Nonhuman Narration in Arts & Literature: Tales of Chatbots, Stones and Cells

Panel discussion as part of the scholarly-artistic workshop Exploration posthumanistischer Erzählpraxis: Verteilen, Skalieren und Perspektivieren with Jenifer Becker, Nonhuman Nonsense, Nina Nowak, I.V. Nuss, Gonzalo H. Rodríguez

Is it possible to tell stories with and for nonhuman entities? This panel brings together authors and artists who attempt to do just that, hereby exploring the limits of narrative and representation. How do the artists attempt to do justice to the plural logics of nonhuman entities in their work? We will talk about specific art works, projects and installations to shed light on a new ethos of collaboration and the way it affects artistic work and the human perception.

Questions to be asked include the following: Are large language models truly capable of generating stories on their own, or do they simply draw upon human imagination? What would it mean for human storytellers to collaborate with a mosquito or to speak on behalf of a glacier? How can we grasp nonhuman scales that surpass human imagination and how can mediation between different scales be made tangible, both materially and physically? What stories do obsolete technological objects tell about themselves—and about us? And to what extent do fusions between humans and machines, glitches between biological and virtual personalities, and deliberate mergings between humans and animals generate new narratives about life on this planet?

Chairs: Charlotte Coch, Simon Probst