Edward Burtinsky, Iberia Quarries #2, Marmorose EFA Co., Bencatel, Portugal, 2006
Workshop Organized by Cluster Member Kaja Ninnis Together with Ursula Ströbele
What happens before matter becomes art – what happens before the object? This workshop at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, November 21st-23rd, 2024, is dedicated to exploring not artworks but the »stuff« artworks are made of and the ecological implications of their procurement, processing, and transport, aiming at uncovering what Laura Turner Igoe has called »the ecological unconscious of art matter.« The workshop is organized by Kaja Ninnis (HU Berlin / Matters of Activity) and Ursula Ströbele (HBK Braunschweig).
more
Still from Film »Fordland Malaise«. Copyright: Susana de Sousa Dias
Film and Discussion with Cluster Professor Robert Stock and Film Director Susana de Sousa Dias
The film »Fordlandia Malaise« deals with the memory and present of Fordlandia (Brazil). Henry Ford had the company town built in the Amazon rainforest in 1928. His ambition was to end the British rubber monopoly by using raw material from Brazil for the car production in the United States. Following the film screening, Susana de Sousa Dias, director of the film and scholar of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, and Robert Stock will reflect on what characterizes this film and this type of documentary.
more
Round Table »On Fibres amd Mixtures«. Foto: Michelle Mantel. Design: studioeins, adapted by »Matters of Activity«
At Kunstgewerbemuseum on 23 February
The Round Table »On Fibers and Mixtures« was part of the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum and at the same time its closing event. The Round Tables represented each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brought a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies, and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On February 23rd, Professor for material design and Cluster Member Christiane Sauer discussed their work with Emanuele Coccia, Peter Fratzl, and Beatriz Morales, moderated by architect and Cluster Member Iva Rešetar.
more
Design: studioeins, adapted by MoA. Photo: Michelle Mantel
Transdisciplinary Hands-On Workshop at Kunstgewerbemuseum on February 18
Initiated by the »Architectural Yarns« Research Group at the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material«, the Workshop FIBROUS EXCHANGE revisits the Work Exotica III by Ritzi Jacobi and takes inspiration for a transdisciplinary exchange between textile design, materials science and architecture. During a hands-on exploration with off-the-loom textile techniques, we seek to transfer knowledge from the different disciplines into an architectural context. We take a closer look at plant fibers and various reversible binding techniques to explore large fiber bundles as the basis for a new construction method - Architectural Yarns.
more
Round Table »Poetics and Politics of Sand«. Design: studioeins, adapted by Matters of Activity
On 9 February at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The Round Table »Politics and Poetics of Sand« was part of the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represented each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brought a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invited the public to engage. On February 9th design anthropologist and Cluster Member Michaela Büsse discussed her work with geographer Katherine Dawson (University College London), communication expert Hannah Tollefson (McGill University Montreal) and environmental anthropologist Jerry Zee (Princeton University). Moderation: Jeff Diamanti (University of Amsterdam).
more
Round Table »Rinde: Gestaltung mit Resten«. Design: studioeins, adapted by Matters of Activity
On January 26 at Kunstgewerbemuseum
We cordially invite you to the Round Table »Rinde: Gestaltung mit Resten« which continues the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On January 26th designer and Cluster Member Charlett Wenig will discuss her work with Ferréol Berendt (HNE Eberswalde) and Nikolaus Stolle (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt). Moderated by cultural theorist and Cluster Member Robert Stock.
more
Roundtable »Vascularization«. Design: studioeins, adapted by MoA
On 12 January 2023 at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The Round Table »On the Fabrication of Organs: Vascular Structures, Medical Needs and Critical Speculations« continues the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On January 12th Emile de Visscher and Igor Sauer will discuss their work with the artist Lyndsey Walsh. Moderated by Martin Müller.
more
Round Table »Tesselated Material Systems«. Design: studioeins, adapted by Matters of Activity
On December 8 at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The Round Table »Tessellated Material Systems«« continued the new format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. This Thursday, Karola Dierichs, Lennart Eigen, John Nyakatura and Felix Rasehorn discussed their work with Jörg Petruschat and Alwin Cubasch.
more
Self-Shaping Textiles. Design: studioeins
On 24 November at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The Round Table »Self-Shaping Textiles at the Intersection of Fashion, Architecture and Technology« kicked off a new format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting project in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On November 24th Lorenzo Guiducci and Agata Kycia discussed their work with the architect Giovanni Betti and the fashion sociologist Antonella Giannone.
more
Poster: Scoring Perspectives for Speculative Ethnography
Workshops and Interactive Performance with Dorte Bjerre Jensen
Cluster Members Maxime le Calvé and Yoonha Kim were delighted to invite to two days of stretching senses school workshops on 24th & 25th of November with Dorte Bjerre Jensen at the Cluster and in the Kunstgewerbemuseum at the »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« exhibition. The two workshops helped pushing forward collective experiments in speculative ethnography and research-as-exhibition. They brought together bodies and spaces into motion, and evaluated the potentials of an interdisciplinary practice of »scoring« to explore, describe and analyze in first-person the activity of images, spaces, and materials based on the micro-phenomenological method.
Poster Material Legacies. Image: Dietrich Polenz and the Experimental Surgery Lab, 2020
Exhibition at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin explored contingencies and ruptures between traditional crafts and the most recent developments at the crossroads of material research, design, engineering, and architecture. It brought together artifacts from the museum’s collection with work-in-progress installations by designers and researchers from the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« in order to initiate a dialogue about the historical, contemporary, and future conditions under which materiality unfolds.
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more
Schematic drawing of a part of a warping board. Source: Joachim Jungius, »Texturæ Contemplatio«, fol. 55r; in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Martin Fogel collection of Zettelkasten, folder: Ms XLII, 1923: delta 28 © Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek - Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek; Public Domain.
Open Space Event, 9 November 2023. Copyright: Matters of Activity
MoA's Showroom and Workspace
With the »Activarium«, we want to actively engage with potential partners from the industry, start-ups, NGOs, politics and society as a whole to initiate an exploratory exchange on active materials, bio- & culture-inspired innovation as well as sustainability approaches. We want visitors to experience our prototypes, making MoA’s intentions and research tangible and accessible. The »Activarium« serves as a work-in-progress showcase of different research strands and processes. Our visitors can dive into the research as it's happening before its published results.
If you are interested in a visit, please contact us via moa.activarium [at] hu-berlin.de to visit!
more
Film still »Assembling the Coast«
Assembling the Coast is a sensorial-ethnographic investigation of a coastal replenishment project on the Baltic Sea, close to Ahrenshoop. Erosion and rising sea level lead to coastal retreat and frequent replenishments are used to counteract this process. The film work captures the interplay of man, machine, and matter as they perform the laborious process of transforming the environment
more