Background

Shaken Grounds. Seismography of Precarious Presences is an artistic research project that explores the artist's role as a seismograph in the intricate relationship between humanity and an evolving, technologically influenced geological environment. Throughout history, worship sites have been constructed where humans connect with the Earth's interior—volcanoes, fissures, and caves—echoing a geological time beyond individual, human lifespans. Rituals enacted at these sites transform perceptions of time, cultivating a heightened responsibility towards the future.

The Oracle of Delphi stands as a renowned example, where mind-expanding gases emerged from rock seams to the surface and influenced predictions. Today, humans are extensively harnessing the Earth's interior, altering surface stress distribution through i.a. mineral extraction, rising water levels, CO2storage or geothermal power generation, even triggering earthquakes. This interdependency underscores the inseparable link between humanity and the planet's structure, revealed through shockwaves.

Across cultures and epochs, artists have been declared seismographs (Riedl, 2014), capable of sensing and articulating forthcoming dynamics or shocks. Although ideas about the role of artists have changed and art has long been deprived of its special status (Luhmann, 1995), transdisciplinary artistic research in alliance with the sciences is said to be able to produce innovative solutions for the future of an ecologically, politically and economically shaken world community. In this research project, a transdisciplinary team re-explores the role of artists as seismographs to train their perception at selected sites of seismic activity. Man-made earthquakes are a phenomenon that has only recently gained prominence, and few artists have addressed the issue. This research endeavor investigates this phenomenon through artistic research, aiming to foster a new socio-ecological consciousness. Our focus encompasses artistic-performative methodologies, anthropology, geology, and body awareness through somatic-therapeutic techniques, offering avenues for addressing the human-induced shockwaves of the Anthropocene.

Shaken Grounds. Seismography of Precarious Presences is hosted by the Angewandte Performance Lab (APL) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna led by artists Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Peter Kozek, and Lucie Strecker, alongside international collaborators.