"Future Metaphysics," a new book by Thomas Mann Fellow Armen Avanessian, is to be launched not in a single event, but in a series of real, speculative and symbolic “book launches.” The book launches are an ongoing site of recursive encounters between Avanessian and Los Angeles artists and institutions.

"Future Metaphysics" was originally commisioned as a series of experimental texts corresponding to each room of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. A series of events now generate from each of the book’s chapters, and unfold across divergent contexts of academic and cultural institutions. LA artists Scarlett Kim, Eric Fanghanel and Parch Es, respond to Avanessian’s activities in the form of microcultural productions: performative strategies, relational scores and media interventions. The collision and intersection between them launches Future Metaphysics, repeatedly and unrelentingly, in a multiplicity of directions. The series captures not only the proposals of the book but the dynamics of the writing process and institutional logics at play. Avanessian and artists contaminate and alienate each other, abolishing the distinction between theory and practice, and rewriting the terms of the “book launch.” A web of connections extend outward from the book like tendrils of slime that assemble and disassemble contingently: from Germany to the US, from Thomas Mann House to Los Angeles universities, from major institutions to grassroots interventions, and from academic environment to art installation.

The event "Introduction: Metaphysics" is a joint book launch between Avanessian and artist Warren Neidich. They will discuss their new books "Future Metaphysics" and "Glossary of Cognitive Activism," respectively. Material from previous book launches and the authors’ work will punctuate their discussion contingently.

Armen Avanessian studied philosophy and political science in Vienna and Paris. After completing his dissertation in literature, he worked at the Free University Berlin from 2007–2014. He has previously been a Visiting Fellow in the German Department at Columbia University and the German Department at Yale University as well as Visiting Professor at various art academies in Europe and the US. In Berlin, Avanessian is the editor at large at Merve Verlag and in charge of the theory program at the internationally acclaimed theatre Volksbühne.  He is a co-founder of the bilingual research platform Spekulative Poetik (www.spekulative-poetik.de), conducting a series of events, translations and publications. His work is translated into various languages. Forthcoming in German are two monographs, One plus One and I –I (Merve, 2019), both written in collaboration with Anke Hennig. Forthcoming in English is Future Metaphysics (Polity, 2019).

Find more information about the book and the event series here.