In this performative lecture and writing lab, Carol Stampone moves between philosophy and poetry to explore how we inhabit time, exhaustion, and change. Guided by Octavia Butler, Fanny Söderbäck, and Byung-Chul Han, she invites participants to think and feel together through a series of open questions on obsession, burnout, and the rhythms of revolutionary time.

Part of BEK Symposium The Only Lasting Truth is Change 2025: Voice, Seed, Brutality.

For the symposium, Carol Stampone presents a performative lecture and writing lab composed of questions and texts that she will give birth to while staying with three chosen companion texts: Octavia Butler’s The Parable of The Sower, Fanny Söderbäck’s Revolutionary Time, and Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society. Carol will be accompanied by Késia Decote’s improvisations.

Inspired by the claim that language is always insufficient, she weaves together fragments of theory and questions, in the hope of returning to our capacity to coracionar. That is, our ability to allow our hearts to think, or rather, to feel and think at the same time.

Among the questions she will dance with are: Do we need a positive obsession in order to belong to the world? Or instead, do we need to deconstruct how we relate to time? Should we let go of the linear or circular approaches to time and dare to embrace revolutionary time? Is it true that the depressed subject is the one who is too tired of having to become themselves over and over again? Is loneliness a consequence of us embracing very flawed strategies to escape? Or is the issue that we are no longer escaping, as Levinas claimed we need to as mortal beings; instead, we are numbing ourselves? Is multitasking a regression? Does excessive positivity exhaust us? Is it true that too much of the same not only destroys the path to creativity but also carries us to burnout?

Carol Stampone
Carol Stampone is a Brazilian writer and artist, based in Bergen. She holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Philosophy (Unicamp–Uib) and a Master’s in Fine Arts (KMD). Her current research is driven by questions related to hospitality, love, social justice, and the role of writing and art in healing, both individually and collectively. Although she is terrified of change, her water knows that Octavia was not wrong to claim that the only lasting truth is change.

Késia Decoté
Késia Decoté is a Brazilian pianist and toy pianist based in Bergen. Késia is interested in exploring innovative ways to present piano music, looking for creating unique and deeply immersive artistic experiences for her audience. Her practice focuses on contemporary music performance, interdisciplinary explorations, and improvisation.