Workshop: Zoönomic Futures

Societal pressure on non-human populations has increased way beyond their adaptive capacity. The search is on for ways to give these populations a means to counterbalance our human-centered systems. This is what a zoöp tries to do. Zoöp is a proposal for a new kind of organization that supports nonhuman populations, a new type of cooperative legal entity, in which humans as well as multispecies ecological communities can become partners.

Practical ethics for a post human-centric society

The training focuses on developing a practical ethics for living in a society that is no longer human-centric. The narrative setting is that of an ocean dwelling zoöp in the mid 21st century, a floating artificial island that leads a mostly independent existence outside territorial watersParticipants develop responses to issues that emerge on the zoöp, working out a mode of existence that meets humanitarian needs as well as posthumanist values, and that balances zoönomic requirements with material conditions.

The training is aimed at artists, designers, researchers, organisers, planners, thinkers and activists interested in developing a practice based on collaboration between humans and living nonhumans, instead of one that treats nonhumans as exploitable resource.

Zoönomic Futures is developed by

• Scenario: Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, researcher at Het Nieuwe Instituut, initiator of the zoöp project and Sjef van Gaalen, design theorist, co-developer of zoöp concept.
• Sound design: Mark Bergwerff, theatre maker, sound artist.
• Graphic design: Mislav Žugaj and Marc Loths, graphic designers.