Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

What bodies do we want to be? I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess – said a scientist. I am a ghost – says Judith. We want to be witches – say Swoosh Lieu.

Bodies are studied. Studies make gender. Gender assigns us roles in society. Witches (in German: “Hexen”) have been collecting alternative knowledge about the body for centuries and exploring ways of living beyond the nuclear family. Hackers (or: “Haecksen” – a self-designation of German feminist hackers, which resembles the German word for “witch” s. above) view gender to be technology and are researching how to re-code it. Swoosh Lieu conjure up the theatre as a place where “Hexen” and “Haecksen”, witches and hackers meet the ghosts of the future and the past. They search for new human-machine connections based on care. They hack body images, forms of storytelling, sight lines and technical stagecraft, weave new webs and design queerfeminist concepts of kinship. Dea Ex Machina is the goddess born of the machine, the spectre of liberation, the mistake as opportunity and the glitch in our imagination.

#1 Nothing is connected to everything; everything is connected to something

#2 We will not conform. We will not obey. We will not be silent

#3 We have always woven against hegemonies

#4 Being a witch means living in this world consciously, powerfully, and unapologetically

#5 Make kin, not babies

#6 And now… Let the whole godamn thing short circuit!

To get you in the mood, we recommend episode six of the MULTIFON postcast. Here, the duo Jana Zöll and Steven Solbrig as well as Katharina Pelosi from the performance and media collective Swoosh Lieu talk about what changes they perceive in the discussion about care and care work – within the cultural sector but also outside of it. Language: German.