Hope, Test

“Hope,Test” is a collection of seven written pieces deriving from Toni Steffens archive of performative materials at the intersection of perception, fiction, emotion and pseudo scientific observation. Understanding them as a map, they refer to one another, sharing invented terminology, dynamic tendencies and perspectives. Playing with the mimicry of academic writing, Toni attempts to create relation to the subjective, ambiguous, changing, non provable and relational. Inspired by the concept of “co-emergence”, in their work, they value Interpretation, relation, miscommunication, irritation and the attempts and limits of attuning with one another. Toni’s practice is informed by new materialism, speculative empathy, Object orientated ontology, queer eco feminism and animism.

Copies are available on demand for the price of 6 euros, incl. shipping costs.

Speculative Empathy, SE
Speculative Empathy is a movement within applied, contemporary, continental-inspired  philosophy and performing arts, also, known as post-continental philosophy, that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical empathy against its interpretation of the dominant  forms of “correlationism”.  The term tries to expand notions such as “speculative realism/ materialism” by repositioning the thinking, sensing and experiencing, thus, philosophising human subject with an interest of highlighting its ability to empathise with a thing x and through the strategic embracing of the unescapable condition of anthropomorphism. Rather than operating on planes, which are suggestive of a certain (or not so certain)  “realism”, SE actively makes use of the joint synergy of both speculative and empathic processes in order to generate tools to converse with (non-)human entities in collectively fictionalised meeting planes, in design specific to each encounter of materialities. Making use of the wide emotional spectrum human beings are equipped with, SE re-purposes the unavoidable miscommunications that are at play in the complex and layered encounter of multi-real and Interspecies planes of conversations. Practitioner of SE boldly accuse their environment of being telepathically interlinked with them and that based on this assumption, they share a common field, where they can exchange, support, understand and emotionally stabilise one another. SE practitioners are very open minded towards exploring and performing dynamic, absurd, sensual and unexplainably emotional labor for a various range of materials, things, other human beings and domestic and non-domestic subobjects.

UNder armour

♲ Line,losing line ♲

Weaving Passages for the momentous

An Attendee

Orange Rest/Sacrifice

Spinner

Hope, Test

Metamotion for 270degrees

Night Flying Project

Movement

delineations

Unfamiliarities

PAST-Present-future

JUNE 11-14 : PLANETARY POETICS / SANDBERG GRADUATION SHOW AT FRAMER FRAMED AMSTERDAM, HEART BREAK RADIO, 12TH OF JUNE, 5PM, 13TH OF JUNE 1;30PM, PERFORMANCE UNDER ARMOUR, 13TH OF JUNE 6PM, 14 OF JUNE 4PM
SEPTEMBER 14: In collaboration with TONI BRELL at Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen, Performance at 4:15pm, Finissage Toen de dieren nog spraken
SEPTEMBER 20: BROKEN HEART DANCES, WORKSHOP DURING RE-NATURE FESTIVAL/ GRIEF SPACES, 2PM, FULL INFO: https://re-nature.org/
September + October 2025 : teaching movement research at the university for applied sciences, Osnabrück, BA theatre pedagogy
NOVEMBER 2025 : TEACHING MOVEMENT RESEARCH AT SNDO AMSTERDAM, BA CHOREOGRAPHY
DECEMBER 2025 : CREATION TOGETHER THE WITH 2ND AND 3RD YEAR STUDENTS OF SNDO, AMSTERDAM IN COLLABORATION WITH CHOREOGRAPHER ELISA ZUPPINI

Orange