At Hundezentrum Wien’s dog nursery, Daniel Aschwanden will present a lecture performance by and for dogs in April. Its host will be dog trainer Michaela Marschall, who will be on hand with advice for the audience, the dogs and the DOG_man Aschwanden himself. The latter, by the way, suffers from behavioural issues such as leash aggression, hunting behaviour, excessive barking and separation anxiety.

In his one-year project DOG_men, Daniel Aschwanden juxtaposes narratives about dog people with present-day scientific myth and plays on fictions of artificially produced hybrid bodies. His reference are stories about (canine) human monsters who, as cultic beings, combine the wildness of the animal with the possibility of being domesticated. Based on the question of how our body concepts change in times of bio-engineering, DOG_men reflects on “new” bodies, imaginary animals and a fantastic “Other”.

Daniel Aschwanden works as a performer, choreographer and lecturer in Vienna. The current focus of his work is on (performance) art in the public space, participatory approaches and the question of the role of art in urban development processes. Daniel Aschwanden realises projects in Europe, China and Africa.