Katherina T . Zakravsky

This is an analysis of the short career of queer artist Nora Kurzweil who curated a trio act, with two male queer performers, during a short career 2009-2012 with performances in Vienna, Austria, Germany and Turkey.The text has been published 2018.

German text on the overcoming of Jacques Lacan's binary symbolism of female and male genitalia with reference to the fresco of Roman initiation in the "villa de misteri" in Pompeji.Also an essay on the double meaning of shame and the German word for the female genital, "Scham" and its psycho-cultural implications.

Kurzweil, Nora (Hg.): "Dei Ex Machina. Martin & The evil eyes of Nur. Eine retrospektive Werkdokumentation (German/English), Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2018, 42 – 90 (German and English Version).<br>Looking back at a short lived, hybrid act of queer fashion, media and performance art "Martin and the Evil Eyes of Nur" of the Austrian 1990ties under the conceptual direction of Nora Kurzweil one can diagnose a transition from the age of "self-irony" and parody to more militant interventions into the new indifference of art and marketing in an age of global markets and global and local conflict. Hence the demand for a "Queer Triumphalism".

Based on the concept of "Anti-Fragility" by Nassim Taleb and the systemic biology of niche construction the paper proposes a hypothesis that under conditions of high and escalating volatility the human dependency on externalized memory banks and objectified culture can proof the source of disaster.

"I Do. Some considerations on performativity and agency", In: <i>It takes place when it doesn´t. On dance and performance since 1989</i>, hg. Martina Hochmuth, Krassimira Kruschkova, Georg Schöllhammer, Frankfurt / Main: Revolver 2006, S. 93-99. https://d-nb.info/982475357/04 <br>English Essay on the contradictions between "performance" as action and profession and the discursive and social fashion of seeing "performativity" everywhere: If everything is always as a matter of potentiality prone to "perform" professional performers have no function.<br>The conflict between the single item of "a performance" and the general climate of "performativity" is further explored with 2 "speech acts" (according to John Austin): The formula "I do" spoken at weddings as a readiness to do without doing anything in particular, and the line in the song, as sung in the movie based on the Rocky Opera "Tommy" by "The Who": "I am free". This paradigmatic speech act of autistic son turned messiah appears as its own parody by now. But can still by the power of its own historical contingency proof the superiority of the single act, performance, speech over the "performativity" of over-complex impersonal systems.

K. Zakravsky: Omega Surfing. Zu <i>Biopolitik, Science Fiction und Pornografie</i>. Löcker 2012, 45 – 74.<br>Large Essay, almost small book, in German.The sum of a lot of research and thinking 2006-2012 on the significance of Ridley Scott's movie "Blade Runner" (1982) and its consequences and implications. The production of androids that are inhuman/superhuman for P.K. Dick, but superhuman and the better humans for Scott and the fanbase of the movie is a mirror for the development of humanist critique since the 1960ties. The essay discusses topics of visual perception, body and gender issues, cinematography. The final thesis revolves around the slightly extended technology of spatial photography (the "esper machine") as an oracle for subjectivities beyond biological species. Many critical references to J. Lacan and psychoanalysis.

Das Team der Karlsruhe Science Film Days hat das BIO•FICTION-Festival von Wien nach Karlsruhe gebracht: Die Gewinner und Finalisten der letzten Edition waren am 1. Juli 2015 im Staatlichen Museum fur Naturkunde zu Gast. Gezeigt wurden spannende Kurzfilme uber die Vor- und Nachteile der Synthetischen Biologie. Die Filmformate variierten von Animationsfilmen uber Dokumentarvideos bis hin zu fiktionalen Beitragen. Nach der Vorfuhrung diskutierten die Kulturphilosophin Katherina T. Zakravsky (BIO•FICTION-Jurymitglied), der Experte in Synthetischer Biologie Christopher Coenen (KIT) und Sascha Pohflepp, einer der teilnehmenden Filmproduzenten, uber die Chancen und Risiken der Synthetischen Biologie und die Rolle der Kunst in der offentlichen Diskussion. Der Abend war Teil des dreitagigen Festivals Karlsruhe Science Film Days, eine Veranstaltung des ZAK | Zentrum fur Angewandte Kulturwissenschaft und Studium Generale am Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie (KIT) in Kooperation mit der Stadt...

This is a German text for an Exhibition on Shame at the Hygiene Museum in Dresden, published in the catalogue.
http://dhmd.de/?2879

Der essayistisch-poetische Text markiert eine doppelte Abkehr von Jacques Lacan's phallozentrischer Theorie der Sexualität und gewissen körper- und sexualfeindlichen Strömungen des Mainstream-Feminismus. Dies wird verdichtet durch die Würdigung des berühmten Freskos in der "Ville dei Misteri" in Pompeji.

Based on the concept of "Anti-Fragility" by Nassim Taleb and the systemic biology of niche construction the paper proposes a hypothesis that under conditions of high and escalating volatility the human dependency on externalized memory banks and objectified culture can proof the source of disaster.