Vienna, Austria
I follow a long standing research agenda as a cultural theorist, curator, philosopher and historian of science and technology, pursued through many individual and collaboratory projects, and with an international network streching from academia to industry, from prominent scientific to cultural institutions, from chemistry and geology to the humanities, and arts. Cooperation partners: MPI for the History of Science, UniSysCat TU-Berlin, MPI of Geoanthropology, JTZ Halle, HKW-Berlin, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, ARTE/ZDF, Goethe Institutes Minsk, New York, Novosibirsk, Oslo, Rotterdam, Berlin University Alliance, OMV AG, RAG-Austria, Geological Survey of Austria (GBA), Technical Museum of Vienna, Deutsches Museum München, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Kunstuniversität Linz, IFK Wien, Universität Wien, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin In my ongoing research I work on the role of industrial catalysis and fossil resources in modernity and Anthropocene The need to integrate perspectives both from the natural sciences and from philosophical approaches to understand the present era and its challenges and future pathways becomes obvious in keywords such as the 'Anthropocene' - the age where industrial processes even affect earth system processes - or 'Petromodernity' - where fossil matter and energy has shifted epistemic, political, and cultural boundaries and contributed to all contadiuctions of modernity. It becomes obvious as well in new integrative disciplinary settings such as in 'energy humanities', 'geoanthropology', or 'petrocultures research'. To address chemical technology and politics as a blind spot of many approaches from the humanitires in this field, we propose a yet to be established 'chemical cultural theory'. To acknowledge the deep ambivalences of petromodernity as an era of a non sustainable high-energy culture both in all political and epistemic systems we claim for the need of a 'critique of fossil reason' as an important step to leave the age of fossil energy as much as possible behind but to still keep the achievements.
The affiliation to MPI of Geoanthropology is the continuation of my work for the MPI for the History of Science (since 2016 and until 3/2024) and the respective initiatives of Anthropocene research in the MPS (Max Planck Society). My particular contribution to the agenda is the focus on chemical industries, industrial catalysis, and fossil ressources for the dynamics of the Anthropocene. Within the interdisciplinary structure of the MPIGEA I represent historical, philosophical and curatorial approaches in research and outreach.
Beauty of Oil was founded in 2015/2016 by Alexander Klose and Benjamin Steininger. It is a research collective dedicated to understanding the complexities and paradoxes of petromodernity. It has been working in a multidisciplinary network of fellow oil researchers and in cooperation with various partners from cultural and scientific institutions since 2015. Cooperation partners so far: HKW-Berlin, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Goethe Institutes (Minsk, Novosibirsk, New York, Rotterdam, Oslo) Books published: Erdöl. Ein Atlas der Petromoderne, Berlin: Matthes&Seitz 2020 (translation into Russian published Moscow: logos 2021, extended English version published Santa Barbara: punctumbooks 2024 2024), Oil. Beauty and Horror in the Petrol Age (ed. tog. with Alexander Klose and Andreas Beitin), Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König 2021 For details on publications, events, exhibitions, interviews etc. please visit our website.
Within the setting of the Cluster of Excellence UniSysCat (Unifying Systems in Catalyis), and in addition to its focus on groundbreaking chemical research, I contributed to the historical and philosophical understanding of the role of industrial catalysis for the epoche of modernity and the Anthropocene and for the ongoing transformation of chemistry. My project followed a long agenda of 'chemical cultural theory' and of catalysis research from philosphy of technology and media theory. It connects communities that act most of the time seperated, despite the fact, that 'chemical industries' can only be transformed in a both less fossil and more just direction when understood as a both technical and cultural/political structure. .
With my research on chemical industry and petromodernity I contributed to the Anthropocene Reserach group at MPIWG, in regular cooperation with HKW Berlin (a.o. Hydrocarbons 2017, Mississippi-projetc 2019). The affiliation was initiated in 2016 to establish a cooperation with the MPI for Chemical Energy Conversion (MPICEC), at Mülheim/Ruhr, as part of an initiative within the MPS to institutionalize Energy Humanties and Anthropocene Research - which eventually led to the founding of the new MPI of Geoanthropology, Jena.
Ko-Kurator der von Alexander Klose und mir initiierten und gemeinsam mit den Direktoren des Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg Ralf Beil und später Andreas Beitin kuratierten Ausstellung 'Oil. Schönheit und Schrecken des Erdölzeitalters (9-2021 bis 1-2022). Umfangreicher Katalog publiziert im Verlag Walther König, Köln, umfangreiches Presseecho, u.a. einsehbar auf unserer Plattform beauty-of-oil.org. Das Ausstellungsprojekt war auch Gegenstand der Filmproduktion 'Petro-Melancholie' (ARTE/ZDF. dir. Matthias Frick)