With the launch of The Floor Is Lava at HfG Karlsruhe, UMBAU celebrates its fourth issue. Over the course of this year, contributions will be published on a rolling basis, for which we are also inviting material via our open call (see below).

Apart from discussions, DJ sets and a game of “the floor is lava”, our launch event was accompanied by a lecture performance by Nestor Alfonzo Santamaria and the subsequent publication of this issue’s first three contributions by Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Choy Ka Fai and Alejandra Janus, and Simon Sheikh. We also launched our first archive print issue, the very first issue of UMBAU, Political Bodies, which is now available for purchase.

We thank everyone for joining this evening and adding to the discussion—looking forward to expanding The Floor Is Lava!

Open Call

How do the arts, design, and philosophy offer tools for navigating a world increasingly defined by instability? Granting secure footing and a stable view of the world, a solid ground has been a cornerstone for theory and praxis not least since the introduction of the central perspective. The Floor Is Lava unsettles these foundations. Like the classic childhood game, where falling not only means the game is over, but where one also has to construct the game world itself, UMBAU’s new issue seeks to provide tools for navigating the contemporary moment and to make conceivable other worlds we want to live in. 

While the planet is literally on fire—in times of surging wildfires, in the wake of what has been termed petromodernity and notwithstanding the questioning of the Anthropocene as a designated  epoch—, lava and the figure of the volcanic metaphorically not only open up the topos of destruction but also of renewal and resistance. The Floor Is Lava investigates the ways in which we can rethink the relationship between land, body, and technology in the face of ecological and political crises. This is to be explored not least via games, world-making, simulations, and models—instances often pitting individual players against the dynamics of the social.

For issue 4 of UMBAU, we invite you to explore the shifting conceptual and material grounds of contemporary thought and practice, to take a leap towards new vantage points, to expand the rules of the game, and to bridge the discourses within the university, the arenas of world politics and the scenes of contemporary art and design with their long-standing histories.

We are looking forward to your contributions: artwork, audio and video productions, texts and interviews. Pitch us your ideas for The Floor Is Lava via umbau-journal@hfg-karlsruhe.de