Xenoentities network

XenoEntities Network (XEN) is a platform for discussion and experimentation focusing on queer, gender, and feminist theories and their intersections with science, digital technologies, and collective futurities. In 2016, Lou Drago and Pedro Marum initiated the project at the now defunct community, art and science space in Berlin, SPEKTRUM. They were soon joined by Rita Macedo and later by Zander Porter.

XEN-hybrid programs blend curation with artistic practice, focusing on community-oriented exchanges. Collectivity is the cornerstone for an experimental epistemological practice. Programs comprise a diverse alchemy of expressions and formats between performance, film and video screenings, living-installations, lectures, and panels. Often participatory and relational, XEN’s work highlights fringe discourses, investigating alongside contemporary and media art such as post- and transhumanist bodies and minds, various strands of techno-, cyber-, quantum- and xenofeminism(s), the ubiquitous dissemination of digital technologies of surveillance and capture, the (im)possibilities of virtual and augmented realities, the Anthropocene and the impending ecological crisis, and future utopias and ruins of club culture, among other subjects that spark new curiosity and research.

Collaborations between XEN and community spaces, galleries, institutions, and universities include ACUD MACHT NEU (Berlin), Agora (Berlin), Disruption Network Lab (Berlin), Gropius Bau (Berlin), Hares & Hyenas (Melbourne), Institute of Art & Art Theory (Cologne), Kampnagel (Hamburg), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), Mimosa House (London), Rabbit Hole (Lisbon), Rama em Flor (Lisbon), Room E-10 27 (Berlin/Paris), Scent Club (Berlin), SomoS (Berlin), SPACE10 (Copenhagen), SPEKTRUM (Berlin/Athens), transmediale (Berlin), Uferstudios für Zeitgenössischen Tanz (Berlin), Unsound (Kraków), and Zé dos Bois Gallery (Lisbon).

In addition, XEN organizes “Assemblages,” free-access gatherings to (discuss) research where participants propose topics and ideas within a contextual scope. Speakers from different fields are invited to collaboratively organise round-table discussions complete with readings of relevant materials, texts, or artworks.

XEN speculates towards new forms of existence and explores the expansion of bodies and subjectivities within the digital realm. XEN is an open-community platform for anyone from any background who has an interest or curiosity in these topics and/or is willing to expand/corrupt/disrupt/explode them in contexts that explore new ontological forms and togetherness in the community.