Die Gartenlaube Vol. III, Danube Songs 2
“There are still songs to sing beyond mankind.” (Paul Celan)
We are delighted once again for the opportunity to host our Leonardo Laser Talk at the Ars Electronica Festival 2022, with the support of the University of Art and Design Linz and the Interface Cultures Department. In September 2021, Linz joined the Leonardo Art & Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) network, an international program that brings together artists, scientists, academics, and the general public, to share their work and inspire each other through engaging presentations, performances, and discussions. The mission of these gatherings is to foster unusual encounters and dialogues, allowing its participants to challenge their worlds and practices while promoting pluralism and interdisciplinarity. Providing a space to make new friends and build new alliances, we aim to set new agendas and new horizons. We do it out of love and curiosity.
In this third edition we continue our Gartenlaube series with a second panel around water. Through different narratives such as bodies of water, water fluidity and water love, water ecologies and water pollution, water management, our guests will present their personal work as well as their methods, their stories and maybe even their songs. We are very interested in understanding how their work—whether artistic or scientific—has shaped their relationship with this sensitive force of nature. With a special focus on the Danube River, we will examine the river as an artery through which communication and exchanges, not only human but also interspecies, were established long before humans began to navigate, cultivate and establish their settlements along it.