Open House at Weißensee School of Art and Design 2023

On July 22nd and 23rd, 2023, 12.00–8.00 pm, weißensee school of art and design berlin will again open its studios for the traditional Open House. Like last year, there will be the opportunity to learn more about the students’ projects and works developed during the previous year, some of them in cooperation with or in classes led by researchers of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«. You will find more information about the event, the diverse locations, talks, and tours on the website of the weißensee school of art and design berlin. Among the exhibited projects with Cluster related topics will be the following:

CLIMADE - Textile as Climatic Device

MoA Design Research Studio, WS 21/22, Prof. Christiane Sauer, Jessica Zmijan

Buildings that should protect us from environmental impacts like heat or cold are at the same time one of the largest consumers of energy and material for climatization and therefore they are a central cause for global warming. How can we approach this dilemma without adding even more energy-consuming technology to heat or cool down buildings?
Together with the Chair of Building Technology and Climate Responsive Design, TU Munich, Prof. Thomas Auer, and Bilge Kobas we approached this question through an interdisciplinary lens bridging architecture and design. The final concepts range from body extensions, screens, and curtains to climatic shelters for the public space.

Room: A 2.06, Department Textile and Surface Design

Coding IxD – Let's Get:PHYSICAL

In 2022, Coding IxD entered its seventh round. Six interdisciplinary teams of computer science and product design students tackled one challenge: designing neo-analog artifacts in the context of data physicalizations. Coding IxD is an annually recurring format in cooperation between the Freie Universität Berlin (Prof. Dr. Claudia Müller-Birn, Head of the Human-Centered Computing Research Group) and the weißensee school of art and design (Prof. Carola Zwick, Head of Embodied Interaction Group) and with the support of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity.«

Room: Flughalle, 4th floor

»DAOULA | sheen« - film (approx. 90 min)

The research project DAOULA | sheen deals with the processing and cultural history of wild silk, which is traditionally extracted from caterpillar cocoons in West Africa, as well as with the multi-layered consideration of this unique material by weavers, microbiologists, material scientists, and architects. Within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material«, the researchers Dr. Laurence Douny, Dr. Karin Krauthausen, and Felix Sattler curated the extraordinary exhibition project, and a large team with different backgrounds from various disciplines, including professors and students of the weißensee school of art and design, Department of Textile and Surface Design, contributed to the design. »DAOULA | sheen« stimulates a dialogue between West African craftsmanship, European science, and design. The meaning and the knowledge of Daoula (the »shine« of the West African wild silk) is accessible to different communities in their own way: local silk producers from Burkina Faso, microbiologists, material scientists and designers, and architects from Germany each have their own terms and specific instruments. In the film, participants of the project have their say. The exhibition was on view from November 2022 to June 2023 at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin. It will travel to the Musée de la Musique Georges Ouedraogo in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in 2024.

Title: »DAOULA | sheen«. Interview films for the exhibition »DAOULA | sheen. West-African Wild Silk On Its Way« (Tieranatomisches Theater TA T, November 17th, 2022 to June 30, 2023. A project of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material,« funded by the DFG. Curated by Laurence Douny, Karin Krauthausen, Felix Sattler, with a film installation by Thabo Thindi).

Film & Editing: Thabo Thindi, in collaboration with the curators and interview partners in Burkina Faso (Women's Association of Safané »Bie tchiani souana«), Berlin (weißensee school of art and design, and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), and Potsdam (Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces).

Room number: Hörsaal 105

elastic time
embodiment of time-based information

»elastic time« explores the ways in which time and processes can be physically represented and interacted with. There we address the challenge of communicating multidimensional data in physical space and designing physical interfaces that allow users to explore complex temporal relationships. With the goal of developing novel ideas and concepts within the field of information physicalization, we aim to bring new aspects, links, and visions into play.
The focus of this studio project was on data and information visualization and exploring ways to transmit and interact with information in multimodal physical space. We used the theme of time and time-based processes as a rather loose framework and concept. Our approach to this topic was experimental and design-research driven. Starting from a very simple question: How can we perceive time and temporal processes by means of our senses? And then explore how we can transmit and interact with information in physical space.

Teaching staff: Prof. Thomas Ness, Prof. Mark-Jan Bludau, Anna Schaeffner, Dominic Eger Domingos, Simon von Schmude (eLAB), Yolanda Leask (concepts-text workshop), Felix Rasehorn and Robin Hoske (video-prototyping workshop), Georg Klöck (user-journey workshop)

Room: eLAB / C 0.05

DesignFarm

DesignFarm Berlin will showcase current projects from the fields of material and textile innovations, digital crafts, and health care. As an initiative of the weißensee kunsthochschule berlin, Designfarm Berlin supports designers in developing their projects within an entrepreneurial as well as research-based framework. The intense knowledge exchange is based on a strong network of mentors, alumni, and research institutions like the Cluster »Matters of Activity«, the STFI Chemnitz, or Fraunhofer Institute.

Projects:

• Digital Felts by Jessica Farmer
• Superwood by Sofia Souidi and Jana Grewe
• MyPeriodTest by Sabine Richter
• Industrial Craft by Verena Kühn and Konrad Jünger

Collaborators of the Cluster »Matters of Activity«: Prof. Carola Zwick, Prof. Christiane Sauer, Prof. Dr. Lucy Norris, Hanna Wiesener

Room: Foyer (Entry Hall)

Syntopia - Harvesting the Forest
MoA Design Research Studio

The MoA Design Research Studio »Syntopia—Harvesting the Forest« investigated how materials collected in the forest can be formed into architectural structures. Such materials can for example be branches, leaves, moss, bark, grass, or even earth. The term syntopic (noun: syntopy) has been brought forth by Luis Rene Rivas in 1964 and refers to the inhabitation of the same »macrohabitat« by »two or more related species«. The term is a combination of the Greek words syn meaning together and topos meaning place. To develop Syntopia thus means to create designs sourced from and situated within a specific site—a topos.
The MoA Design Research Studio was structured in three successive phases. Phase 1 engaged in speculative design of »Stories of Syntopia«. Phase 2 introduced harvesting, analyzing, making, and recording in »Designing Syntopia«. In phase 3 we share our vision and our designs with a wider public in »Showing Syntopia« as part of the Rundgang 2023 at weißensee school of art and design berlin.

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karola Dierichs
• Elaine Bonavia, MSc I Jessica Farmer, MA I Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten, MA I Dr. Charlett Wenig (weißensee school of art and design berlin I Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin I Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces)
• Professor Dr. Tobias Cremer I Dr. Ferréol Berendt (Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development)
• Nuri Kang, Aletta Krietemeyer, Jieun Lee, Jihae Lee, Jinyu Li, Gaia Reiner, Flora Schliekmann, Jelisa Weber (BA students textile- and surface design weißensee school of art and design berlin)

Room: 2.03

The Tone of Things

In the interaction with our environment all senses play together shaping this experience. In addition to visual and tactile qualities, physical things also have a sound inherent in their material and form, which can be experienced in the process interacting with them. Objects of the technosphere often use sound only in a very primitive form to convey information. In this project, we explored the auditive space in order to enrich everyday objects and situations through consciously designed sound experiences. The goal of the studio project was to create an interaction or an object that exemplifies this new quality and thus establishes the „tone“ as a dimension to be designed.

The studio project was supervised by Prof. Carola Zwick, Mika Satomi, and Olaf Thiele.

Supported by:

Simon von Schmude / eLAB
Hannes Höltzl / sound design
Yolanda Leask / concept text
Felix Rasehorn + Robin Hoske / concept video

More information here.

Room: Flughalle, 4th floor