UPCOMING:
9–12 April 2026
PHILOSOPHY ON STAGE #6 – NOTEBOOK OF THE HEART
At the performance art venue brut Wien, the four-day festival Philosophy on Stage #6 – Notebook of the Heart brings together art, research, and philosophy in performances, installations, sound and dance works, lectures, reading circles, bodywork, and a speakers’ corner. The audience is invited to actively participate in a cross-cultural exploration of the heart. Researchers from India, Europe, and North America — working across the fields of art, philosophy, cardiology, and quantum physics — bring their expertise on the pulsating realities of the heart to the stage. The festival creates a shared sense for rhythmically vibrating matter: from the pulse of the human heart, through cosmic heartbeats, to the pulse of the Earth to which all living beings attune themselves. On the 9th of April artist-performer Nikolaus Gansterer and philosopher Arno Böhler will present a translecture performance. At its core lies an artistic-philosophical investigation of the heart-mind as a field of resonance, perception, and embodied knowledge. On the 11th of April the Shaken Grounds collective (Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Victor Jaschke, Peter Kozek, Werner Möbius, Lucie Strecker) will stage a live performance with a collective seismographic live drawing session.
The festival is created by cARE (core Artistic Research Ensemble) in cooperation with brut Wien, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (ARC & mdw), and the University of Vienna. The four year research project „Philosophy in the Arts: Arts in Philosophy – Cross-Cultural Research on the Significance of the Heart“ is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Contributions by Arno Böhler, Susanne Valerie Granzer, Aurelio C. Hammer, Jyoti Dogra, Nikolaus Gansterer, Florian Reiners, Sabina Holzer, Johannes Kretz, Patrick Beldio, Stefan Dobner, Tanja Traxler, Yunus Tuncel, Evi Jägle, Christoph Müller, Debashish Banerji and the Shaken Grounds Collective. Admission is free. Registration required.
15 April – 26 May 2026
SHAKEN GROUNDS: SEISMOGRAPHIES OF PRECARIOUS PRESENCES
The Shaken Grounds research project brings together artists, scientists, and curators to explore how seismic disturbances — natural and anthropogenic — shape perception, bodies, and collective forms of coexistence. Situated at the intersection of artistic research, geology, somatic practice, performance, and filmmaking, the project approaches seismography as a transdisciplinary method for sensing, translating, and relating bodies, technologies, and the Earth under conditions of instability. From 16–30 April 2026, methods and artefacts developed between 2023 and 2026 (within the Austrian Science Fund’s PEEK Programme) will be presented in an experimental laboratory at AIL, accompanied by participatory film shoots, workshops, and talks.
The exhibition officially opens on 4 May 2026 18:00 at AIL Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab Vienna and outlines the first curatorial axes of a larger group exhibition and conference planned for 2027 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb. The project is supported by Creative Europe. With contributions by Valerio Acocella, Bjarki Bragason, Arno Böhler, Alexander Damianisch, Oscar Fernandez Bellon, Helga Franza, Nicolas Freytag, Sabine Folie, Aleksandar Grabovski, Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Jens Hauser, Victor Jaschke, Beatrice Jaschke, Peter Kozek, Anna Líndal, Vesna Meštrić, Werner Moebius, Susanna Ravelli, Sylvia Scheidl, Ana Škegro, Lucie Strecker, Kaloyan Vasev, VestAndPage, etc. More details soon.
18–21 April 2026
SOIL & WATER – Exhibition at the University of Pretoria, South Africa
Soil & Water is a group exhibition with talks and screenings unfolding from 18–21 April 2026 at the University of Pretoria. Developed and curated by Basak Senova and Johan Thom in collaboration with the NIROX Foundation, the platform brings together international artists and researchers across disciplines. The program includes panels, installations, screenings, and walkabouts with contributors such as Shaken Grounds Collective (Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Victor Jaschke, Peter Kozek, Werner Möbius, Lucie Strecker), Alet Pretorius, Atul Bhalla, Jesper Just, Robin Rhode, and SUPERFLEX. The Shaken Grounds Collective presents a screening of their film „Shaken Grounds, Shifting Skies“ alongside their installation on campus. Engaging with the ecological entanglements of water and soil, the project explores how seismic activity—both natural and human-induced—reshapes landscapes and lives. The film traces fragile terrains from volcanic regions in Italy to the retreating Pasterze Glacier in Austria, weaving a non-linear narrative of ecology, time, and instability.