Resonant Thought

Resonant Thought is a zone of artistic research, philosophical inquiry and interdisciplinary exchange that explores how seismic conditions challenge established modes of thought, knowledge and orientation. Historically, earthquakes such as the 1755 Lisbon disaster transformed European thought by challenging Enlightenment notions of reason, progress and divine order. Today, the growing recognition that seismic processes can be intensified through human activity once again calls for a rethinking of our relationship with the Earth. Rather than opposing nature and culture, the zone explores their profound entanglement and asks how humans might inhabit a planet whose geological dynamics increasingly exceed established forms of knowledge and control.
Drawing on thinkers such as Karen Barad, Hartmut Rosa, Timothy Morton and Nicolai Schultz, the zone investigates alternative ways of understanding relation, coexistence and planetary interdependence. It approaches artistic research as a form of philosophical inquiry capable of cultivating renewed sensibilities, forms of attention and resonance in response to a world marked by instability, uncertainty and continuous transformation.

Associated epicenters

Selected references

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter
and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Birnbaum, Daniel. The Hospitality of Presence – Problems of Otherness in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2008/1998.
de Boer, J.Z., Hale, J.R. and Chanton, J. (2001) “New evidence for the geological origins of the ancient Delphic oracle (Greece).” Geology, 29(8), pp. 707-710.
Butler, Judith. Human Traces on the Surfaces of the World, New York: HemiPress, 12th April, 2020
https://contactos.hemi.press/human-traces-on-the-surfaces-of-the-world/ (2020)
Gansterer, Nikolaus. Drawing a Hypothesis – Figures of Thought. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.
Groves, Jason. The Geological Unconscious: German Literature and the Mineral Imaginary. New
York: NY Fordham University Press, 2020.
Metropolis M. 2025. “The Earth Is Trembling: Édouard Glissant's Archipelagic Model of Exchange.” Metropolis M., October 15, 2025.
Mersch, Dieter. Was sich zeigt. Materialität, Präsenz, Ereignis. München: Fink, 2002.
Morton, Timothy. "Poisoned Ground: Art and Philosophy in the Time of Hyperobjects." symplokē 21, no. 1–2 (2013): 37–50. https://doi.org/10.5250/symploke.21.1-2.0037
Rosa, Hartmut. 2019. Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World. Cambridge: Polity Press.