SAT 30 10 2019, 1 pm - 2 pm

Literature on feminist science fiction is the hot topic everyone’s talking about: authors like Ursula K. Le Guin or Octavia Butler are trending. But why now? When uncertainty arises as to how people can live on the frequently named "destroyed planet" and how machines could more or less replace us in the near future, speculative future plans are needed that break with traditional patterns of thinking and experience. In the current exhibition in Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, the reception of feminist sci-fi in contemporary art is investigated and displayed.

The selected works reflect science fiction as a possibility to think differently and formulate social utopias. Because, as Donna Haraway writes, "It is important which stories we tell, in order to tell other stories; it is important, which concepts we think of in order to create new concepts." In the very near future, concrete application of this could help us figure out how to survive in the face of advanced exploitation and destruction of our planet.

In their discussion, cultural scientist and podcaster, Julia Grillmayr, and mediator, Lena Lieselotte Schuster, give insights into the artistic works of the exhibition, and together they discuss today's relevance and reality of Sci-Fi in contemporary art.

Julia Grillmayr is a literary and cultural scientist, journalist and scientific communicator in Vienna and Linz. She is researching scenario techniques in contemporary science fiction literature and futurology at the University of Art and Design Linz. She does the radio show "Superscience Me - Science and Fiction" on Radio Orange 94.0 and does podcasts for the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna. The rest of the time, she spends in the Danube meadows or in tap shoes.

Lena Lieselotte Schuster is responsible for the mediation of art at Kunstraum Niederoesterreich and moderates the interview.

Artists: Netaly Aylon, Gillian Dykeman, Isolde Joham, Zsófia Keresztes, Claudia Lomoschitz, Hanna Mattes, Naomi Rincón-Gallardo, Larissa Sansour und Søren Lind, Marianne Vlaschits

Duration of the Exhibition: SAT 03 10 – SAT 30 11 2019