Key Visual On Water Ausstellung, Humboldt Lab 2025. Copyright: Berlin University Alliance
Exhibition at Humboldt Lab shows works by Dimitra Almpani-Lekka and Rasa Weber
Water is life, but it can also destroy. The exhibition »On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin« will show current research projects of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) on the topic of water from October 10, 2025, in the Humboldt Labor. These will be flanked by artistic positions that deal with the element of water and vividly convey its versatility. MoA researchers Dimitra Almpani-Lekka and Rasa Weber contribute to the exhibition with objects from their research on rainwater harvesting and artificial reefs.
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»Syntopolis« reef prototype in STARESO. Design: Rasa Weber, rasaweber.com. Co-Design and Production: Atelier Marie Drouet. Photo: Till Timmermann
Artist Talk und Workshop zur Eröffnung der neuen Ausstellung im Humboldt Lab
Anlässlich der Eröffnung der neuen Ausstellung im Humboldt Lab spricht Daniel Tyradellis mit MoA Mitglied Rasa Weber und Jakob Kukula darüber, wie künstlerische und immersive Praktiken unsichtbare Unterwasserökologien sichtbar machen, politische Diskurse erweitern und strukturellen Wandel anstoßen können. Im anschließenden Workshop mit Rasa Weber erfahren Besucher:innen, wie ein künstliches Riff entsteht und wirken mithilfe traditioneller Handwerkstechniken an der Fertigstellung eines solchen mit.
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Beetle-infested Spruce. Copyright: Pelin Asa, MPICI
Visual Essay by Cluster members published on .able
We'd like to congratulate all contributing authors, inlcuding numerous Cluster members, on the newest .able publication: »Symbiotic Wood« is an invitation to rethink our relationship with forests and materials, not as resources to control, but as ecosystems we share. In the face of climate change and collapsing monocultures, the project explores how beetle- and fungi-affected spruce wood can open up new ways of designing: less predictable, more situated, and radically collaborative. Through layered insights, from microscopic wood patterns to cultural history as well as artistic design prototyping, this visual article reveals how material science, design, and art can engage with nonhuman agencies and multispecies entanglements.
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MAKING facades host life with Dimitra Almpani-Lekka
The new episode with Dimitra Almpani-Lekka explores how sponges and their porosity could hold the key to the future of architecture
Imagine a home whose surface absorbs rainwater like a sponge. This innovation could improve the abilities of urban areas to adapt to both heat and floods in the future. Don't miss the latest episode of MAKING_ where Dimitra Almpani-Lekka reveals how she takes the principles of sponges and applies them to clay tiles to create prototypes for bioreceptive facades and buildings.
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Long-term monitoring plot of a heath population rendered as point cloud. Remote sensing data and processing: Carsten Neumann and Nicole Köllner, Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam; Visualization: Jona Möller, 2025
Exhibition and Roundtable
»Blazing Heath/Heideglühen« explores the complex history and contested afterlife of former military training sites in Brandenburg. The exhibition examines how the toxic legacies of military occupation are made (in)visible and repurposed within scientific knowledge production. By integrating data-driven, visual, and sonic monitoring, a multi-channel video installation encourages you to engage with these uncanny landscapes.
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Swamp Things, Charlett Wenig, 2024. Photo: Janne Ebel, 2024
Exhibitions, Workshops and Panel
»Swamp Things!« invites peatland ecologies to the BHROX pavilion – haunting echoes of Berlin’s watery past as fenland formed from glacial meltwaters. The exhibition explores the lively potential of peatland plants through basketry, open-source coiling machines, and multimodal workshops.
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Beetle galleries on a spruce tree. Copyright: Karola Dierichs, Matters of Activity, Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces and weißensee school of art and design
Interdisciplinary Symposium and Workshop at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The symposium »Symbiotic Futures 2.0« is an open invitation for public discourse as the central event of the exhibition »Symbiotic Wood«. It is an open platform for exchange between disciplines and across individual perceptions. Topical themes will be »Symbiosis as Cognition«, »Symbiosis as Perception« and »Symbiosis as Creation«. These will be introduced in an interdisciplinary panel of lectures and a round table discussion by invited experts from the disciplines of materials science, cultural theory and design. The lectures are complemented by a series of smaller hands-on workshops in which participants can gather first-hand information on the symbiotic interaction with materials, such as earth, resin and wood.
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Beetle Galleries in Spruce Wood. Photo: Pelin Asa, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Matters of Activity, 2024; Graphic Design: NODE Berlin Oslo
Exhibition, Symposium, Roundtable and Tour
Climate change and monocultures have left forests vulnerable to insects and fungi. Beetle-infested wood is deemed less valuable from a traditional human-centric perspective. The group show »Symbiotic Wood« at Kunstgewerbemuseum focuses on this ›more-than-human‹ material that is co-owned with other species. It features contributions by artists, designers, architects, and cultural historians. Exhibition extended until 23 November 2025!
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DESIGN EARTH (Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy), The Planet After Geoengineering, 18/25, 2021
Annual Conference of DGTF, Organized by Michaela Büsse Among Others
The German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF), in collaboration with the Chair of Digital Cultures TU Dresden, invites participants to critically engage with the theme »Planetary Experiments: Environments by Design«. This conference, organized by Michaela Büsse among others, explores the diverse perspectives and practices of design research and theory in addressing the far-reaching ecological, social and technological challenges of our time. Over the course of one day and in a hybrid setup (Dresden & remote), they will bring together scholars and practitioners, like Cluster member Rasa Weber, to engage in keynote talks, panel discussions and practice presentations that critically explore the concept of »Planetary Experiments«.
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Article in the Tagesspiegel Highlights the Interdisciplinary Exhibition
At the center of the exhibition »Fermenting Textiles« is a greenish-brown shirt made of coarse fabric used for hunting. It was treated with vouwo, a dyeing method practiced in the Marka-Dafing community in Burkina Faso for generations. An interdisciplinary team from »Matters of Activity« has systematically researched the dyeing technique for the first time, together with a master dyer from the West African community of Safané. You can read about their findings and how they relate to today's fast fashion in a profound Tagesspiegel article by Martin Ballaschk. The exhibition can be seen at the Art Laboratory Berlin until July 6.
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Samples of woven cotton cloth dyed with mud (vouwo), Adama Séré - Marka-Dafing master dyer, 2020. Photo: Salif Sawadogo 2020
Exhibition and Talks
»Fermenting Textiles« explores the fermentation of textiles in mud and plant material. The exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin connects anthropology, microbiology, and art through the engagement of artisans, anthropologists, scientists, and artists and mirrors the multi-species collaborations that are integral to the mud dyeing process.
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Ailanthus altissima, Musée national d’histoire naturelle Luxembourg, title: Specimen № 15467, MNHNL 2000, license: CC BY 4.0, color and framing of this image were modified
Exhibition, Workshops, Audio Walk and Movie Night
Focusing on the agency of plant and tree collectives and their ability to shape entire ecologies, »Vegetal Companions« aims to critically reposition conventional human-centered concepts that highlight control and mastery over nature. In a close dialog with the botanical garden of Späth-Arboretum, »Vegetal Companions« explores different forms of knowledge creation, be it soil as archive, art as research, or philosophy as gardening.
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»Re-Enactment« mit lebenden Bakterien in einer großen Petrischale: Visualisierung der Interaktionen von Bakterien und den Schoten einer Pflanze, die bei der Schlammfärbung von Textilien von Bedeutung sind. (Foto: José I. Hernández Lobato und Regine Hengge/HU)
Interview mit Regine Hengge zu »Fermenting Textiles«
Im Interview spricht die Mikrobiologin Regine Hengge über die besondere Sichtweise des Exzellenzclusters »Matters of Activity« auf Materialien und was ihre Expertise auf dem Gebiet von Bakterien und Biofilmen damit zu tun hat. Die am 16. Mai 2025 eröffnete Ausstellung »Fermenting Textiles« im Art Laboratory Berlin, die die Ergebnisse ihrer Forschung zu traditionellen Färbetechniken in Afrika zeigt, ist der Anlass mit ihr über das Konzept aktiver Materialien und ihrem Nutzen zu sprechen sowie darüber, was naturwissenschaftliche Forschung von künstlerischen Herangehensweisen lernen kann.
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Latent Accumulations: Walking Along Paraffin Pollution at Nida Coastline. Film still: Anna Luise Schubert 2025
Exhibition, Roundtable and Workshop
Paraffin pollution is a recurring concern in coastal environments, yet one that is inherently difficult to detect and classify. The exhibition »Latent Accumulations« at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin traces the elusive activity of this material. It gives insights into site-specific research processes that connect material investigations with local experiences and memories of shifting landscapes.
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Vouwo - mud dye produced by Marka-Dafing master dyer and hunter Adama Séré. Photograph by Salif Sawadogo.
New Paper in Coloration Technology About Novel Approach to Researching Sustainable Textile Dyes
Coloration using soil-based dyes is a fast-growing subject of enquiry in fibres and textile surface design, with pigments and microbes involved in their production being extensively researched. Using this rich natural resource, dyeing techniques have also been integral to long-standing textile traditions worldwide. Grounded in an anthropological study of the dyeing practice of Marka-Dafing hunters in Burkina Faso, West Africa, this paper analyzes the coloration processes in vouwo, or mud dye, used for hunting and ceremonial garments. It highlights complex chemical and microbiological reactions occurring in a dyeing experiment curated by dyers throughout an 18-month-long fermentation process. The authors, Cluster members Laurence Douny, José Ignacio Hernández Lobato, Salif Sawadogo, Peter Fratzl, and Regine Hengge, together with Adama Séré and Shahrouz Amini (MPICI), propose an interdisciplinary approach to the study of vouwo.
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»Syntopolis« reef prototype in STARESO, Rasa Weber & Atelier Marie Drouet. Photo: Till Timmermann, 2024
Exhibition and Interactive Program
Design researcher and diver Rasa Weber takes on the challenge of creating an artificial reef in the river Spree, a project she calls »Syntopolis«. Streamed into the re:future lab, the reef will transform the institute’s exhibition space into an immersive aquatic habitat for encounters, experiences, and reflections on shared ecological futures. The registration for the interactive program such as a boat cruise is now open!
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Pieces of Paraffin collected at the Curonian Spit in Lithuania, 2025. Copyright: HU Berlin/Stefan Klenke
Article on Léa Perraudin's and Iva Rešetar's »Latent Accumulations« Project
The project »Latent Accumulations« examines paraffin, an elusive material, from its accumulations on the Baltic coast of the Curonian Spit in Lithuania to its pressing environmental and geopolitical concerns. This article presents the project by Léa Perraudin and Iva Rešetar in detail.
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MAKING Scoby Grow with Emma Sicher. Copyright: Matters of Activity
New Episode with Emma Sicher
Remember that cup of tea you left forgotten on your table for weeks? Don’t worry – you might have created something amazing without even realizing it! Meet the SCOBY – a symbiotic structure made of bacteria and yeast, a true powerhouse of bio-design! Find out more and watch the newest episode of »MAKING_«!
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Film Still taken from a film by Oula A. Valkeapää. Still: Oula A. Valkeapää, 2021
Exhibition, Talk and Tours
»Johtingeaidnu – The Path Within« is the first program highlight of the ＿matter Festival 2025. The exhibition at Schering Stiftung brings together two worlds: reindeer nomadism in the Arctic Sápmi region and the bioscience of epigenetics. Drawing on living relations within contemporary reindeer worlds and bioscientific research, the exhibition at materializes a world in which epigenetic memories are not only shared between humans but carried within ancestral migratory paths, called ›Johtingeaidnu‹. The exhibition opens on April 10th, 2025, 6:00 pm, followed by a conversation between artist Emilia Tikka and Miriam Liedvogel (Director Institute of Avian Research, Wilhelmshaven) on April 11th.
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Microverse III-3, 2025 © Kathrin Linkersdorff
Photographs Created by Kathrin Linkersdorff in Collaboration with Regine Hengge Exhibited at Haus am Kleistpark
Circularity and sustainability of material flows are hallmarks of intact ecosystems. This principle has now been stunningly visualized in ultrahigh resolution, large format photographs - the MICROVERSE series - created by Kathrin Linkersdorff in collaboration with Regine Hengge, Professor for Microbiology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The exhibition at Haus am Kleistpark (Berlin-Schöneberg) will be on view until June 8th, 2025.
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Still of MAKING Artificial Reefs with Rasa Weber. Copyright: Matters of Activity
This Episode of MoA Mini Documentary Series Highlights the Work of Rasa Weber
Ever wondered what it takes to build a reef — underwater? Rasa Weber does just that, diving into the depths with hammers and screwdrivers to create Syntopolis, a city-like structure designed for anyone who wants to call it home. In the latest episode of Making, join Rasa as she explores the fascinating world of artificial reefs, their environmental impact, and the challenges of constructing them. From sustainable design to marine conservation, this project could be one step in shaping the future of our oceans for the better. Watch the full episode now to see how innovation meets nature!
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Beetle-infested Spruce. Copyright: Pelin Asa, MPICI
Publication Authored by Pelin Asa, Karin Krauthausen, Robert Stock and Karola Dierichs Out Now
The new article »Architectures of Syntopia: An Interdisciplinary Speculative Model for Constructions with Insect-infested Wood« is out now, authored by Pelin Asa, Karin Krauthausen, Robert Stock and Karola Dierichs. The research was conducted at Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. Thanks to the editors Cordula Kropp and Simon Aicher and the great team at TATuP – Journal for Technology Assessment in Theory and Practice.
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Visual WasserWissen
New BUA Series »WasserWissen | Parcours« Invites to the Kick-off at the Kunstgewerbemuseum
What do the algae in the Müggelsee and the axolotl in the laboratory have to do with living together in Berlin? These (and other) questions want to be explored at the start of the new event series »WasserWissen | Parcours«, an interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge between science and society. The exploration of Berlin's hydrosphere starts at the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts and the exhibition »Lygophilia: Aquatic Life« by Robertina Šebjanič. This is inspired by the endangered axolotl and other aquatic creatures and explores the theme of more-than-human coexistence in water. With contributions from the artists Cammack Lindsey and Sarah Hermanutz, the scientist Dr. India Mansour, and the curators and MoA members Dr. Claudia Banz and Christian de Lutz.
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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).
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Seaweed resonance, presentation by Julia Lohmann (Aalto, Helsinki). Photo: Clemens Winkler
Symposium by CollActive Materials
The symposium »Sensing Common Grounds. Towards Collaborative Speculation«, organized by Léa Perraudin and Martin Müller, asked about the ›how‹, foregrounding the methodologies of such speculations and projections: How to relate speculative design proposals to critical diagnoses of the present and attempts at historical speculation? How specifically can collaborative speculation in inter- and transdisciplinary contexts enable us to sense ›what is in the air‹? What narratives, prototypes, materials, and media hold knowledge (and non-knowledge) of these scenarios?
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»Kiki Prototype«. Design: Rasa Weber, rasaweber.com. PhD Project: «SymbiOcean». Location: STARESO - Calvi (FR). Diver: Noémie Chabrier. Installation team, assistance and monitoring: Arnaud Boulenger, Sandra Bracun, Noemi Chabrier, Mélodie Chapat, Sylvain Coudray, Stéphane Jamme, Leonie John, Teal Jordan, Michael Karle, Mathieu Kelhetter (design intern), Michaela Roger, Bram van der Schoot, Kelly Stiver, Anja Wegner, Lena Wesenberg, Aubin Woehrel. Date: June 2023. SNF research project: «Interfacing the Ocean». Hosting University: Zurich University of the Arts & University of Art and Design Linz. Photo: Stéphane Jamme @stepp_aquanaute.
Exhibition by Rasa Weber Opens at Berlin Science Week
We're delighted that MoA associated member Rasa Weber will be part of the Blue Talk: »Science and Design for Marine Ecosystem Restoration« at this year's Berlin Science Week. The event is part of the preparation for the Third United Nations Ocean Conference jointly organized by France and Costa Rica (June 2025 - Nice, France) and takes place at the French Embassy in Berlin. The panel discussion will be followed by the official opening of the exhibition »The Whispering World: Words by a Silent Sea«, showcasing Rasa's work in developing a prototype of an artificial reef that provides a substrate and structure for pioneer organisms to form a habitat.
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ZNE! Exhibition: Folke Köbberling, Wollhaus & Natalija Miodragović, Structural Textiles. Copyright: Natalie Brehmer
Neue Publikation mit Beitrag von Natalija Miodragović
Bei adocs ist die neue Publikation »WOLLBAU. Wolle – eine unterschätzte Ressource« von Folke Köbberling erschienen. »WOLLBAU« vereint künstlerische Projekte sowie kunsthistorische und kulturanthropologische Texte über das Schaf und die Wollverarbeitung. Darin enthalten ist unter anderen auch ein Beitrag von Clustermitglied Natalija Miodragović zum Thema »Wolle, Myzelium, Hanf und Erde«. Die Buchvorstellung wird am 8. Dezember in der Hansabibliothek stattfinden. Save the Date!
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Copyright: ICI Berlin
Conference Organized by Claudia Mareis – Conference Contributions Now Online as an Audio Series
The conference »Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures« brought together critical thinking and doing around the role of design in making, unmaking and remaking worlds. Starting from the intersection of design, infrastructure, and the planetary environment, it offered a generative platform open to artists, academics, and activists for rethinking design’s role in producing the present and for developing alternative planetary futures. The conference gathered artists, academics, and activists to rethink design's role in producing our present and developing alternative planetary futures. The conference contributions are now online as a podcast!
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Coral bleaching on Caribbean Coast. Photo: Rasa Weber. Diver: Jota Uparela. From the Project: »Symbiotic Coral Nurseries« in collaboration with The Polynesian Institute of Biomimicry IPB, Andry Carrasquilla, Paraiso Dive Center. Location: Tierra Bomba (COL), 2023
Two New Articles by Rasa Weber
Two articles by Cluster member Rasa Weber were published recently: In kritische berichte. Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, Rasa writes about »Queer Reefs – A Queer Ecological Journey into Blasted Seascapes«. Moreover, »Of Other Reefs: Designing Habitats in Blasted Seascapes« has been published by Cambridge University Press. Both publications are open access.
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Exhibition of research objects during the MoA PhD presentations 2024. Posterlayout Ada Favaron. Copyright: Matters of Activity
Presentations Doctoral Program 2024
Under the title »testing un/common grounds«, the Matters of Activity doctoral cohort impressively presented the progress of their diverse research projects during the Cluster retreat. The event included the three moderated panel discussions as well as an exhibition of selected research objects that were at the core of the format. With their various disciplinary backgrounds ranging from art, architecture, engineering and design to the humanities and natural sciences, the group explored this interdisciplinary ›un/common ground‹ and aimed to develop forms of common knowledge that respect locally-based actors and embrace collaborations with diverse agencies and species.
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»Dissect« Event at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin, 04.11.2022. Foto: Samuel Bianchini. Copyright: Matters of Activity
Films of Performances Online Now!
The two »Dissect« events held as part of Berlin Science Week 2022 on November 2nd and 4th were a great success and unique experience. In the sold-out Tieranatomisches Theater (TA T) at Humboldt-Universität Berlin, researchers from different disciplines discussed contemporary artworks, including Marco Donnarumma's »Amygdala« and Tomas Saraceno's »Spiders«. Konstantin Mitrokhov’s three films allow you to re-experience these fascinating events.
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Folgenbild Syntopische Architekturen, 2024. Käferbefallenes Fichtenholz, Foto: Pelin Asa, MPIKG, adaptiert von MoA.
Neue Podcast-Folge der Serie »Exzellent Erklärt« mit Karola Dierichs und Robert Stock
In Folge 48 der Podcastserie »Exzellent Erklärt« erwartet die Zuhörer:innen ein inspirierender Austausch zu der Frage, wie die Materialien, die in der direkten Umgebung und ihren Kreisläufen vorkommen, das Bauen der Zukunft mitgestalten können. Journalistin Larissa Vassilian hat mit Cluster-Mitgliedern Karola Dierichs und Robert Stock über ihr Projekt »Syntopic Architectures« gesprochen, das darauf abzielt, natürliche Strukturen in die Architektur zu integrieren, die in Verbindung zu dem Ort stehen, an dem gebaut wird. Ein Beispiel dafür ist das Arbeiten mit Käferholz, also mit Holz, das vom Borkenkäfer befallen wurde.
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Pollinator-Pathmaker-LAS-Edition, commissioned by the LAS Art Foundation, will grow on the forecourt of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin from June 2023 to November 2026. View of the installation. Photo: Juan Camilo Roa
Conversation with Babette Werner at Naturkundemuseum Berlin
Who does current public (green) space serve and who does it exclude? How does it relate to home, wellbeing and resilience? What role does art play in envisioning more inclusive public spaces? MoA Member Babette Werner, Toni Karge and Luïza Luz will explore these questions in conversation with LAS curators Agnessa Schmudke and Sophie Korschildgen. The event is part of a four-chapter public programme centred around and located inside Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg's Pollinator Pathmaker, a living artwork for pollinating insects presented by LAS Art Foundation in front of Naturkundemuseum Berlin.
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Workshop »More than Human Sketching 1«, Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, May 2024. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé.
Immersive Performative Guided Tour Developed by MoA Members
You can now experience the collections of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin through an immersive performative tour developed by MoA members Elaine Bonavia, Maxime Le Calvé, Kotryna Šlapšinskaitė, Paulina Greta Stefanovic, and Nayeli Vega Vargas. Small groups of visitors are equipped with augmented reality headsets and invited to sketch in 3D (in augmented reality and on paper), following a score inspired by design research, graphic anthropology, and experimental anatomical pedagogy. Register now for your 3D drawing tour in July or August!
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Copyright: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Gestaltung: cyan Berlin
Roundtable and Q&A
On July 12th 2024, the exhibition and research project »Matter of South. Biomaterial Cultures from Latin America« opened its doors. Its curators Heidi Jalkh, Gisela Pozzetti and Valentina Aliaga Vargas are investigating to which extent the development of biomaterials can create new relationships between people and their environment in the future. What alternatives can there be to our extractivist practices? In this round table discussion with the three curators and further players, on July 17th, you can find out more about the background and vision of the »Matter of South« initiative.
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TRAZOS Edición Biomateriales, 2024, Gisela Pozzetti, Heidi Jalkh, Sistemas Materiales. Photo: Maia Croizet
Exhibition Opening at Kunstgewerbemuseum on 12 July
Under the new discursive platform »More Than Human: Design after the Anthropocene« at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, created by Claudia Banz, Heidi Jalkh has been invited to curate a project in collaboration with co-curators Gisela Pozzetti and Valentina Aliaga. The »Matter of South - Biomaterial Cultures from Latin America« project explores how biomaterial initiatives in this region harness local culture and biodiversity to create new material cultures. This endeavor also aims to reframe our relationship with the immediate environment while questioning and providing alternatives to the established extractivist model. The exhibition will open on July 12th, 7 pm, and runs through August 26th. A two-day international symposium on this topic is scheduled for the project, tentatively set for July 17th-18th.
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Tracing paraffin accumulations. Fieldwork on the coastline of the Curonian Spit in the Neringa Nature Reserve, Léa Perraudin and Iva Rešetar. 2024. Copyright: Iva Rešetar
Fieldwork of Léa Perraudin and Iva Rešetar on the Coastline of the Curonian Spit in the Neringa Nature Reserve
In their ongoing fieldwork in Nida, Lithuania, Iva Rešetar and Léa Perraudin are concerned with the scales and phases of paraffin (re-)distribution in this seemingly pristine natural environment. Latent Accumulations focuses on the ecopolitics of paraffin pollution, engaging the material as unsettled in its movement and energy exchange. They argue that it is precisely the process of phase transition that gives rise to this uncertain ontological status – between solid and liquid, slow and sudden, and between events of pollution, their materialization and maintenance.
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Beetle-infestation of spruce, Feldbuch, Frankonia. Image: Pelin Asa, MPI-CI, MoA
Interdisciplinary Workshop at Berlinische Galerie
Modern life is mainly built on concrete, glass and steel. Recently, however, these construction materials have been increasingly discussed due to their impact on emissions, waste production, and the climate crisis. In response to this, designers, architects, and other scholars investigate novel approaches to biomaterials, recycling options, and circular models of fabrication and construction. The aim is to form symbiotic alliances with fungi, beetle-infested trees, bacteria, or residual materials and to acknowledge the surprising potentials of these unconventional collaborators. Can elements of nature thus be understood as equal partners in construction, architecture, and the design of daily objects? We cordially invite you to this workshop on June 5th, 2024 at Berlinische Galerie, to discuss these symbiotic practices as they hint at other collaborative futures beyond resource extraction.
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Book Cover Perraudin, L. 2024. Elementare Ekstasen. Sondierungen der Technosphäre. Series: Future Ecologies, Lüneburg: meson Press.
Monografie von Clustermitglied Léa Perraudin Open Access veröffentlicht
Elementare Ekstasen überschwemmen, erodieren und evaporieren die wohlsortierten Grenzziehungen zwischen Technik, Umwelt und Mensch. Als Neuverortung im Spannungsfeld medienökologischer, neomaterialistischer und technikfeministischer Theoriebildung sondiert Léa Perraudin all jene Widerständigkeiten und Un/Verfügbarkeiten, die von techno-kapitalistisch protegierten Operationen nicht zu tilgen sind.
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Multispecies Design Symposium March 2024, Kunstgewerbemuseum. Copyright: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Symposium and Project Launch at Kunstgewerbemuseum
On Friday, March 22nd, 2024, the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) launched the new discursive platform »More than Human. Design after the Anthropocene« with the symposium »Multispecies Design«. The project aims to explore the complex more-than-human concept from the perspective of the creative disciplines, particularly design, through pop-up exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and discussion panels. »More than Human« was curated by Claudia Banz, curator at the Kunstgewerbemuseum and member of »Matter of Activities« and realized together with international contributors from transdisciplinary contexts, among them several MoA researchers.
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Image in the background: Shubo (酒母), literally sake mother, is a starter culture that takes weeks to cultivate. Copyright: Maya Hey
Open Lecture and Workshop with Maya Hey
In the open lecture on March 5th and the workshop on March 6th Maya Hey, an expert on human–microbe relations in food settings with degrees in dietetics and food studies, focused on fermentation as a hands-on practice for knowing microbes and working with them. The workshop was fully booked!
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Exhibition view »Closer to Nature. Building with Mushroom, Tree, Clay«, Berlinische Galerie. Copyright: Photo: Harry Schnitger
Experimental Building by SciArt Collective MY-CO-X on Show at Berlinische Galerie
Architecture and nature inevitably compete for space. That poses a dilemma when resources are finite and the demand for space keeps growing. Besides, we know that the construction sector generates huge waste and emissions. All this has raised issues about the role of architecture: Does it need a shift in perspective? Could we build with nature instead of against it? The exhibition »Closer to Nature« at the Berlinische Galerie showcases three Berlin-based projects, that utilize the potential of mushrooms, living trees, and clay. This gives them an ecological quality, but also a completely new character: the buildings breathe, grow, and thus become alive themselves. One of the showcased projects is the experimental building MY-CO SPACE, which was developed, designed, and built by the interdisciplinary Berlin SciArt collective MY-CO-X, an initiative of the Department of Applied and Molecular Microbiology at TU Berlin under the direction of MoA member Vera Meyer with contributions by Dimitra Almpani-Lekka.
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Image: K.D. Martin
Presentations and Panel with Sjoerd van Tuinen, Samo Tomšič, Claudia Blümle and Katharina D. Martin
An event in the light of the recently published monograph by Katharina D. Martin »Technik als Problem des Ausdrucks, Über die naturphilosophischen Implikationen technikphilosophischer Theorien« (Bielefeld transcript, 2023) – Form-taking, as a process of expression, is a technical dimension inherent in nature – this is one thesis on the connection between the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of technology. Join us for a presentation and panel with Sjoerd van Tuinen, Samo Tomšič, Claudia Blümle and Katharina D. Martin herself!
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Copyright: Jann Mausen
Public Lecture by T. J. Demos as Part of »Critical Times. Part 1: Multiple Matter«
How might we rescue the future from the grips of planetary negativity, capitalist longtermism, and generalized catastrophism? It will take nothing less than cultivating an emancipated chronopolitics emerging from the traditions of the oppressed in relation to an undetermined not-yet. T. J. Demos presentation addresses recent creative modelings of radical Indigenous and Afrofuturist worlds-to-come and their radical temporal reconfigurations, founded upon social justice and environmental flourishing.
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Workshop with EER in Copenhagen, 2023. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé
Spinning-On STS Workshop on 27–29 September 2023
In an era fraught with dizzying socio-political events and burgeoning ecological catastrophes, this workshop for a special issue will delve into the concept of epistemic dizziness as a disordered state of whirling vertigo, applying it to the contemporary state of STS. As we navigate the tumultuous landscape of an open-ended pandemic, war, and socio-ecological devastation (Stengers 2021), the research practices of STS itself risk inducing ›epistemic dizziness‹. This workshop, inspired by Donna Haraway (2016), draws on ›serious fun‹ as a means of staving off paralysis and fainting, urging that knowledge production can serve as both a coping mechanism and a source of resilience. Repurposing the concept of ›ilinx‹, as delineated by Roger Caillois (1961), the series of lecture performances will critically examine playful dizzying practices in Western, indigenous, and other worlds as a pathway towards comprehending our vertiginously speedy world.
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Copyright: »Spontaneous Generations«, https://www.spontaneousgenerations.com/
Karin Krauthausen and Michael Friedman Published Article in Special Issue of »Spontaneous Generations«
»Spontaneous Generations«, the Journal of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto launched a special issue on ›agency‹. The volume »From Bacteria to Gaia: Levels of Biological Agency« includes an article of the Cluster members Karin Krauthausen and Michael Friedman on the agency and activities of materials in the 21st century.
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Design of soft robots. Research on form, its deformation and possible function. Copyright: Anna Schaeffner
Cluster Members Anna Schaeffner and Rasa Weber Presented at Major Event on the Global Electronic Art Scene ISEA2023
On May 17th and 18th Cluster Members Anna Schaeffner and Rasa Weber Presented at a major event on the global electronic art scene, that aims to strengthen the dialog between artists, researchers, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs from the cultural and creative industries who participate in the advances of research and creation. Anna Schaffner gave an artist talk »For a Design of Deformation« and Rasa Weber presented her paper »A Sympoietic Ocean. Design Research with/in the Marine Holobiont«.
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Visual Writing Workshop, Stuart McLean, May 2023. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé, Matters of Activity
Writing Workshop on 11 May with Anthropologist Stuart McLean
What new possibilities for thinking and living might result from extending the notion of creativity beyond the human realm? The worlds that humans often pride themselves on creating are not and have never been exclusively human but are dependent upon and inflected by a multitude of other-than-human powers and presences, including animals, plants, geological formations, weather systems, and a range of humanly manufactured artifacts fashioned from a variety of materials. On May 11th, from 11 am–3 pm, Stuart McLean, professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, is invited by Cluster member Maxime Le Calvé as part of the stretching senses school (Cutting/OSA) to give a writing workshop on multimodal anthropological fabulations – you're kindly invited to join!
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Copyright: Mina Mahouti
New Cluster Event Series Critically Explores Material Sustainability Concepts
Transforming linear economies into resource, energy, and more-than-human friendly processes means to bridge different areas of expertise. Ongoing discussions in different Cluster research groups such as MFF, Filtering, Weaving etc. have shown the importance of involving the perspectives of various actors, practitioners and experts into further research processes. Promising solutions and insights for a new material economy and culture are facing similar problems when it comes to transfer them from laboratory to the market. (Material) engineers, designers and activists face numerous challenges in expanding their activities, be they technological, political, economic or social. Kicking-off in June 2023, a new series of events will connect members of the Cluster interested in critically exploring material sustainability concepts with different practitioners and stakeholders from outside the Academy, and foster knowledge exchange in both directions.
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Maxime Le Calvé, Fieldwork Charité, 2022. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé, Matters of Activity.
Maxime Le Calvé Invited to Teach alongside Alice Jarry at Concordia University, Montreal
Cluster Member Maxime Le Calvé will travel to Montreal for a short research and teaching stay at the Milieux Biolab and the Milieux Speculative Life Cluster at Concordia University. He is invited by Prof. Alice Jarry, an assistant professor of Design and Computation Arts (Concordia University, Montréal) who holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality.
Together, they will conduct the workshop »More-Than-Ethnographic Probes«. This workshop is a fieldwork and a platform for the development of collaborative sketching, writing, and documentation methods. The workshop will be followed by a roundtable panel at the »Uncommon Senses« Conference at Concordia on May 4th. The panel will be chaired by anthropologist Stefan Helmreich (MIT). Moreover, Maxime will present a paper on the »Sensory Ethnography« panel at the »Uncommon Senses« conference, with the title: »Sketching a Sense of Presence: Graphic Ethnography as Speculative Sensorial Attunement to Neurosurgical Practice«. more
Together, they will conduct the workshop »More-Than-Ethnographic Probes«. This workshop is a fieldwork and a platform for the development of collaborative sketching, writing, and documentation methods. The workshop will be followed by a roundtable panel at the »Uncommon Senses« Conference at Concordia on May 4th. The panel will be chaired by anthropologist Stefan Helmreich (MIT). Moreover, Maxime will present a paper on the »Sensory Ethnography« panel at the »Uncommon Senses« conference, with the title: »Sketching a Sense of Presence: Graphic Ethnography as Speculative Sensorial Attunement to Neurosurgical Practice«. more
Copyright: N Scot Unsplash
Robert Stock Talks at the Hybrid Symposium »Luso-Ecologies: More-Than-Human Complexities, Agency, and Resistance in the Lusophone Anthropocene« at University of Oxford
Following Mia Couto’s quote, places of ›nature‹ require us to think more than we would expect. While highlighting that those ›natural‹ places were fabricated through stories (and histories), Couto also contends that they are indeed ›fazedores‹ – makers – of so many other stories. Taking up these thoughts that resonate with Haraway’s claim to create novel stories and »stay with the trouble«, Robert Stock approaches the coastal line of Mozambique to learn about the ways in which mangrove forests intersect with the contemporary postcolonial condition of this country as part of the first panel starting Thursday, March 30th.
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Epistemic Dizziness in STS, 5056x2944 px, DALL•E 2, 2022, Copyright: Lucius Fekonja, Maxime Le Calvé, Matters of Activity
Maxime Le Calvé Contributed to the Science & Technology Studies Hub 2023 in Aachen
Cluster Member Maxime Le Calvé convened a special topic panel titled »Epistemic dizziness. Coping with the side effects of the fast-paced circulation of metaphors and figures in STS« with his colleagues Britta Acksel and Jonna Josties of the laboratory for Human Environment Relations (HU Berlin) at the Science & Technology Studies-Hub from March 15-17th, 2023, in Aachen.
Together, they introduced the notion of epistemic dizziness in a collective paper, followed by hands-on dizziness-inducing exercises. The contribution featured an AI-generated artwork created collaboratively by the Cluster members Lucius Fekonja and Maxime Le Calvé. more
Together, they introduced the notion of epistemic dizziness in a collective paper, followed by hands-on dizziness-inducing exercises. The contribution featured an AI-generated artwork created collaboratively by the Cluster members Lucius Fekonja and Maxime Le Calvé. more
Stretching senses school logo with a photo of mycelium growing on willow, 2022. Copyright: Natalija Miodragovic & Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Biomaterials Lab TU Berlin and MoA, 2022
at UdK »InKüLe – Innovationen für die künstlerische Lehre«
The stretching senses school, an MoA project curated by Cluster anthropologists Yoonha Kim (OSA) and Maxime Le Calvé (Cutting), is starting a longer teaching collaboration with the UdK-based project InKüLe »Innovationen für die Künstlerische Lehre«. The stretching senses school is an emerging learning community around immersive arts, creative coding and speculative ethnography. It aims to explore more-than-human perceptions through making practices bringing in conversation various immersive media. The collaborative workshops with InKüLe were focused on the potential of artistic education to change our relations to the environment through an engagement at the level of anthropotechniques.
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Poster »Frictioned Functionality«. Copyright: Matters of Activity
MoA's First Interdisciplinary Autumn School 17–22 October 2022
Against a background of ecologies in crisis, the interdisciplinary Autumn School »Frictioned Functionality: Un/Designing Un/Sustainable Matter« invited Post-Docs, PhDs and MA students from the humanities, natural sciences and design to work through the conflicted entanglement of materiality, design and un/sustainability, using frictioned functionality as the guiding principle. In the context of this Autumn School, frictioned functionality has been understood as a working concept to reopen other narrative and performative spaces of imagination in and beyond unruly times. The autumn school took place from October 17th–22nd, 2022.
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Poster PhD presentations 2022. Layout: Ada Favaron
Doctoral Presentations at the MoA Retreat 2022
The 2022 presentation of the Doctoral Program »Matters of Activity« at the MoA Retreat in September at Landgut Stober was both a review and an outlook of the doctoral research conducted at the Cluster between 2020 and 2022. Under the title »Scaling Matters: From the Lab to the Field, «Pre-Doctoral Researchers at varying stages of their research — from the very beginning to the final phase of their theses — presented their heterogeneous work whilst continuing to negotiate common themes, methods, questions and tools. The format combined talks and an exhibition and invited MoA Members to engage individually with the presentation and a selection of their research objects.
Thanks to everyone involved for making possible this all-around successful event. Enjoy some visual impressions of the exhibition, as well as the talks and have a look at the booklet.
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Dis/Entangling Material Futures. Copyright: Claudia Mareis
Lecture Series by Cluster Co-Director Claudia Mareis Continues
The lecture series takes up the ambiguous role of materials in future-making practices along with the possible geo and bio-political precarity they may generate. Different materials from sand, water, or air to living cells and whole ecosystems are the objects and interface of a range of technologies that generate images of the future. Their probabilistic methods prepare the ideational and physical ground for large and small-scale design interventions (e.g., climate-resilient infrastructures). Register now and take part in the lecture series that continues until July 18th, every Monday 4.15 pm.
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Foto: Lena Dues. Design: NODE Berlin Oslo
Performance, Conversation, Lecture in the Exhibition »Stretching Materialities«
Where are the boundaries between living and dead matter? This evening of performance, artist-curator conversation, and lecture explored experiences and narratives between the organic and the inorganic associated with artifacts, natural objects, and the interior of our own bodies. This event was part of the exhibition by MoA project »Object Space Agency« at Tieranatomisches Theater »Stretching Materialities. Hidden Activities in Objects and Spaces«.
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MoA Exhibition »Stretching Materialities«. Copyright: Offshore Design
Hidden Activities in Objects and Spaces at Tieranatomisches Theater
Matter is dead? Objects are lifeless? Think again! In the exhibition »Stretching Materialities« the liveliness and activity of matter could be experienced in a completely new way. From September 16th, 2021 to March 4th, 2022, the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin became an interactive playground: an actual cloud levitated in the middle of the room, reacting to body heat and movement, hovering around the visitors like a strange creature. Stones revealed their weathering as a dynamic process of change. Large willow structures, carefully co-crafted by humans and computers, were interwoven with the inhabitable space. Korean ›durumagi‹, a silk overcoat connecting the digital and physical realm, vibrated on the visitors’ skin as they interacted with diverse materials. Walking through the room with VR headsets on, visitors could enter a glass elevator and travel straight down into the materials presented – into the CT scan of a stone or high up into the clouds to interact with air molecules.
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Poster Online Lecture Series »Talking Matters«, Copyright: Cécile Bidan and Salif Sawadogo, adapted by NODE Berlin
First »Talking Matters« Lecture after the Summer Break with Anthropologist Ignacio Farías
Our two-week »Talking Matters« lecture series, launched in May, was moving on to the next round. On September 14th, we we hosted an inspiring lecture and discussion from and with anthropologist Ignacio Farías from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on »Urban Vibrations: How Physical Waves Come to Matter in Contemporary Urbanism.«
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Teaserpicture DRHR2021. Copyright: Ravi Kumar / Unsplash.
Registration Open Until 3 September 2021
From September 5th–7th, 2021, the 25th Annual DRHA Conference »Digital Matters: Designing/Performing Agency for the Anthropocene«, took place in Berlin. The event was hosted by the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and further supported by a partnership with the Cluster of Excellence »Temporal Communities - Doing Literature in a Global Perspective«.
The conference was co-organized by Cluster member Christian Stein and several MoA members were involved by contributing to the conference. MoA Director Claudia Mareis delivered a keynote lecture entitled »Designing resilience: on a third culture with many transitions« on Monday, September 6th.
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Website DRHA Digital Matters. Copyright: Lucius Fekonja
Call for Participation for the 25th Digital Research in Humanities and Arts Conference
The 25th Digital Research in Humanities and Arts conference invited contributions and interventions that focused on transfers and interactions between digital and natural environments. »Digital Matters« took on the challenge of exploring new material and multi-species agencies, forms of embodiment, and interactions between the Performing Arts, the Humanities and the Natural Sciences that engage the sense of relationality and expanded scale the Anthropocene affords. The conference was organized by Cluster member Christian Stein (Project Object Space Agency) in cooperation with the Cluster of Excellence »Temporal Communities« and took place on September 5th–7th, 2021.
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Poster Online Lecture Series »Talking Matters«, Copyright: Lucius Fekonja, Bastian Beyer, Iva Rešetar, adapted by NODE Berlin
Online Lecture Series of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«
On Tuesday, May 18th, 2021, »Matters of Activity« launched the online lecture series »Talking Matters«, in which external speakers from various disciplines were invited by the six cluster projects to provide insights into their research, which is related to central issues of »Matters of Activity«. In addition to researchers and students from various disciplines, the lecture series was open to anyone interested in our research.
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Can Bacteria Spin a Yarn? Kick-Off event »MitWissenschaft/ WeSearch«, Humboldt Forum Berlin, 29 April 2021. Copyright: Humbolt Forum
Cluster Members Opened Event Series »MitWissenschaft/ WeSearch« at the Humboldt Forum
On Thursday, April 29th, 7–9:30 pm, members of the Cluster gave insights into the research of »Matters of Activity« in an interactive live show, thus opening the event series »MitWissenschaft/ WeSearch« at the Humboldt Forum.
Using concrete examples from the Cluster projects »Weaving« and »Filtering«, MoA members Bastian Beyer, Alwin Cubasch, Peter Fratzl, Regine Hengge, Claudia Mareis, Léa Perraudin, Christiane Sauer and Wolfgang Schäffner showed how the natural sciences, the humanities and the design disciplines work closely together to find innovative solutions to contemporary problems.
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»Macht Natur« at State Studio. Copyright: Samuel Henne
What Power do We Exert on Nature? And How Much Power Does Nature Have Over Us?
The exhibition presented innovations, potentials and risks of bio-economy in the fields of insects, plants, soil and air, offering the opportunity to try out different perspectives and deal with new phenomena in a playful way. How far do we want to go and where do we draw boundaries? ›Air‹ was investigated by design researcher and Cluster member Clemens Winkler.
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Hambacher Forst, Germany, March 2024. Copyright: Rahel Kesselring
This research project will contribute to their research by developing an interdisciplinary and humanities-based perspective on wood, forests, and bark. It will draw on new materialism, STS, history of knowledge; decolonial thought and posthuman approaches to map tree-related knowledges, technologies, and futures by drawing on scientific works, material cultures, and cultural production.
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The Speculative Realities Lab. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé
The SpecLab is a space connecting neurosurgery, anthropology, and the immersive arts. It contributes to expanding their respective disciplinary equipment – conceptual, material, and digital – in order to animate brain-related knowledge for navigation, prediction, and inspiration. We want to make neurosurgery appear strange again in order to unsettle certain ›status quo‹ of the clinical practice.
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Subterranean Matters, by Baris Pekcagliyan, Warja Rybakova, Nayeli Vega, Paulina Greta, stretching senses school. Copyright: Matters of Activity
The »stretching senses school« is an education-as-research project between »Cutting« and »Object Space Agency«, which stemmed from the exhibition »Stretching Materialities«. Through this workshop-based contribution to the exhibition, we fostered collaborations between anthropology and immersive interaction art.
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Left: The Bark Sphere, Charlett Wenig with Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten I MPI-CI and Alexander Magerl, 2021
Middle: The Bark Project Flexibilized, Charlett Wenig with Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten I MPI-CI and Patrick Walter
Right: Charles Eisen’s allegorical engraving of the first hut (= Vitruvian hut). Frontispiece in: Marc Antoine Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture, Paris: Chez Duchesne […], 2. edition, 1755. ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Rar 1254, https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-128 / Public Domain Mark
»Syntopic Architectures« engages in structures for habitation, sourced from and embedded in the material cycles of a specific environment. The term ›syntopic‹ (noun: syntopy) has been coined by Luis Rene Rivas in 1964 and denotes the inhabitation of the same »macrohabitat« by »two or more related species«. It is a composition of the Greek words ›syn‹ meaning together and topos meaning place. To develop Syntopic Architectures thus means to create inhabitable structures with the place where they are built in.
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Wild silk wrapper from the Marka Dafing in Safané, Burkina Faso (showing the sheen). Video still from the film installation at the exhibition »DAOULA | Sheen. West-African Wild Silk On Its Way« (Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin). Film installation by Thabo Thindi with film material from Salif Sawadog and others.
West-African Textile Craft Meets European Science and Design
Bacterial Weavings
From Microbiological Activity and Fibrous Biofilm Matrices to Design and Architecture
»Kiki Prototype«. Design: Rasa Weber, rasaweber.com. PhD Project: «SymbiOcean». Location: STARESO - Calvi (FR). Diver: Noémie Chabrier. Installation team, assistance and monitoring: Arnaud Boulenger, Sandra Bracun, Noemi Chabrier, Mélodie Chapat, Sylvain Coudray, Stéphane Jamme, Leonie John, Teal Jordan, Michael Karle, Mathieu Kelhetter (design intern), Michaela Roger, Bram van der Schoot, Kelly Stiver, Anja Wegner, Lena Wesenberg, Aubin Woehrel. Date: June 2023. SNF research project: «Interfacing the Ocean». Hosting University: Zurich University of the Arts & University of Art and Design Linz. Photo: Stéphane Jamme @stepp_aquanaute.
PhD Project Rasa Weber
The practice-based design research project «SymbiOcean» explores cultivating marine habitats with/in other-than-human marine environments as a form of «Sympoïetic Design». Inspired by the process of ocean mineral accretion by electrolysis for the construction of artificial reefs developed by Wolf Hilbertz and Thomas Goreau under the name Biorock (1970), the project brings together design, anthropology and marine biology to develop a new approach to the creation of artificial reefs.
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Armchair, flamed birch wood with ivory and mother-of-pearl inlays, designed as part of a bedroom ensemble by Mackay Hughes Bailly Scott, made by the Dresdener Werkstätte für Handwerkskunst in 1903, Bröhan-Museum, Berlin.
PhD Project Kaja Ninnis
The PhD project »(Hi)Stories of Transformation: Tracing Materials in the British Arts and Crafts Movement« by Kaja Ninnis investigates the environmental implications of the sourcing and transformation of ›raw‹ materials in the context of the British Arts and Crafts Movement.
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Diagram of energy and material relationships and negotiations between the inside and the outside. Copyright: Dimitra Almpani-Lekka
PhD Project Dimitra Almpani-Lekka
The aim of Dimitra’s research is to investigate emerging architectural design protocols of activating the building envelope with the treatment of water in order to restore and promote ecosystemic functions and local biodiversity. In this framework the building envelope is approached as a voluminous, programmatic and infrastructural space of opportunity for integrating the building into the metabolic processes of the ecosystem. The envelope is explored as a porous membrane rather than a barrier, a vehicle for mutually beneficial human and non-human symbiosis that allows for material and energy negotiations and exchanges between the outside and the inside. Therefore, the envelope is re-thought as a potential space of communing for all local species.
The actuator of the envelope is water, one of the most vital resources for the sustenance of ecosystemic activity. This approach requires the study of water related functions, properties and phenomena across different scales (macro- (urban fabric), meso- (building/device), micro-(study of microorganisms and properties of matter). With the use of dynamic design tools, the architectural design is formed by the dynamics and temporalities of water. Alliances between the fields of biotechnology, natural sciences and environmental engineering as well as humanities, landscape architecture, animal aided design and biomimetics are employed to incorporate biological growth and water treatment methods in an architectural design method that addresses the topic of co-habitation in contemporary cities, especially in the context of pressing climate related problems such as droughts, floods and the contamination of natural water resources.
Over the last years Dimitra has been working in Berlin in the field of Landscape Architecture with a focus on the creation of socially and environmentally sustainable public spaces. She joined the Cluster in 2021 and is working on the Myko.Plektonik project in parallel to her PhD, exploring fungal mycelium as a co-designer in the architectural context.
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Harvesting reed in Brandenburg for mechanical testings of future design applications. Photo: Charlett Wenig
How might we (re)learn ways of living well in re-wetted landscapes, develop appropriate technologies of making with local resources, and speculate on entangled emergent futures in watery worlds? A collaboration between Charlett Wenig, an interdisciplinary material researcher, and Lucy Norris, a social anthropologist working in the field of design, this project looks at the potential of peatland resources (especially reed canary grass Phalaris arundinacea, and water sedge Carex aquatilis) as materials in the proposed wetlands of northern and eastern Germany.
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The second short film in »Johtingeaidnu - The Path Within« is set in a speculative future after the collapse of the Gulf Stream. The story takes place in a world where shared memories of the past migrations are carried in landscapes and reindeer bones. The artwork proposes new techniques for remembering through an interweaving of two knowledge cultures: the living relations of the reindeer worlds and the bioscience of epigenetic memory. Image: Screenshot from a film by Emilia Tikka and Oula A Valkeapää
PhD Project Emilia Tikka
This project takes a perspective of a reindeer herder to imagine different kind of technoscientific futures. While some may see the land as ›empty‹ space or ›pristine‹ nature, this research is situated in reindeer worlds, where contemporary technologies are intertwined with ancestral practices. The PhD project is based on an ongoing artistic collaboration (since 2021) between designer and researcher Emilia Tikka, reindeer herder Oula A. Valkeapää and artist-researcher Leena Valkeapää.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The fallen granite blocks of the Luisenburg in the Fichtelgebirge, 1820, pen and brown ink, gray wash, on greyish paper, 110 x 171 mm, private ownership
Microverse I-6, 2023. Copyright: Kathrin Linkersdorff
Blurring the Boundaries between Science and Art in a Living Theatrum naturae et artis
Circularity of growth and decay as well as sustainability of the flow of living matter is a hallmark of intact ecosystems. This principle is stunningly visualized in ultrahigh resolution, large format photographs - the MICROVERSE series - created by freelance artist Kathrin Linkersdorff in collaboration with microbiologist Regine Hengge.
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Karte des Späth-Arboretum der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Ein Audiowalk für das Späth-Arboretum von Maja Avnat
Eine kulturwissenschaftlichkünstlerische Reflexion über den Garten und die Menschen, die ihn besuchen – im Format eines Audiowalks. Das Späth-Arboretum ist ein historischer Landschaftsgarten, in dem zahlreiche Gehölze wachsen – einige von ihnen bereits seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert. Was sagt sein Erscheinungsbild über die Beziehung zwischen Menschen und Pflanzen aus? Und was können die Geschichten seiner Gehölze über diese Beziehungen erzählen?
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