occultism and mysticism in the Czech lands. He is member of the Diffractions collective (https://diffractionscollective.org/) and has co-edited collections on contemporary theory. The book Xenologies: Sociality on an Alien Planet is forthcoming in 2024.