outerwoman

Cordula Daus with Sebastian Bark, [M] Dudeck, Charlotta Ruth

audio series: outerwoman.xyz

This research was funded in whole or in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [10.55776/V797]

outerwoman is an artistic research exploring imaginaries around human procreation in the age of technologically assisted reproduction. Situated between phenomenological fieldwork, language art and performance, outerwoman aims to critically revise  relationships and emotions. The project develops dialogue-based methods that invite us to fathom alternative forms of co-creation, the un/making of family, and the formation of fertile and non-fertile subjectivities.

Currently, millions of frozen embryos are being stored in labs around the world. Premature lambs are being brought to term in plastic bags. Mice are being bred in bioreactors without the use of eggs or sperm. Millions of people have come into being with the help of assisted reproduction. We mammals, cyborgs, gestatelings are in the midst of a revolution that profoundly affects our human condition. Yet we cannot fully grasp its implications.

Inspired by Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex as well as by of other works of speculative fiction, the team of outerwoman uses the alienating idea of ectogenesis – gestation of a being outside the human womb – as a fictocritical tool. From here/there we look back on pregnancy, birth and sexuality: Why do we procreate? What do we actually do when we procreate? What does pregnancy as a cultural technique consist of?  Which aspects do we want to keep? What needs to be abolished and/or transformed? We use our biographies and bodies as sites. We propose experimentelles Ahnen (experimental foreshadowing) to get a sense of the revolution to come. Midwives, biologists, neonatologists and experts from other fields are invited into the research apparatus to extend our knowledge and scrutinize our methods.

outerwoman has taken shape as the performance Das Aufhebungsspiel/The Sublation Game  (Vienna 2022 / Millstatt 2023) and its film documentation (2026); an audio series  (2022–2026); interdisciplinary workshops (2022–2024); and further outputs including peer-reviewed articles, artifacts, songs and pamphlets. A book is forthcoming.