 Welcome everybody back here to Segal Talks at the Martin E. Segal Theater at the Graduate Center CUNY in Midtown Manhattan. It's a beautiful spring day. The sun is out and we see the blooms of our trees and the kind of materialization of nature and that brings us to the topic of Tudor I think very closely. And what it means to us to see that and feel that we have with us today a German philosopher Andreas Weber, who thought very deeply about the time we live in this epochal change, this change of paradigm, so welcome Andreas, where are you now and what time is it? Thank you Frank. I'm, well that's a good question of this kind of call. I'm in my flat in Berlin and it is 6.30 in the evening so it's a bit later but it's still daylight and I can confirm what you said about the vegetation of the northern hemisphere. It looks like every night there's just the green and the flowers double. It's amazing. These days where when you think back you think, well somehow spring started and I didn't recognize it was just there. So it's just this moment right now. Yeah, amazing. Tomorrow is Earth Day. This is the third of our talks which we call Whole Earth Talks, a great title suggested by Thomas Oberender who also was with us, who thought deeply about theater. Andreas is with us because he wrote a book and I think it's an important book that asks us to reflect on the new relation we have or should have and will have with the this fear we call nature, the way humans interact on the planet with the universe with the cosmos in a way. And he has an interesting word, which he uses throughout the book. And it is related to our field we come from the field of theater and performance his, a lot of his thoughts circle around the world of enlivenment. And this is of course an important word Philip Ausländer and Peggy Phelan have worked a lot about the idea of the lifeness and an ideology and technology where they come together as an ontology of performance in in music performance and music where it's something much more than where buddies are in this room actors and audiences. And so this I also feel is an update on the thinking and really important to us but first of all, Thomas without thinking and talking about theater and performance which we might do later, tell us a little bit about the idea of enlivenment the perspective enlivenment which you wrote so beautifully and so meaningful about. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for inviting me to this. Yeah, so, so basically the word I think is more or less a creation it didn't really exist in English language and it. And I have to say that it wasn't my creation. It came from a colleague from the German Heinrich both foundation hike a luncheon and when while we were thinking about the outcomes of workshop a day long workshop. I had done with actually basically a lot of artists and and people somehow involved in ecological transition. And I had a German word for it and we had a name for the workshop, but we didn't really have an English word for it and then this somehow popped up and the, the beautiful thing is it is a compliment to enlightenment which you all know. The idea was that enlivenment actually does what enlightenment somehow had admitted, namely to account for the lived experience in the agents in this world so enlightenment was about the autonomy of the rational actor and we all know that it was basically a male rational actor which which went central stage. So enlivenment is about the interconnection of the, the embodied experiencing feeling intersubject that's called it intersubject so the idea is that that what we're missing and we're still we missing this even in the in the most advanced discourse I'd say still if you look into post humanities for example on new materialism what what we're missing is the is the fact that being in this world always always means that you're experiencing life from the inside. We have an experience about this world as being fully alive because we are part of it and a little, a little conversation about the spring plant beings celebrating celebrating with us the return of life. To live in the northern hemisphere is just an example you know we we don't slip into this talk on an only abstract way we we we have the desire to somehow invite those who literally give life to us and whose presence we experience as life giving into the talk but actually, before I end with answering your question, I want to actually do this I want to invite these plant beings around me the maples and the variety of shrubs and the grass and the early flowers and what you see me you see me looking around the color dove I want them to invite into this talk, because they are invited they already in my life and I really want to invite them to join us to be living together to be alive together. It is a change a time of radical change we live in into the age of the Anthropocene, which for everybody who has listened to our talks before will know that now the impact of men on planet Earth is irreversible. Something radically has happened and we have to adapt to that and you are asking that we consider to look at the world from the perspective of an ecosystem as if we are part of a larger system a life system, and not just as you just said come from the inner inner side and you say we are in a global crisis in sense making and and we follow an ideology of death from discard with anything broke down to atoms and to a logarithms. Where does your feel I don't know if it's your field the biology come in where what it does it has to tell us what we should be thinking about. So it's important to to see when you use the word biology that the biology I'm bringing so I'm a biologist I'm a graduated biologist that's that was my first that my my first education and then I also did a PhD in philosophy but I'm a biologist and in many respects I'm thinking about by in a biological way so I just didn't leave me so it's important to see nevertheless that the biology I've been trained in is not the not of the mainstream kind in a way so it's a it's a way. What I've been doing and I've been doing this with my dear teacher Francisco Varela in Paris in the late 1990s was to understand living beings not as machines, but as self creating subjects. So this is a very different biology from the biology you can you can see everywhere and you'll get to learn when you start when you're so bold to do. When you're already at training in biology, then you'll learn all these deterministic algorithmic machine like ideas but what we have been trying to do is to to prove in a way that that what sells the building blocks of organisms actually about is to continuously up themselves so they're not machines they are somehow processes of desire wanting to be a body let's let's put it like this in a little in a bit approximate of way. So living beings from this idea of biology and you can I mean I've done this in several books and and which which draw on the work of my teacher Varela he's done this in admirable work and he's he's now he's very known for this. So you can show that if you slightly twist your perspective. You can from a very grounded biological way argue for the for the idea that living beings are. Those embodied processes processes of the flesh, which work from an inner center of desire to to give existence to to create existence. And I think that that's absolutely amazing because it is completely different from the story of mainstream biology, although it works with the same empirical observations it doesn't introduce anything from the outside to something new. But it dovetails with our own experience. So far in you see, and if you if you turn it around like this and you see like living beings are obviously their subjects Wow, every living being is a subject. There is no problem to understand our own experience of being subjects which we have I mean that's our, that's our inner experience it's it's the experience of being feeling, desiring vulnerable elastic powerful subject. That's our feeling. And in this kind of biology this goes back this there's no gap anymore you know the, the dualistic gap which somehow was always between the, the, the, the only subjectivity we could think of, namely human subjectivity. And the rest of the world as machine. This goes away if you look at biology from from from that perspective. And, and I think this is such an amazing gift of this perspective. Because then we are, we are connect back connected back to the world at a moment when we are in deadly separation of when separation is really. Yeah, so, so that a little bit like this. Yeah, and this is, you know, a part of the crisis that we actually do not see as you quoted that the web of life, the flesh of the world mellow upon tears you quoted. I understand that we are part of something much larger than that we are as a life as the universe we observe I like, and let's maybe go to it a little bit for also for our listeners the idea of the aliveness. What you say or the enlivenment you say is a is a notion of artistic expression, artistic work artistic research. There's a theory that experience of this artistic context, what artists do is like the ecosystem itself. It works as imagination. That's, that's an incredible statement your book is so full ideas but let me let me say it again so you understand right. The artistic work reflects or is life itself. It is a force part of the real force of imagination of the force of life, life of nature of biology to did I understand that right. Yeah, yeah, thank you. It's if you understand it I know if you understand it because because this otherwise you wouldn't single it out here by quoting it yeah thanks. So that's very important and that's actually a really part of my still very much part of my actual work to understand this because let me let me build a bridge from what I said before to this. I don't really think how to do it because we all know all those mean everyone because everyone does it and all those who are connected with arts or producing of art but actually everyone is connected to this because we all bring forth newness or bring forth something which touches about touches on meaning. We know that in doing this, there is some mysterious center which is very closely connected to the experience of being very much alive. So there is a there is a very important contact between the experience of being alive and the experience we receive through through poetic creation or through the arts through artworks. And this always has been a huge topic of interest for myself. And, and it's even the reason why I've started to call yet another book a poetics of biology bio poetics it's called bio poetics so so so pursuing the idea that actually there's only one poetics there's only one process of expressiveness of life, and that it was wrong from the from the beginning to separate the way human artists create art from the way life itself creates meaningfulness creates expression creates the experience of what is actually in its center So this is this is this is my research in in pulling these things together I still do it I have a I have a paper waiting for review, which is about about just this so it's it's I think it is this is, this is it's really the sort of umbilical cord. And this is why art is so important in this dire time we're in because because we in through art. Our civilization which has more or less completely given up the the conviction that we can be connected to aliveness through art we can still do this it's not easy because there are many opinions about art, as you know, it's not easy. But it's I think in the in the original experience of being truly touched by something. It's there. It's there this it's life, it's life, it's life which touches you and then then we have it again. Okay, yeah, so so so far maybe at the moment. I think this is a quite significant in general but especially of course for for for students of art of theater practitioners to understand your notion that an artistic expression artistic work actually is nature in itself and in the way the artist form in a say you say of nature you quote playwrights which is very interesting you have about Slav Havel but also the romanticist like Schiller and you who you say, not who was not following Hegel or Marx and a sort of utopian idea of a paradise on earth, but said we have to find a way to live in contradictions in a post opposites, and, and that playfulness the idea of play, and you quote that which I didn't know that Schiller I guess what he did as a child that in the idea of playing, you reach a highest a high form of being alive or being part of nature as you would say in being creative with imagination. Tell us tell me a bit of how come yet you quote a playwrights in your work as a biologist and philosopher. It's lovely yeah yeah it's that's it's so that's such a lovely path you're you're you're beating there to to to get at the topic at let's say at the field we are having this talk in. So, play is also very important. We can play in sense of playing like children play or we play or all animals play by the way all animals play. I say this for the audience so even the tiniest animals play and play individual and play in different styles so so playing is is very important as as something in which we emulate the freedom of of life which is itself or which gives away itself and in playing we also connect to this center. So if everybody knows this and if even though some might need to think back to that childhood, everyone knows that in play. I'm still talking about children's play in a way like like free play in this play we if we're really in it. Then we in content in contact with something very beautiful and something very powerful so again we're in contact with very much we're in contact with life. We're also in contact with our needs. So this is why Joseph Campbell said to do everything what you do as play because then you'll be in contact with your needs. So coming to Schiller Schiller. So this the German playwright and philosopher contemporary of Goethe, good friend of Goethe. He has written this, these letters about aesthetic education, who probably I don't know how known they are in English in the English literature world now today, but they're actually about playing, and he was a playwright so he knew something about playing, playing on stage. And, and for him in play, you could, you could, you could act according to very severe rules in a completely free week free way. So that that was that that was the magic you do something which follows a very hard necessity so so my story is that the the rules are those. So we put it in the in the in the most possible freedom. And for him this was beauty for Schiller this is beauty and I mean this is interesting in so many respects so it's interesting. First, to look at the setting so because we know we're never free, but we're always free to choose. So we're never free I'm I have my body I have my character whatever I have all these things. I can never change that not really not not fundamentally but I'm free to choose how to play with them. And so that is what that is one important point and, and another important point is that beauty is not something which is clean. It's not voluntary it comes out of a tension, but it is still possible if we are able to enliven this tension, if we if we lead it back to life. Yeah, so in a way, it became very natural for me and I think it's Schiller and this is still somehow needs he needs to be reread and I actually you haven't found that in that book. So, I've also learned a lot from another order and philosopher was also playwright not only playwright come Albert Camus, the French, but he was a player and he was an actor also he acted he was he was acting is playing his own theater at the beginning at least. And in his, I can also only recommend that this famous book, The Rebel from the 1950s. He is very close to what you're quoted from Schiller he's very close he wants to find a way. This is a political book, book actually but it, it culminates in a, in a poetics. So he wants to find a way between resignation and becoming violent, because you want to achieve something. And he found this, this third way in, in creation, creating art, because then you, you don't have to cut through the contradictions. You can play with them, you can create something new on the ground of contradictions. And that is what humans, and not only humans beings probably immediately recognizes beauty so I mean, recognizing a beauty means that it fills them with a sort of bliss. It's a, it's a, it's a birth, it's a new beginning. So yeah, that's they are very important. I think you, you are asking also science, what I think theater people, you know, think they do but you know how do we feel, you know how do we experience history how do we experience science how do we experience nature, you know and to refocus on that that we are not separated. And you say we are part of that web of that structure. And if we look on stages, most of it often is a reflection of an inner cell, I think they are monologues, you know, mono dramas, human conflicts on stage. And you quote as so many also on our talks that new epoch of the Anthropocene that has arrived so Holocene, you know when 2015 1000 years ago farmers started you know if slowly you know creating a living a better living you know, observation of nature and creating tools and ultimately science. Now we have changed the world and the world has changed whether we like it or not. It is like the time of Galileo, when Galileo said the worst actually turns around the sun and the other said no it's not it's wrong you're not right. Yeah, on the same moment of serious of change it already has happened. It is denied by many, but how can theater. What do you think or art, what can our do that you change from that inner perspective to what you say the perspective of considering the world is an ecosystem or you focus that you quote David blowman the implicit order of the indigenous thinking you also quote that we are part of something bigger how what are ideas you have that theater can do should do what you saw what you think or what you dream about. Okay, yeah that was a lot in this question very interesting lovely so let me. Let me. Where do I start so I start some somehow I start at the end of what you said but then I'll jump back to the beginnings. So when you say I see the world the world as an ecosystem. I really say it much much more strongly so this is still somehow very mainstream in a way so I do see the world as an ecosystem but what I want to stress is that this ecosystem is is experiencing itself through the interactions. So you could, you could actually say and then I'll explain this through the end actions between all its members. So this ecosystem is not just a system, it is actually a shared living process of co creation of living newness. So this is different. It is different. It is not a system it is not abstract it is it is lived and while we're talking about it we're making it we're doing it right now right here we creating the ecosystem, not only by talking about it but also for example my my my famous example by because I breathe, and with every out breath. I'll feed the trees in front of my window so you see this and who also desire for life so this is, it's very, it's very embodied, it's very embodied. And well that's that's something but I come back to this I wanted to do a little comment on this quick sequence you drew from early days of humanity to today when you said the farmers and then gave us a better living it's very important to see that it. The transition from into agriculture wasn't for a better living it was for some. Some warlords some early warlords who wanted to enslave people, and it was easier when you had huge production of grains to enslave people so it's it's, it wasn't a. It wasn't transition into something which inevitably led to progress, it was maybe even a step back and we're still stepping, stepping back, but that's another it's another story it's another discussion so I. I wanted to come back to the word I used when I said the all the beings, which are the ecosystem in act. Life together. So there's a word I use in act like you enact on a staged. And this is a word which is, which comes from the research of my teacher Francisco Varela who actually coined. A direction of cognitive sciences and activism so they're still called an activism. And that means that that people who who adhere to this subscribe to this they know that there is nothing preformed and fixed, but there is always a relational exchange in everything, which in acts the diverse desires of the agents, which are implied in this process in a free and expressive and imaginative way. So you see this, this brings non non mainstream biology, let's say non dualistic biology, this brings non dualistic biology very close to what you're doing in theater. You see, so actually life is something which is continuously enacted isn't that isn't that fascinating. And it is enacted because you're never alone. There is no reality which is just there. So you have to create your own reality together with those who also create the we also need to live and create this reality together with you. So everything is always enacted so there's not not. There's nothing firm in a way, and it is enacted through a shared desire of of remaining in this living process of adding to living with this living process. And, and it's very much improvised so actually if I in doing my little preparatory thinking for this talk, I was thinking actually theater is a very profound way of showing life, because it is very much in a performative manner it is very much that which happens in life so you see you have these do have actually a double storyline in theater. You have the storyline which is the storyline and then you have the living beings playing improvisation in enacting the storyline and so that's another storyline so you profoundly understand something about life and I think, I was just linking back to Schiller I think he knew this already then so he wanted to to underline that there is a there is a second storyline in this. And if I, if I can go on for one or two minutes I don't know. I have I have found something I found something else which is very interesting so I might even, I might come back to an action because it might be. Exactly from cognitive sciences into this audience or may that might be a little bit too much but I find it just too beautiful that they use this term you know they use this term. And they, they explain this term so so sense is created by improvising in this interest of, of, of creating a coherent togetherness I mean doesn't that sound like stage. I think very much it sounds like safe so so now I want to just to hint at another German philosopher and writer who happens to be Friedrich Nietzsche. And I just want to shed the light on his early work which then he somehow retracted and he hated that he had written at the birth of the tragedy, where he was talking about the chorus in the in the Greek tragedy. And he has some very interesting ideas about the chorus so let's drop all this Richard Wagner stuff and all these things all the all this, just this, just this idea because he says the chorus of the Greek tragedy is sort which which links the tragedy to the ancient archaic, we could even say animistic or shamanistic times in ancient Greek before the classics. And for him. And he writes this I quote for him, the chorus is full of natural beings he says natural beings so he uses, he says satires, but I mean you know natural beings are actually natural beings. Maybe trees and wood pigeons. So it is actually life itself speaking in the chorus. And for him this was this was this razorly important reference point for for suggesting this the Dionysian dimension of art which connects to this. This reservoir of a lifeness we will and which goes back to to an ancient time in which Dionysus wasn't was was somehow a vegetative vegetative God bringing life so going very far back so so you see again there is a and when I understood this I was thinking well as a as a profound link in this idea again between theater and and an animistic understanding that what is actually happening in theater is life itself. We see life itself happening. I would conclude, because I think you ask what can, what can theater contribute to the transition. So I would say, make clear that we see life happening and let life happen in a way that it is truly really happening. So, even happening for the spectators will then don't remain spectators. If you're a spectator. Because you're always already in a dualistic setting, you know, you know this. And this is why so many theater others somehow try to break this dualistic setting in a way. So like the brecht, making it even more dualistic just to show you look this is a dualistic illusion, or others, the audience in. But if you, if you understand that that was what is happening in front of your eyes is is life, creating itself in this moment then you are much more in a in a setting in a setting of how we could we call it of ecstasy maybe of ritual in which you somehow become part of as even as the audience of life recreating itself so I would think into this direction. But then I'm a philosopher and I'm not a theater order. You know, philosophers always give bad recipes when artists ask her so what should we do they never ask a philosopher, let let let an artist do. And I think I see it some at some places I also see it already done but I mean I to me the reservoir of theater is enormous actually in in in in in molding this post dualistic way of contact with life. Yeah, wow I think this is it is quite a big and significant I think recognition, you know, of a theater, as you say, is actually the force of life or representing life itself completely independent what is being shown or represented that the limitations or the creative process the the commitments the agreements when to do what represent for that moment actually if I understand right life in itself in its highest form and doing theater and which is so true is you know that the feeling of a life as a theater actors like it to view it to be part of it, like, in a way sometimes like sports, but much more interesting than it's not just a winner or loser, you know, even so if it's a great game but you can see the contradictions you talk a lot about it that life is is cruel is full of contradictions it's messy it's a catastrophe you could and that actually I think that it's also important that theater actually represents life how it really is we do not see the lies of happiness and happy endings, we do the deceptions the murders the betrayals but then also real love and the disasters, what everybody knows what will happen and it happens. Anyway, so I think this is quite a significant observation towards our field coming out of biology and philosophy of contemporary one that ask us radically if I stand right to rethink what we are doing and maybe go a little bit more into that that idea. What do you talk about that we have to change our point of view you and we have to include ways of thinking that we haven't thought before what do you think are the most important things to keep in mind for young theater artists that someone 50 years ago didn't have to worry about. No, that's a very good question. I feel very much like a dilettante when you ask me in these concrete ways but I will still I will still venture bravely into it. So, so I think actually what what I already said what is what is most important is to reconnect, find a contact find a new contact reconnect with this with this, the inner experience of of aliveness which isn't a category. It's not a category in theater, only for the for the actor so they have to do this because otherwise they couldn't act, you know, but it's not it's not a category really it's very much actual theater is very much about paying tribute to many important things and let's say in the in the history of art in the history of theater in the in the in the actual world of really of of which needs to be related but but the going into the onto the the let's say somehow into the experiential side into the inward side into the side which from from a hidden position can make contact with others is isn't isn't isn't really trained it's not it's trained trained know where I explained whether maybe with an example which I know a bit better which is a philosophical conference. So we have a philosophical conference about new thoughts about life. It's just a fictional philosophical conference and how will this work, there will be speakers. And they will present their ideas and then there will be discussion and there might be some workshops afterwards. People will go away they have exchanged their new ideas about life. And I've participated in some of these conferences as you can imagine and they're always highly frustrating for everyone because they don't lead anywhere. And I remember I was once in a conference very interesting conference actually about the comments about the idea that that actually we create everything always only by sharing it and there were really great people. Great, great people had great done great work. And we were there for two days sitting in the room and quarreling quarreling about judge mental judgments and then there was one afternoon. There were some breakout groups who could do anything and I, I had one of these groups I facilitated one of these groups or a volunteer to do it and then we walk to the river there was a river actually we realize okay well there's a river behind the beautiful river, beautiful German river between hills. We went to the river for the first time and I asked the river for participation. I asked the river to be generous with us to to to invite us in. And, and it became such a beautiful incredibly rich connection with such a lot of insights and outcomes in these two hours at the river. We haven't done anything. We didn't even really discuss but it was it was really there were so many insights. We only we so we so you see we somehow went over to this other side of saying okay we are all part of this interconnected breathing flash. But first, establish this connection, among all of this interconnected breathing flesh and then let's see what comes from this. You see, this is what I suggest, and then explore this. I know from my own experiences that in the in the art world, as in philosophy, which is often very conceptual. It is very difficult to do it, although on stage, and that's your great advantage, working with actors or with dancers that's the same thing. You have this because actors need to be acutely emotionally aware of something which is actually not really visible but we're just still there so you actually have already the tools or the, the raw substance and and and then work with this but work with this in a way that the public is really drawn into that. That's, that's what I what I think them is the most important thing is to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to find again that we can be touched by by existing together on this planet we can be touched at a very, very profound place. In, in deep in ourselves in the, in the center of our heart, the heart of our hearts. And to my experience if this happens, everything changes, although we haven't changed anything on the program, although we haven't we haven't invited invented any particularly new concepts. But people change and and some some somehow suddenly things make sense, sense, which before seemed void and seemed meaningless. And I invoke Nietzsche in a way with this idea that actually the chorus is remnant from shamanistic traditions and I would just want to say that we still live in a world where there are these animistic traditions with which are which are very theatrical in traditional cultures. And so we still have, let's say the, the raw power of theater enacted in cultures throughout the world which we can walk there we can look at it we, we can ask, we can ask if we if we can look at it. We can ask. And, and, and all those cultures, the people in those cultures, they work so much with this with this invisible connections and creating power from this invisible connections which I think is a sort of it's arts magic, let's let's call us, let's call it call it arts magic. Rosie Brydotti with no respect, respect whatsoever uses the word magic so I also will use the word magic. It has been well introduced. Because there has been so much fear about this about using this the magic of connection and we had to be clean and rational and we had to be non sentimental and not romantic you see these are all qualities of the machine these are all qualities of, of disconnections. And, and in many respects, art in, in, in our age, art since the revolution of modernism has somehow misunderstood the its own potential and has has shied away from using this elemental magic of working for life. And, and, but I think it can, it can and it does. And, and it's fun, it's joy, I mean, it's joy like you say it's joy. It's deep suffering, but it's all there it's real. It's real it's life, life in the raw state which then becomes very, very much very powerful. I think this is this is what what can be done I think what will be done what to me sounds interesting. And this is that this is important and I'm still thinking, what would you say this reminder, what we learned from our master the Shackners and Turner and grotesque and so many that a ritual in a way you know is the base of what we need to and it is not the highly commercial elements, you know, where the most common denominator, you know brings us together but to really honor that deep mystical call that connection of being alive I mean one of the incredible things is that Galileo, who taught us you know that we are actually going around and looked at the stars now we look back with our telescopes flying through the sky, and we cannot find anything that is like Earth, there's nothing found in light years. As far as we know there will be there are other places I do also believe that but we hasn't been found and show the specs, what makes them life, life, the magic of the art and that art reasons. It's something that we should honor and take serious that we are transformed by it when the big idea also of nature. I think is you know that we that we are transformed by what we are doing and to be alive to be living means transformation what we also actually see on stage, you touched on comments and you also write about it. Yeah, I don't want to talk too long but I like that very much you I think you quoted David Billy Billy Billy if I quoted right earlier earlier. Yeah, public spaces gardens, parks, farmers markets festivals outside are significant to mental health to local health economy. And we need to invite that in in our lives in our work the exchange of the plentitude. And, and you say that a beautiful sentencing corporations cannot provide that they will not provide that they have no interest but art can the idea of the comments. What are you finding out about the comments and how is it connected to nature or your your idea of biology. Thank you. That's a that's a great. It's a great hit. I can I can hit back over the net. So actually, so comments comments are relational processes in which in which in where the participants are humans and other than human beings and beings like water and the atmosphere and forest and all this. There are actually embodied relationships which create a life. And in the ancient times where there were only cultures, which work in the traditional way like traditional and the mystic culture so they everything was a common actually everything the whole world was understood as a commons and we also call this sharing economy so there was no capitalistic production, although you might find in the books that the first human immediately started to barter with with the second human but it's that's just wrong it's just a rewriting of history from the perspective of a perspective of a capitalist so actually in a way. Our life which is a life and you said that very beautifully of life in relationships which are mutual transformations is always a life in comments it is a comments and my finding was and when I when I somehow when it occurred I was like oh wow this is this is really this is why did I overlook this so much, actually nature itself is a commons. The nature is a is a embodied system of relationships which only works because everything can be shared, and everything is shared, and is then mutually recreated, and this is, this is what we see now in spring is the the comments having its its most personal phase to nature itself is a commons, and then it is very much clear that it must be fun to participate in the comments because if we are from the made off the stuff of life, then it is always fun to do what life likes to do so being part of a and unfortunately, the philosophy dominating our Western, the Western world with the global Western worldview is the contrary to the console capitalism is is just it's just the opposite of comments it's like what what what is there with which without an owner obviously is free to take and let's put a price tag on it and let's outmaneuver the others. So it's not at all about sharing and we know, I mean, at least I think we I think we know I know that this is destroying life, this is destroying the planet this is destroying life. So it is very important to remember the commons and and then we can link this again directly to art, because doing art is always also a practice of the commons so so culture is a commons because culture is about creating meanings through relationships and we don't really we know we know that that there's a lot of money involved and it is functioning according to our systems but it's actually art is like life commons. And, and the commons is something which becomes more when you share it and you know that art becomes more when you share it I mean that is just that is even the most fundamental aspect of art is that you share it. And then you give this gift to others who are set in light and who also want to create art I mean a every artist is somehow has somehow been transmitted this spark by another artist who he found or he read and he just fell in love with this idea that that he or she or they could also give this gift so you see this is a commons, it's about giving and art is about giving and life is about giving. And I think it is so important to see this because it's so important that we have an alternative to this deadly machine, which still wants to convince us that we have to adapt that we have to align with this deadly machine in order to somehow survive on this planet. So you see that's another it's on a little bit more abstract level. But, but that's another dimension in which art can put itself in service of life. And I think again. Again, actually, theater as this somehow archaic and ancient form of meeting of meeting in a in a village square, which is the stage, and and coming together about life is a place where this can be done and I mean just you know the situation but there's there's there there are the spectators who want to let's say the participants let's call them the participants and then there are the more active participants which formerly were called actors, and they want to, and they want to make make a particular story palpable and transmitted, which is the story, the narrative or whatever whatever it is of the of the piece, you see I have difficulty to retranslate my comments version of the theater into the modern terminology. And so this story needs to be made alive through participation. That's coming, it's coming so narrative is coming or a culture is coming. And you see there's so there's so much convergence and I think I think that there's so much to be found and I think that creators will find this. I can't, I can't suggest so that we do should do this and do this this is just, I might do it be able to do it if I really try but then in a very concrete way, but, but there's so much richness, only that this richness has been buried by certain let's say intellectual morals, who were very much about separation and about thinking that we cannot really be in connection we cannot really be in touch but this is this is over this thinking is over we know we can and we know we must also incredible. And, and it, I like that very much that part of that how you call it the new Green Deal or the new materialism that you say an exchange of gift is part of that kind of new ecological existence. And, and art making is gift. You know also as you say the flowers that are coming out on the tree I mean they are in a way. There's no rush for it it works. There's no copyright. There's no copyright in nature also you said it very interesting. So that, you know the idea of the gift instead of the machine and the copyright and and and the capitalist model and that art has to stand for that as a real representation as you say of nature and to be part of it to experience it to be part of it. The idea of real life, performing life completely independent it's interesting the great go through Stein always said half of theater has nothing to do what you show the ideas, people come together for that evening they call their friends they get dressed go to eat and before that is a significant reason to do theater, not only on the great content, but you also say we need to participate, because that's when we are alive we see live it's very act of creation is a nature is that kind of biology in in in process and it makes us alive is like live music and not like something I would like to ask you about the idea you speak about freedom or the total freedom of nature and creativity in it. Tell a little bit about that idea. The maximum maximum of freedom that you think exists within nature and how it trends, how it connects to art. Yeah, so so first let me thank you for this little nice little phrase when you said it is it is. We need to be live on theater we need to be live I think this is this is really that yeah. It's really you see and then you shifted it it is not about having something it is really about being something is about being. And this being you can never do this alone you always do this in togetherness so you immediately somehow draw in the other and you need to think how can I do this in order that this really is live so so that's I think this is very beautiful. I built my way to your question the second the second remark is, and I feel it important to tell this to the audience, particularly that I really tried not to I personally try not to use the word nature anymore because nature is always a thing. This is this is why the philosophers have suffered for decades because they wanted to somehow understand how nature is actually different from us but but nature is from the get go if you use this term then it is already a thing. It's not us, you know, but us it's an object is a thing which stands below us so we are we are actually suffering narcissists standing above this thing and we can't connect it to it. And it is actually and it is it doesn't make any sense philosophically because where where do you, you never find this border you know you because you know your body as nature because it is evolved from nature so so so actually it's better to drop it and to speak about something. I mean, you do as you want so don't see it as a good admonition. Just see it as an as a contribution to this to this discourse because the interesting thing is that when we stop using nature then we need to address the players, because we don't have any word for it. So we could say life and that sounds already very much better because then we're always already in it. So we were already we know we can't say we're out of life that's that's doesn't make sense. Or you talk about you talk about the specific beings and then you have them, then you need to somehow invite them into the communication which I also like so so please take it and not take it don't take it as a correct take it very good. I think it is very important to to to to see it is not it is not easy to do it I've written nature so many times in all my books because they are all about nature. But I try in my later writing I really try to experiment with avoiding this. And okay so freedom. Freedom is as you know a very very loaded word. And it can take two directions it can take the direction of of legitimizing the brutal acts of defending your ego. And this is what it direction it has taken in in free as in capitalism, free world and all this. But it can also be about the, it can also be about gift that that is the other direction of freedom so it can be about the that which is given which hasn't hasn't any precondition. That is that is an interesting freedom so it hasn't. It isn't the gift of life is free in the sense that it hasn't any precondition it is not given. In terms of reacting to anything transactional so it is not given back it is always freely given the act of creation hasn't any precondition. It comes from the desire to give life to to to bring something into life. And, and in this respect it is the most intense core of giving or receiving the gift and, and again I think in in creating art. I put it this this vaguely we are, we are somehow acting from the inside of this of this total freedom of of desiring to give, which is such a beautiful thing to do and we know, we know that this freedom is so beautiful when we can follow it. When we when we really an a can enable ourselves to to let this pass through ourselves and be somehow creative of life. And we know that in the in our classical mainstream biology this freedom has been very much reduced so this has this has been present before. The biology subscribed to a very simplified. Well let's let me say it's not biology because there are there are there are discussions and it's it's not simplified but let's say the cultural opinion about biology. There is very much this survival of the fittest idea, which we still have it's it's a bit bit different today but it's still the idea that efficiency wins and then freedom goes away, because everything which we see is not freedom. Allegedly, but is the the pressure of competitive forces and scarcities and etc so it's a product of the market. And, and then freedom is, is gone and and in a mirroring movement, because this is a very profound metaphor for our existence and even if we don't use it in our everyday thinking all the time it has profoundly colored the way we humans look on the world. It's a profoundly colored art. And then this freedom I was talking about the freedom of of receiving and a gift for which there is no precondition goes away. This goes away this this vanishes from the world. And this is the most horrible thing that can happen. And I think actually destroys art because art is built on just that. And if you stop this process then you you'll somehow destroy the possibility of creating art that can pass the gift of life. And that's, that's just at the same level on the same level like as the destruction of species. So this is because this is it, it somehow empties, it dries the sources of life and that that's the most horrible thing that can happen. So, so this you see how bleak the situation is actually what what what has happened with this idea that there is actually, there is no unconditional freedom of giving the gift of life. But I think it is really wrong, and it's even wrong on the on the biological level you can't you can't. It's, I mean, I won't go into details here but it's the narrative of this efficiency game is just, it's a classical project, a classical projection of cultural discourse on the matter of the world. We just, we don't realize it and we're so conditioned by it. And, and I really recommend to everyone to tentatively in playful way to to start again to see this and like you beautifully said, and with a certain shimmer in your eyes you know when you said yeah true actually the flowers I received that's that's actually I'm I just I'm just struck by this. And everyone is different. And I mean you have the same species but still every flower every blossom is different and every petal is different and the first of the bumblebee of the first nectar, the first blossom which, from which she can drink the first nectar is free. And all this. I really invite everyone into just trying this because life becomes so much more meaningful it's so incredibly meaningful. Then, then suddenly we step over into the world, into a world in which, in which our existence is unconditionally given I mean that's what a relief. In this world. And, and, and everyone of us, eight millions is suffering from this idea that nothing is free, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing is free. Everything is free as in your every you have to pay for everything and then this idea that that in truth we might live in a world in which actually life is given freely is distributed freely and with with free and free creativity like the act of giving is absolutely unconditional I mean it's we don't know it will just happen to us. And it's such a different world. And it's really worthwhile to my eyes to, to check this out. I mean, I have fun. In the restrictions of our daily existence to find that freedom of the giving receiving and giving. Yeah, and you're artists as you know, as gift givers, you know, in nature which is, you know, based on ecological existence is based on giving so it's fascinating fantastic the great manifesto from Peter Schumann from the bed and puppet theater comes to my mind you know artist jeep you know, our heart participate shares a fantastic thing he wrote in the 60s or 70s. We're coming slowly towards the end but I just wanted to go to one or two of your comments you said think like a mountain. You quote some so I like that sentence. It's stuck with me. Maybe on getting out of the you know how do we think like a mountain and why is it important. Yeah, so that's Aldo Leopold, the American pioneer of nature writing and off of me of ecological ethics or maybe not of nature but but of ecological ethics. So he was a, he was a forester and he wrote this beautiful little book sent county almanac and some more stuff and he his idea was that we need to in order to be ecologically viable, we need to think like a mountain so it's interesting so what what actually when when you when I hear heard this sentence first was very young so at the beginning of my undergraduate studies or my reading, accompanying my desperate undergraduate studies and biology maybe I was thinking what actually doesn't mean thinking like a mountain so I think that's the first great what is this thinking like a mountain and then again, when you're when you're walking up a mountain or one peak in a bridge. And you slowly start to understand what he might have meant so so so let's let's say in order to understand what what thinking like a mountain could be you really need to go to the mountain and you really need to walk in a way to walk upwards and to encounter all the life, which is the mountain. So I would say thinking like a mountain is thinking not in human thoughts and not with human words but in beings in relationships in in the process of giving yourself so in a very embodied and in fleshed way of thinking, and in a very slow kind of thinking, and in a very circle circular and cyclical way of thinking which over the years and the decades and the centuries and the millennia the mountains are very long live becomes deeper and deeper and deeper and one way to call this deepness is biodiversity and another way to call this deepness is beauty and another way to call this deepness is the multitude of individual experiences which raise up and then dissolve in this mountain again so this this all this is thinking like a mountain and I think it's a very beautiful way to avoid the word sustainability, because it's that's not a great word and we know this because it's in all corporate reports nowadays and even the the most dirty. The CO2 creating corporation has a sustainability chapter in their report so it doesn't work and it comes from capitalism comes from forestry management in post Baroque Germany. So that's I think that's what Alderleiopold meant and and the great thing is you know when you climb the mountain you walk the mountain let's take it one of these less. Not the Mount Everest but something a little bit raising from with some forest and some trees and some wild waters. When you go there you're also part of the mountain, you know you you're a thought in the thinking of the mountain and isn't that beautiful you're a thought in this in the thinking of the mountain when you go there. And you go there and you go there carefully and you ask for permission and you you're nourishing to the to life around you. Then you're a beautiful thought and if you go there with your. The intention of building this great shortcut of the road missing to the other side in your slightly more destructive and a little bit more pathological in thinking you see. So I think it's what I'm doing is just somehow extrapolating from other levels metaphor other levels, poetic, poetic protocol, but I think we can understand a lot if we go into this deeply. And I mean just just just because we're talking about theater. Why not using taking this just this prompt you know for foreign foreign production say okay we'll do this but we'll we'll do this as thinking like a mountain. Maybe thinking like thinking, maybe something which is closer to the theater thinking like think like skin like the like human skin, you know, how much thought processes on my skin like how many beings how many, how many, how much breath. And you know, I think we think if they're if there are persons with artistic imagination around you just need to give this prompt. And then they will start to to imagine and like okay wow so now we're actually skin. And let's let's behave like skin and I mean this is so beautiful in theater you can just you can just do this in a little improvisation session you know that you just do it and then you see what what comes from this. Okay, that was that was my little command. I think a prompt skin or the idea do do when you approach theater think think of it like you are a mountain and you do theater, what it would change and not as the inner world of a human, you know what does it mean and to be part already of nature you are part of it you are part of the mountain when you go and direct work on stage or act in it and but you have a different experience of these poetic of diversity, you quote, you quote glissand you know and this kind of globalization that that we you know have to perhaps have that consciousness of the mountain and not the consciousness of the climber who wants to have the success or victory as you say. Victory is be like a dog you say and, and I like that. And, but I encourage everyone you know to tell us that the Venice your book is it out in English and since when and where can we buy it. Okay the book you, you, you, you, you refer to let's let's enlivenment right and yeah, and I went. So the politics for the Anthropocene maybe yeah, I'm thinking for the Anthropocene. Yeah. So it's, it's MIT press, MIT and it's, it's, it came out in 2019 so it starts to be a little bit aged I need to I need to write more I need to publish more. It takes, it takes things and maybe also the corona the time of corona to really think that through and take that in as a serious thing. As the last question what are you working on now that you said you are you're working on a new book and what's your what's. Oh yeah. Yeah, so so this this idea that there needs to be next book is also a very practical idea so I'm I'm working on a lot of I need to mention that I it's already published but it's published by by Bell Foundation again I'm written on on eco politics of animism so I've really written on what, what, what does animism into our to a world view so that that that it is very much about sharing so this is this is findable. And but I'm also what I'm also doing is exploring this the sharing on this in inner plane, which is not visible at all so somehow going into this inner dimension of what does it mean to be alive on the inside and and how how can I explore this, because also. So that is that is one one other book which is which will come out in in German language first this year I hope. And because in this time of the great vanishing the sixth extinction, we also call it we we have we see so many beings vanish so it's I think it is important to to somehow develop a talent to to to be close to this experience of a life is really from an experiential standpoint so you could also say it's, it's a little bit mystic, what I'm doing there. And, and it's interesting that I meet so many people colleagues, and people from related fields really as if somebody had called them artists lots of artists really start to explore this it's absolutely incredible. And one botanist, Monica Galliano, who is one of the one of those who were instrumental in, and let's say rediscovering the idea that plants are sentient and plants communicate and she is she talks to plants or plants talk to her and I mean she's a botanist with a position so you see, these are practices which are somehow animistic and which are somehow I think which are really needed and which then always very, very close to artistical perception and poetic perception and. Yeah, that's true. That's what I'm, what I'm exploring, what I'm exploring. And also the work of Julia Strauss who is Siberian indigenous artist but also a student of a Kittler and actually she says he invites you to come to essence and I should come to and to her academia. So there is something there it is very serious and to allow listeners this great change the change of paradigm has happened already it's no longer up for discussion, like Bengali Leo said, we turn around the sun, we now entered a new age theater has to react. If it's part of life reacts, reenacts life and is life itself to be alive in it you know we have to find a way to think like the mountain or the skin in a new way away from the mountain climber but to think and I like that image you think like the mountain, and then we have to experiment in the true sense. You know how do we do that how we connect and the idea of the comments I like that very much the public spaces, the sharing and listen you gave us a great gift, and it was for free today so so you're right maybe this was a great part of nature was great talking to you thanks to our audience for listening in I know how much is out there but we have great writers great thinkers like Andreas but we also need good audience and actually talking directly to you for your life and it's not just about the but also for you how do you experience life how are you really like how alive are you the old question that Zen Buddhist and monks and artists explored over centuries and I think there is a new awareness of it and we need to be part of life. Life is what creates life in the future generations so we have to really honor that and we forgot as Thomas pounded out in the last 300 years of enlightenment, a lot has been lost and we need an enlightenment point to enlightenment enlightenment point to an upgrade and I hope we made a small contribution today thank you so much. Thank you very much for how round to host us VJ and see you at Talia at the Segal Center and I hope you will join our upcoming programs, and we will continue these bowlers talks it was really enlightening in a good sense and live ending. If that is the right word to talk to you and so thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.