The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« aims to create a basis for a new culture of materials. The central vision of the Cluster is to rediscover the analog in the activity of images, spaces and materials in the age of the digital. Biology and technology, mind and material, nature and culture intertwine in a new way.
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 to make 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.
Walk in and experience the »Activarium« Tuesdays, 10.00 am–12.15 pm or Thursdays, 2.00–4.00 pm! If you are a group of more than 5 people or if the opening hours do not fit your schedule, please contact us via moa.activarium@hu-berlin.de to schedule a visit!
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Book Cover Toward a New Culture of the Material, September 2024. Copyright: De Gruyter.
23.9.2024
Toward a New Culture of the Material
Latest Cluster Anthology Out Now
What happens when we begin treating multi-stable, ambivalent, and adaptive behaviors of active matter as a formative principle? The contributions of this volume edited by Frank Bauer, Yoonha Kim, Sabine Marienberg, and Wolfgang Schäffner, investigate the potential of the processual and untamable — ranging from microbial co-designing, morphogenetic experimentation and atmospheric creation to plasticity and liveliness in architecture, history of art and scientific concepts. Walking the line between analog and digital forms, the 19 Cluster perspectives not only cross disciplinary and methodological boundaries but also aim at installing a new material paradigm between the epistemic cultures of sciences, humanities, and design.
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Drawing Together, BLiX/AG HOPG/TU Berlin, JMD 2024. Copyright: Judith Marlen Dobler
11.12.2024
Aufzeichnungen einer Designforscherin
MoA Mitglied Judith Marlen Dobler hält Vortrag im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung »seɘ – ander(e)s sehen« an der weißensee kunsthochschule berlin
Wir freuen uns sehr, zur Antrittsvorlesung unserer neuen Clusterprofessorin Judith Marlen Dobler einzuladen. Judith ist Gastprofessorin für Performative Design Research im Fachgebiet Theorie und Geschichte an der weißensee kunsthochschule berlin. Ihr Forschungsinteresse liegt im wechselseitigen Transfer aktueller Entwurfsverfahren und wissenschaftlicher Arbeitsmethoden, wie sie in Ateliers und Laboren auftreten. Dabei richtet sie den Blick insbesondere auf zeitgenössische Medien- und Kommunikationspraktiken in der wissenschaftlichen Forschung. Im Vortrag stellt sie eine Methoden-Assemblage aus historischer Diskursanalyse, visueller und sensorischer Anthropologie sowie zeichnerischer Forschung vor, mit der sie an theoretische und angewandte Diskurse anschließt.
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4.12.2024
Horst Bredekamp Received the Knight's Cross
Cluster Co-Director Awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
On December 4th, 2024, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Horst Bredekamp received the Knight's Cross, Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Cavaliere dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana) from the Italian Ambassador Varricchio, awarded by President Sergio Mattarella. We warmly congratulate our Cluster's Senior Co-Director Professor Bredekamp on this special honor.
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»Architectural Yarns«. Photo: Michelle Mantel. Copyright: Matters of Activity
40h per Month – Application Deadline: 13 December 2024 – Start of Employment: As soon as possible (January 2025)
The Research Group »Architectural Yarns« is currently looking for a Student Assistant to conduct experimental prototyping, documentation and preparation of processes and results, support and assist with meetings and events, and support with administrative processes and tasks at the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«. Apply now!
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Akhil Amer, Claudia Plascencia: Experiments within Coding IxD studio project »Paper:Drive«, 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity
21.10.2024–31.3.2025
PAPER:DRIVE
Coding IXD Studio Project for Coeducation in Computer Science and Design
In this year's Coding IxD research-oriented studio project, students from Computer Science at the Freie Universität Berlin and product design at weißensee school of art and design berlin will explore paper as a medium to store and interact with digital data. We will investigate how to design physical machines and digital processes to output, transfer, interact with, store, and read information within a novel explicit use case. The seminar is supervised by Cluster members Prof. Thomas Ness, Peter Sörries and Hanna Wiesener.
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28.11.2024
Einschränkung und Effizienz
Workshop mit Vortrag von Robert Stock
Der Workshop organisiert vom Sonderforschungsbereich »Virtuelle Lebenswelten« an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum nimmt virtuelle Praktiken in den Blick, bei denen die angestrebte Effizienzsteigerung auf Einschränkung und Komplexitätsreduktion beruht: Wenn komplexe alltägliche Verhältnisse auf ein bewältigbares Mindestmaß heruntergebrochen und Unwichtiges ausgefiltert, ausgegraut oder virtuell nicht abgebildet wird; wenn die Anwendungen Teilhabe nicht steigern, sondern überhaupt erst ermöglichen sollen. Jenseits von Virtualitätsnarrativen, die die Ausschöpfung alles technisch Möglichen voraussetzen, diskutieren wir Szenarien, in denen VR-Anwendungen vor allem eins tun sollen: vereinfachen, reduzieren, einschränken.
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Seaweed resonance, presentation by Julia Lohmann (Aalto, Helsinki). Copyright Photo: Clemens Winkler
14.11.2024–15.11.2024
Sensing Common Grounds. Towards Collaborative Speculation
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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14.11.2024
Sensing Common Grounds. Towards Collaborative Speculation
Roundtable Questions Future Role of Embodied Knowledges, Situated Inquiry and Extra-Academic Encounters
The roundtable addresses current challenges at the intersection of critical humanities scholarship and design research by discussing nuanced means of knowing and making. It attends to collaborative speculation in inter- and transdisciplinary contexts to sense and unearth common grounds through the reality of the ecological predicament. Together with our guests, we ask about the narratives, prototypes, norms, materials and media that hold knowledge (and non-knowledge) of such speculations and public imaginaries: How to unlearn and unmake dominant modes of worldmaking by cutting across disciplines, foregrounding embodied knowledges, situated inquiry and extra-academic encounters?
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21.11.2024–22.11.2024
Biomimetics, Bioinspired, Biorobotics: Discourses on Nature in the 21st Century
Workshop Organized by Michael Friedman and Marco Tamborini
The workshop aims to explore the new discourses, metaphors, and conceptual approaches in which the research on biomimetics as well as on bioinspired and biorobotics materials is embedded. By bringing together HPS experts in biomimetics, bioinspired, and biorobotics disciplines, we seek to understand how formative these discourses and metaphors are. We aim to explore how they reflect older traditions, identify the actions that support the use of such concepts, and examine how they contribute to a new conceptual and philosophical landscape in the 21st century.
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21.11.2024
Senses and Sense-Making
Talk and Conversation with Michaela Büsse and Tim Ingold
We're thrilled to announce that artist-researcher and MoA-associated member Michaela Büsse will contribute together with anthropologist Tim Ingold as part of an evening centred around what it means to 'turn the ground' and resist reclaimed land. Following a short talk from each guest, a conversation with the audience will be chaired by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan. The hybrid event is part of the Field Forum series at the Architectural Association in London, that centres the interconnectedness embedded in the built environment, attuning our senses to material flows, planetary scales, intergenerational times and all the life entangled in these processes.
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Edward Burtinsky, Iberia Quarries #2, Marmorose EFA Co., Bencatel, Portugal, 2006
21.11.2024–23.11.2024
Before the Object. Material Histories, Infrastructures and Ecologies
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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Paper Fieldwork, Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé
28.11.2024
»Sketching Brains« at Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin
Exhibition of Drawings by Maxime Le Calvé in Steglitz
We kindly invite you to the Vernissage of »Sketching Brains« at Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin. »Sketching Brains« is a collaborative exhibition-as-research project that nurtures new conversations around the neurosurgical practice. Based on a series of fieldwork within the Neurosurgical Department at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin by graphic ethnographer Maxime Le Calvé and the research of neurosurgeon and cultural scientist Anna L. Roethe, this initiative takes the form of graphic-based stories, presented and continued both onsite and online. The texts are comment-enabled to make the community react and question the descriptions. The »participant exhibition« becomes a vibrant collaborative forum to understand more profoundly the implications of neurosurgery in people’s lives, on both sides of the scalpel.
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27.11.2024
How to Hold Things
Rahel Kesselring spricht im Rahmen der »Critical Ecologies« Vortragsreihe
»Critical Ecologies« ist eine für und mit Szenographiestudierenden organsierte Veranstaltungsreihe der ZHdK Zürich und der HfBK Dresden. Ihr Fokus liegt darauf, gemeinsam ein ökologisches und nachhaltiges Denken, Forschen und Handeln in den darstellenden Künsten (weiter) zu entwickeln. Am 27. November gibt MoA PhD Kandidatin Rahel Kesselring unter dem Titel »How to hold things: Reparatur, Regeneration und Rewilding als künstlerische Praktiken in versehrten Ökosystemen« Einblicke in ihre Forschung.
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Copyright: TUM, Institute for Advanced Studies
22.11.2024
Agentive Matter(s)
Karola Dierichs Contributes to Workshop at TU München
Advanced digital technologies and research in architectural materials and construction processes are transforming work and life towards digitalisation and sustainability. These developments present opportunities to reduce environmental impacts and address long-standing labour inequalities, social injustices, and gender imbalances in the field. This workshop at TU München aims to explore how social discourses and knowledge cultures shape and are shaped by new technologies, and will serve as the basis for the development of an educational format that asks what social actions the history of technological artifacts produces today and how we can shape them to achieve sustainable results. We are happy to share that MoA Professor Karola Dierichs will contribute to this project with her research on »Cultural Creations: Minimal Machines«.
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15.11.2024–16.11.2024
Disability, Technology and Change
Workshop Organized by Cluster Professor Robert Stock and Magdalena Zdrodowska, Jagiellonian University
Recently, there has been growing scholarship in design, art, technology, and science regarding their relationships with disability, thus exploring issues of materiality as well as complex embodiment and cognitive difference. In opposition to previous narratives, these novel and critical accounts center on disability as a creative force, an embodied experience that fosters innovation and allows for new affordances of already known and circulating objects, practices and knowledges. This workshop, organized by Cluster member Robert Stock, Junior Professor for Cultures of Knowledge, and Magdalena Zdrodowska, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Audiovisual Arts of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, aims to challenge and suggest to pluralise the established notions of the normal, normalcy or normativity in the history and theory of technology and design.
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18.11.2024
Diversität der Funktion durch Kontrolle der Struktur
Cluster-Sprecher Peter Fratzl hält MoA Talk zu Biologischen Materialien
Mit großer Freude teilen wir die Einladung zum nächsten MoA Talk mit Cluster-Sprecher Peter Fratzl an der weißensee kunsthochschule berlin. Fratzl erforscht die Bauprinzipien natürlicher Materialien wie z.B. Knochen oder Muschelschalen, aber auch von Pflanzen und ihren Zellwänden. Als Physiker interessieren ihn insbesondere die mechanischen Eigenschaften von organischen Materialien, die sich konstant an äußere Bedingungen anpassen. Ergebnisse aus der Verbindung von Materialeigenschaften und Struktur werden in biomimetische Entwicklungen und neue Materialien übersetzt.
Der Vortrag findet im Rahmen des MoA Design Research Studio »Scaling Nature – Tiles and Tissues« des Fachbereichs Textil- und Material Design unter der Leitung von Prof. Christiane Sauer statt. more
Der Vortrag findet im Rahmen des MoA Design Research Studio »Scaling Nature – Tiles and Tissues« des Fachbereichs Textil- und Material Design unter der Leitung von Prof. Christiane Sauer statt. more
12.11.2024
Tessellated Skins and Shells
Felix Rasehorn gives a MoA Talk at weißensee school of art and design
On Tuesday, 12 November 2024, Felix Rasehorn will give insights into his work as a design researcher at »Matters of Activity« developing his practice-based doctoral thesis at TU Berlin. His research focuses on the principle of tessellation in nature and its transfer into wearable designs. Since 2019, Felix and the designer Robin Hoske lead the Berlin-based WINT Design Lab. The studio designs products and conducts design
research for clients like Adidas, SPACE10 and IKEA.
The lecture is part of MoA Design Research Studio, Scaling Nature »Tiles and Tissues« at the Material and Textile Design Department, headed by Cluster member Prof. Christiane Sauer. more
research for clients like Adidas, SPACE10 and IKEA.
The lecture is part of MoA Design Research Studio, Scaling Nature »Tiles and Tissues« at the Material and Textile Design Department, headed by Cluster member Prof. Christiane Sauer. more
7.11.2024
Battle of the Brains
The Science Slam of the Berlin Clusters of Excellence
Slammin’ like there’s no tomorrow – at the Science Slam of the Berlin Clusters of Excellence, researchers try everything to entertain their audience, regardless of whether the subject is e.g. mathematics, neuroscience, or active material. For Matters of Activity, Associated Member Heidi Jalkh will present her latest research under the title »From Awe to Wonder - Designing Nature Inspired Materials«. Join us on November 7th at Roadrunner's Paradise Club, it will be a great evening! The event is part of Berlin Science Week 2024.
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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.
5.11.2024
The Whispering World: Words by a Silent Sea
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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Traveling Exhibition Bakteriopolis, 2024 Photo: Sven Ellger, TU Dresden
1.11.2024–10.10.2024
Bakteriopolis
Exhibition at Museum für Naturkunde
Bakteriopolis is a mobile exhibition built into a shipping container showcasing bacteria and their amazing ability to form multicellular aggregates. These very common and sometimes spectacularly looking ›biofilms‹ may cause chronic infectious diseases but are also involved in beneficial activities such as food fermentation. Designed as a public outreach activity of the DFG-funded priority program SPP2389 at TU Dresden, Bakteriopolis is traveling through Germany and will be presented in front of Naturkundemuseum Berlin during Berlin Science Week from 1-10 November 2024. On the 5th and 6th of November, MoA PhD student José Ignacio Hernández Lobato will lead through the exhibition and experiments at Bakteriopolis and will give you a glimpse into his research on how bacterial biofilms and plant-microbe interactions impact fermentative textile dyeing. Bakteriopolis is designed to be accessible to adults as well as kids.
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Screenshot from Berlin Science Week Website. Copyright: Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash
5.11.2024
The Future of Green Chemistry
Fardin and Siamak Gholami's Co-Filter Project Finalist in Pitch Event
Discover the future of green chemistry at a live pitch event! Unveil the synergy between society, sustainability, chemistry, and innovation. Watch, vote, and engage. We warmly invite you to this pitching slam, where the scientific publisher Wiley and the Berlin chemistry innovation ecosystem greenCHEM will host a showcase of cutting-edge chemistry innovations. Fardin and Siamak Gholami's »Co-Filter« project has been selected as a finalist between »5 great project ideas«, where chemistry can be the basis of an impactful application in society. Join the event in person or virtually at Wiley's Berlin office! The event is part of Berlin Science Week 2024.
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1.11.2024–2.11.2024
Metempyschosis
Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Natalija Miodragović, and Emma Sicher are Part of Talk Series on Mycelium
The exhibition and talks aim at celebrating the intersection of art, design, science, and ecology, and at exploring how the process of mycofabrication – using fungi as a tool for manufacturing – and multispecies design can reshape our perceptions, inspire new ways of thinking and reconnect us to the environment. Metempsychosis, the idea of mind transmigration, serves as a metaphor for the transformative journey of creating with living mycelium, which not only serves as a medium but actively participates in the creative process. Cluster members Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Natalija Miodragović, and Emma Sicher will contribute to the talk series on November 2nd from 5 pm in Berlin-Mitte.
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Samples from the CONQ project, 2024. Copyright: Angie Dub and Heidi Jalkh
1.11.2024
In a Seashell
Workshop with Angie Dub and Heidi Jalkh at Berlin Science Week 2024 Fully Booked - Save Your Last Spot on the Waiting List!
We're thrilled to share that we will contribute to this year's Berlin Science Week with a workshop about connecting marine-based industries and construction for more sustainable architecture. Each year, over 10 million tonnes of shells—mostly from oysters, clams, scallops, and mussels—are discarded as waste despite their high calcium carbonate content. How could we make better use of the potential of these ingenious materials? Let’s explore this together! With inputs from MoA member Christiane Sauer, Kika Brockstedt from the material data platform revalu, and many more.
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Inverse problem for fabrication: From a 3D model a deposition plan is optimized for a 3D printed plate, such that once dipped into water the plate deforms into the target shape. This is achieved by optimizing the shape of the plate and the orientation of the plastic deposition trajectories. Copyright: Thibault Tricard, Vincent Tavernier, David Jourdan, Cédric Zanni, Jonàs Martínez, Pierre-Alexandre Hugron, Fabrice Neyret, Camille Schreck, Sylvain Lefebvre
1.9.2025–5.9.2025
Morphing Structural Materials – From Biology to Physics to Architecture
Advanced Course at International Centre for Mechanical Sciences in Udine, September 2025 – Register Now!
Matter is rarely completely static: often matter can morph. This is true for all living systems that grow, adapt, and change shape. Indeed, cells divide, leaves and fungi grow, octopuses transform, and wings reshape to control flight. But it is also true that bread rises and that pasta swells. While morphing is omnipresent in the living, it is not confined to it. Harnessing morphing capacities has many potential applications, from machines and robots to architecture. The goal of this course with lectures by MoA members Peter Fratzl and Karola Dierichs, is to review the current and fast-growing knowledge about structural materials that change shape or develop spontaneous internal stresses that improve their properties.
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Copyright: ICI Berlin
23.10.2024–26.10.2024
Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures
Conference Organized by Claudia Mareis – Full Program and Registration Now Online
The conference »Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures« brings 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 offers 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 gathering is open for artists, academics and activists for rethinking design's role in producing our present and developing alternative planetary futures. The full program is now online!
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Cover »Nach der Natur – Laborbuch zur Ausstellung im Humboldt Labor«. Copyright: Diaphanes
22.10.2024
Nach der Natur
Laborbuch zur Ausstellung im Humboldt Labor veröffentlicht
Was bedeutet Wissensvermittlung heute? Wie lassen sich neuartige Formen des Austauschs zwischen den Disziplinen, aber auch zwischen Universität und Gesellschaft durch die Einbeziehung kuratorischer Praktiken etablieren?
2021 wurde das Humboldt Labor eröffnet – und der Name ist Programm: Hier werden nicht allein Ergebnisse abgeschlossener Forschungen präsentiert, sondern der Ort stellt selbst ein experimentierendes Labor der Humboldt-Universität dar. Zur Ausstellung »Nach der Natur«, die auch Werke von Matters of Activity zeigt, wurde nun ein Laborbuch veröffentlicht, welches im Diaphanes Verlag erschien. more
2021 wurde das Humboldt Labor eröffnet – und der Name ist Programm: Hier werden nicht allein Ergebnisse abgeschlossener Forschungen präsentiert, sondern der Ort stellt selbst ein experimentierendes Labor der Humboldt-Universität dar. Zur Ausstellung »Nach der Natur«, die auch Werke von Matters of Activity zeigt, wurde nun ein Laborbuch veröffentlicht, welches im Diaphanes Verlag erschien. more
Exhibition of research objects during the MoA PhD presentations 2024. Posterlayout Ada Favaron. Copyright: Matters of Activity
27.9.2024
testing un/common grounds
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
23.9.2024
Dissect
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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Microbes and Materials, 2024. Copyright: Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung
26.9.2024–5.12.2024
Microbes and Materials
Lecture Series Organized by Anna A. Gorbushina
The public lecture series, organized by the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und —prüfung (BAM) and the Freie Universität Berlin (FU), will focus on the interactions of living organisms with materials. The five lectures by internationally renowned experts will be in English and take place on Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. starting on September 26th. They will be moderated by MoA member Anna A. Gorbushina (BAM&FU), Liane G. Benning (GFZ&FU), and Matthias Rillig (FU Berlin). The lecture series takes place at BAM headquarters and Branch Adlershof. All lectures can be attended in person or followed digitally.
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CollActive Materials’ Workshop »Open Lab Abend: Wachsende Architektur – Co-Design mit Pilzen« im Futurium Lab, 13. Juni 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity
20.9.2024–22.9.2024
Holitopia 2024
Several MoA Members Contribute to the Festival on Future Design
Witness future design and art coming together to turn visions into reality: futures you can see and touch! MoA members Christian Stein, Rasa Weber, Natalija Miodragovic, Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Antje Nestler and Kristin Werner contribute to this year's Holitopia Festival with a keynote, panel, discussion and speculative workshop at Campus Wilhelminenhof of HTW Berlin. Don't miss your chance for a reduced ticket for the conference day. But there are also lots of free activities, such as the exhibition »Above the Sea of Air« with works from the Cluster.
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Syntopia 1—Soma I Body, Minimal Machines by Matters of Activity. Copyright: Sebastián Plaza Kutzbach
3.9.2024–1.1.2025
Call for Papers: Minimal Machines
Cultures of Mixed Reality for Architectural and Construction Robotics
Minimal machines are understood as experimental approaches to kinetic processes in an age of robotics, where both hardware and software are reduced to their essential minimum. Cluster members Karola Dierichs and Karin Krauthausen together with Glenda Caldwell (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) and Dagmar Reinhardt (University of Sydney, Australia) aim to edit a Topical Collection reflecting on the rapidly emerging field of Mixed Reality (MR) in architecture, considering not only its technological aspects but also its cultural and human-centered implications. They invite contributions from the fields of Computational Design and Construction as well as the Humanities.
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Anna Schaeffner, Soft Collision at Ars Electronica 2024. Copyright: vog.photo / Ars Electronica Flickr
5.9.2024
Ars Electronica 2024
Projects by Anna Schäffner and Clemens Winkler Exhibited in the 45th edition of the Festival
This year's Ars Electronica Festival in Linz featured projects by Cluster Members. Anna Schäffner's project »Soft Collision« (2024) was shown as part of the S+T+ARTs Prize. Meet the Artist sessions provided inspiring moments of exchange and debate with a diverse audience. Clemens Winkler's students of the MA Studio »Spiel&Objekt« at the Ernst Busch University of Theatre Arts Berlin were nominated for this year's Ars Electronica Campus Award. Congratulations on this honor!
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Adaptive Digital Twin. Copyright: Lucius Fekonja
17.9.2024
The Digital Twin in Neuroscience
Interdisciplinary Cluster Research Published in Frontiers Neuroscience
How can digital twins illustrate the complex relationships between the plastic dynamics and function of brain networks? Based on the clinical scenario of brain tumor patients, the authors, including Cluster members Lucius Fekonja, Rosario Tomasello, Samo Tomšič, and Thomas Picht, provide answers to this question. Discussing methods of technical modeling with philosophical concepts, the article, published in Frontiers Neuroscience in September 2024, presents a theoretical framework that bridges philosophical theorizing, neuroscience, and clinical practice.
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Still »Change by Design«. Copyright: ARTE.tv
24.8.2024
Change by Design
Claudia Mareis Contributes as an Expert to an ARTE Documentary on Sustainable Design
For all our German and French-speaking friends we have a special treat: ARTE TV visited us and made our Co-Director Claudia Mareis and »Matters of Activity« part of a documentation about sustainable fashion and of course design. English subtitles as well as other languages are also available, so don’t miss it!
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Charlett Wenig und Johanna Hehemyer-Cürten mit der Barksphere am Strausberger Platz, Kampagne »Das offene Wissenslabor«, 2024. Copyright: Berlin University Alliance
9.9.2024–31.10.2024
Welche Materialien und Ressourcen wollen wir in Zukunft verwenden?
Charlett Wenig und Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten über das Bark Project
Fasern, Samenkapseln, Pflanzenstängel oder Seidengespinste – in der Natur gibt es jede Menge unterschiedlicher Materialien, die außergewöhnlichen mechanische Eigenschaften haben und sich an wechselnde Umweltbedingungen anpassen können. Wie funktionieren diese biogenen Materialien und könnten sie möglicherweise Inspirations- und Rohstoffquelle für Architektur, Design oder Produktentwicklung sein? In einem Interview, das Teil der neuen Kampagne der Berlin University Alliana »Das offene Wissenslabor« ist, geben Cluster-Mitglieder Charlett Wenig und Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten Einblicke in die Arbeit der Forschungsgruppe »Adaptive Fibrous Materials« und insbesondere über ihre Forschung zu Baumrinde.
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Folgenbild Syntopische Architekturen, 2024. Käferbefallenes Fichtenholz, Foto: Pelin Asa, MPIKG, adaptiert von MoA.
1.9.2024–30.11.2024
Syntopische Architekturen
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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Open Science
From Left to Right:
Footprint in Cacao. Copyright: Matters of Activity
PhD project of Iva Rešetar. Copyright: Jens Ziehe
Weaving process of stripes of wild silk and indigo dyed cotton. Copyright: Laurence Douny
Extra-Cellular Matrix Liver at Experimental Surgery Lab. Copyright: Igor Sauer
Drawing showing the relation of the cerebral arteries. Copyright: Lucius Fekonja
Project »Performing Clouds«. Copyright: Clemens Winkler
In accordance with the mission statement of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the recommendations of the German Research Foundation, the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« understands openness as an integral part of the research process and is convinced of the principle that there should be free and equal access for all people to the results of scientific work. Digitization offers science new opportunities in dealing with knowledge and information. In this context, the term Open Science bundles strategies and procedures that aim to make all components of the scientific process openly accessible and reusable.
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Syntopia – Harvesting the Forest; MoA Design Research Studio. Prototype by Gaia Reiner. Copyright: Gaia Reiner
1.8.2024–31.8.2024
Syntopia
Harvesting the Forest
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. It was structured in three successive phases. Phase 1 engaged in the speculative design of »Stories of Syntopia«. Phase 2 introduced harvesting, analyzing, making and recording in »Designing Syntopia«. In phase 3, we shared our vision and our designs with a wider public by »Showing Syntopia«.
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TRAZOS Edición Biomateriales, 2024, Gisela Pozzetti, Heidi Jalkh, Sistemas Materiales. Photo: Maia Croizet
12.7.2024–26.8.2024
Matter of South. Biomaterial Cultures from Latin America
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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Ausstellung »Visiting Material Futures«, Futurium 2024. Copyright: David von Becker
3.5.2024–25.8.2024
Visiting Material Futures
Pop-up Exhibition at Futurium
What material futures can we envision if we engage in collaborative speculation? The pop-up exhibition »Visiting Material Futures« explores this question through contributions from Cluster researchers and Futurium workshop participants. The collaboration between »Matters of Activity«, »Futurium«, and the experimental laboratory for Science Communication »CollActive Materials« employs the concept of co-speculation. This method invites knowledge from research, experience, and everyday life into a co-creative exchange about what material futures seem possible to us today. Don't miss your chance to visit the exhibition until the end of August!
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Watery digits at the Venetian sestiere of Dorsoduro. Copyrigth: Gina Caison
22.8.2024
Surface Tension. Tracing Socio-Material Relations Through Urban Waters
Léa Perraudin Holds Evening Lecture at »Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe« in Hamburg as Part of the Exhibition »Water Pressure. Designing for the Future«
What allows one to float? In the evening lecture »Surface Tension. Tracing Socio-Material Relations Through Urban Waters« that concludes the workshop »Built with Water – Anthropocene Interdependencies«, Léa Perraudin will engage the physical phenomenon of surface tension to delve into socio-material relations that emerge in the Venetian lagoon. As a city that thinks every aspect of itself through the water, the liquid grounds of Venice hold potential for frictional and careful encounters alike.
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Bi-Leaf - Morphology of a Movement, Antonia Dönitz, Master Thesis Textile and Material Design, 2024. Image Copyright: Antonia Dönitz / weißensee school of art and design
20.7.2024–21.7.2024
Open House 2024 at Weißensee School of Art and Design
Student Projects On View in Collaboration with »Matters of Activity«
On July 20th and 21st, 2024, 12.00–8.00 pm, weißensee school of art and design berlin will open its studios for the traditional Open House. Also this year, there will be the opportunity to learn more about the design research projects and students’ 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«.
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16.7.2024
Horst Bredekamp Member of Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts
At the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts public annual meeting on Wednesday, July 10th, Senior Co-Director of »Matters of Activity« Horst Bredekamp was accepted as a full member of the Fine Arts Department. We warmly congratulate Professor Bredekamp on this honor. Founded in 1948 by the Free State of Bavaria as the »highest entity for fostering art«, the Academy's mission is to contribute to the intellectual debate within the arts and between society and to advocate the dignity of art.
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Copyright: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Gestaltung: cyan Berlin
17.7.2024
The Making of »Matter of South. Biomaterial Cultures form Latin America«
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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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
1.7.2024
Latent Accumulations. Coastal Phase Change, Paraffin Pollution and Maintenance
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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Fermentation preparation with Tanyaporn Tantasathien. Thailand 2024. Copyright: Emma Sicher
2.7.2024
Generating Biomaterials By Acetic Fermentation
Emma Sicher Exchanged Knowledge with Researchers and Practitioners in Thailand
Between May and June, doctoral researcher Emma Sicher spent three weeks in Thailand as part of her PhD in Design Studies. Invited by Professor Aracha Krasae-in, she presented the work of the Cluster and her current research at the Faculty of Architecture of Kasetsart University in Bangkok. There, she also exchanged ideas with Professor Prakit Sukyai, an expert in Biotechnology and Biopolymers. Additionally, she presented at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts of Thammasat University, invited by Professor Wuthigrai Siriphon.
The heart of the experience consisted of visits to two sites associated with acetic fermentation techniques that can generate biomaterials. These techniques range from ancient practices to more recent methods, employed in various ways from fertilizers to health-promoting substances. The visits took place in small artisanal production realities in Nakhon Ratchasima province, including Stefano and Somporn Abbruzzese, and Micro Friends, an initiative run by Tanyaporn Tantasathien and Waratchanat Thongthiangtham at the Baan Ama farm stay. more
The heart of the experience consisted of visits to two sites associated with acetic fermentation techniques that can generate biomaterials. These techniques range from ancient practices to more recent methods, employed in various ways from fertilizers to health-promoting substances. The visits took place in small artisanal production realities in Nakhon Ratchasima province, including Stefano and Somporn Abbruzzese, and Micro Friends, an initiative run by Tanyaporn Tantasathien and Waratchanat Thongthiangtham at the Baan Ama farm stay. more
Ernest Cormier, Thermometer. ARCH252051 Ernest Cormier fonds, CCA. Copyright: Fonds Ernest Cormier, CCA
29.1.2024
Carbon Present
Virtual Exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal
What does climate accountability look like for architecture? In an online exhibition curated by Arièle Dionne-Krosnick at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), the participants in the »2022 Toolkit for Today: Carbon Present« seminar and the »2022 Doctoral Research Residency Program«, such as Cluster member Iva Rešetar, were invited to collaboratively re-read objects from the CCA collections in ways that highlight how carbon shapes our present built environment. »Researchers generated dynamic terms to frame how we have historically engaged with and continue to manage carbon: to regulate design expertise, to shape social and lived experience, to be comfortable, and to relate to (and profit from) built and natural environments« (CCA).
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Poster Lecture Series 2024, Photo: Charlotte Linton. Copyright: Matters of Activity.
2.5.2024–11.7.2024
Cultures of Regeneration
On 11 July, David Jeevendrampillai spoke about Extra-Terrestrial Anthropology: Design Thinking for a Post-Planetary Social Life
Rapidly increasing socio-ecological damage and the urgent need for care, repair, and recovery have led to renewed calls for regenerative design as a means of wayfinding towards new forms of just and sustainable life on earth, prompting critical questions concerning the reconfigured pasts they invoke to the possible futures they open up. Aiming to (re)design the way we live to support our interdependence on natural ecosystems, regenerative systems thinking is being applied to fundamental fields of human activity, from food production and agriculture to medicine, textiles, architecture, rural revival, and the urban built environment to other-worldly materialities. The lecture series organized by Lucy Norris, which started on May 2nd, will, among other things, explore how traces of former ways of being in the world and concepts such as ›indigenous knowledge‹ are referenced as ways to move forward and ask what futures are being imagined by whom and for whom, and how some forms of living are enabled while other possibilities are negated.
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Concorde Lobster Dinner, 1978. Copyright: Air France.
2.7.2024
Kulturtechniken der Mobilität – Material Cultures of Mobility
Exploratory Workshop
Kulturtechniken der Mobilität – Material Cultures of Mobility aims to foster research into the historical interplay between mobility, cultural techniques, and material culture. By examining how cultural techniques, technologies, and objects have historically facilitated movement and shaped travel, we seek to develop new research questions that can lead to future grant applications. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, participants of this workshop on July 2nd, 2024, will explore themes such as the evolution of travel technologies, the socio-economic impacts and material manifestations of mobility.
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26.6.2024
Wege zur Professur
Vera Meyer zu Gast in neuester Folge des BUA-Podcast »Spot ON«
Im neuen Podcast »Spot ON - Wege zur Professur«, sprechen Mitglieder der Postdoc-Academy der Berlin University Alliance mit Professor*innen aus den vier Berliner Universitäten über ihren Weg zur Professur. Hier geht es nicht um Karriere-Blaupausen, sondern wir wollen wissen: Was waren die entscheidenden Abzweigungen auf dem Karriereweg? Was war im Rückblick besonders wichtig? Was hätten sie gern früher gewusst und was würden sie Postdocs heute empfehlen, die eine akademische Karriere anstreben? Wer oder was hat sie besonders beeinflusst? Und ist es jetzt so, wie sie es sich vorgestellt hatten? In der neuesten Folge gibt Clustermitglied Vera Meyer, Professorin für Mikrobiologie an der TU Berlin, Antworten auf diese Fragen und Einblicke in ihre Forschung.
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Skylab Food Tray, December 30, 1971. Copyright: NASA S72-15409
26.6.2024
Floating Food / Creating Knowledge
Alwin J. Cubasch's Article About NASA Food Testing Online Now
To survive in space, people also have to eat in space. In preparation for the first American space station Skylab, NASA food experts tested food systems on parabolic flights. Cluster member Alwin Cubasch has delved into the NASA archive material from the early 1970's and applied concepts from the history of science to the fields of historical food science and the history of nutritional science. His findings can now be read in an article on the »History of Knowledge« blog of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC.
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6.6.2024
Sharon Macdonald Member of »Academia Europaea« and Vice-Chair of the Academic Committee of the House of European History
We warmly congratulate our Cluster Member Sharon Macdonald who has been nominated for membership of the Academia Europaea for her »outstanding achievements as a researcher«. She also has been elected as Vice-Chair of the Academic Committee of the House of European History. Macdonald is Professor of Social Anthropology with a focus on museums and cultural heritage at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Director of the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik.
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Exhibition view »Closer to Nature. Building with Mushroom, Tree, Clay«, Berlinische Galerie. Copyright: Photo: Harry Schnitger
16.2.2024–14.10.2024
Closer to Nature
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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22.6.2024
Exzellentes Pub Quiz
Die sieben Berliner Exzellenzcluster laden zum Miträtseln ein
Erneut heißt es bei der Langen Nacht der Wissenschaften 2024: Freunde für ein Team (2-4 Pers.) einladen, einen kreativen/lustigen Team-Namen auswählen, damit ihr beim Pub Quiz der sieben Berliner Exzellenzcluster mitmachen und tolle Preise gewinnen könnt! Es gibt wieder spannende, lustige und überraschende Fragen aus den Forschungsbereichen der Cluster zum Mitraten und Rätseln, die neugierig machen. Gute Stimmung und Laune sind garantiert!
Dabei bleibt keine Synapse ungenutzt, denn die Fragen kommen aus den sieben faszinierenden Forschungsfeldern der Cluster: anwendungsorientierte Mathematik (MATH+), Intelligente Forschung (Science of Intelligence), Katalyse/Grüne Chemie (UniSysCat), Liberale Ordnung (SCRIPTS), Neurowissenschaften (NeuroCure), Weltliteratur (Temporal Communities) und natürlich von uns zu aktiven Materialien! Das breite Spektrum bietet für jede:n etwas. more
Dabei bleibt keine Synapse ungenutzt, denn die Fragen kommen aus den sieben faszinierenden Forschungsfeldern der Cluster: anwendungsorientierte Mathematik (MATH+), Intelligente Forschung (Science of Intelligence), Katalyse/Grüne Chemie (UniSysCat), Liberale Ordnung (SCRIPTS), Neurowissenschaften (NeuroCure), Weltliteratur (Temporal Communities) und natürlich von uns zu aktiven Materialien! Das breite Spektrum bietet für jede:n etwas. more
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
17.10.2024
Blasted Seascapes
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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Book Cover Perraudin, L. 2024. Elementare Ekstasen. Sondierungen der Technosphäre. Series: Future Ecologies, Lüneburg: meson Press.
31.5.2024
Elementare Ekstasen. Sondierungen der Technosphäre
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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18.6.2024
Forum Wissenswerte: Neue (und alte) Baumaterialien
Gesprächsrunde der Technologiestiftung Berlin mit Christiane Sauer nun in Mediathek abrufbar
In Berlin wird gebaut - ständig und viel. Doch vom einfachen »Stein auf Stein« sind wir mittlerweile weit entfernt. Wissenschaftler:innen aus Berlin erforschen neue Materialien wie Biobeton oder den Einsatz von Textilien und Pilzen. Aber auch »Altes« findet im zirkulären Bauen neuen Einsatz. Über altes und neues Baumaterial sprach Christiane Sauer, MoA-Mitglied und Professorin für Material und Entwurf im räumlichen Kontext an der weißensee kunsthochschule berlin, mit Wolfram Schmidt (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) und Annabelle von Reutern (Verband für Bauen im Bestand e.V.) am 18. Juni 2024, in der Technologiestiftung Berlin. Das Gespräch, moderiert von Jessica Wiener, kann nun in der Mediathek des rbb24 Inforadio nachgehört werden.
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Mykoplektonik by Natalija Miodragović and Dimitra Almpani-Lekka. Copyright: Matters of Activity
13.6.2024
Growing Architecture - Co-Designing with Fungi
Last Open Lab Evening of the Series »Visiting Material Futures« at the Futurium
In the last workshop of the series at Futurium, we dive into the interconnected world of fungi and their mycelium. Together with architects Dimitra Almpani-Lekka and Natalija Miodragović, we explore the properties and behaviors of mycelium in nature and architecture, to speculate about future relations and applications: Could the buildings of tomorrow be grown in collaboration with plants and fungi? Can fungi help us build life-supporting networks in the cities to maintain natural resources and the local biodiversity? How can co-designing and co-habiting with a living organism transform our experience of future architecture and our relationships with other species? The workshop is already fully booked.
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Beetle-infestation of spruce, Feldbuch, Frankonia. Image: Pelin Asa, MPI-CI, MoA
5.6.2024
Symbiotic Futures 1.0
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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Visit of Sylvie Retailleau at Matters of Activity, 28 May 2024. Photo: Stefan Klenke. Copyright: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
28.5.2024
Matters of Activity Welcomed French Minister of Higher Education and Research
Sylvie Retailleau Visited Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
During her visit to Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on May 28th, the French Minister for Higher Education and Research, Sylvie Retailleau also visited the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«. After a presentation of the Cluster Directors about the current research of »Matters of Activity«, several MoA researchers gave insights into their work in the MoA Design Studio and the Activarium, the Cluster's showroom. The framework for Retailleau's visit was provided by the state visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Germany from May 26th to 28th.
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Bauhaus Earth Fellows 2024 Angie Dub and Heidi Jalkh
25.4.2024–28.11.2024
From Mono-Material to Multi-Performance
MoA Member Heidi Jalkh and Angie Dub New Bauhaus Earth Fellows
We are delighted that MoA Associated Member Heidi Jalkh has been awarded one of the 2024 Bauhaus Earth Fellowships together with Argentinian colleague Angie Dub. Congratulations! In their project »From Mono-Material to Multi-Performance« materials designer Heidi Jalkh and environmental architect Angie Dub will focus on advancing a bioceramic material made at ambient temperature from shellfish industry waste. Through this work, they will build on 10 years of experience in materials experimentation. The fellowship will enable critical milestones towards certification for application by prototyping and testing mono-material gradients in collaboration with RWTH Aachen. At the same time, Heidi and Angie will work with Bauhaus Earth to demonstrate potential applications of the material in 1:1 architectural fragments in Berlin and Buenos Aires.
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Workshop »More than Human Sketching 1«, Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, May 2024. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé.
29.5.2024–30.5.2024
Drawing as Digestion: Spatial Knowing Processes
Report of the First »More than Human Sketching« Workshop at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin
The first event of the »More-than-human Sketching« series was a great success. Not only were the workshops fully booked, but the SpecLab team also spent two days developing a new immersive performance for the museum's visitors using augmented reality glasses and spatial drawing software. The performance, »Drawing as Digestion: Spatial Knowing Processes,« was be presented to the public soon after. Short lectures and activities by Elaine Bonavia, Paulina Greta Stefanovic, and Maxime Le Calvé provided an unusual framework for participants to engage with the embodied and transformative power of tracing lines and being traced by them.
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Project PERISKOP. Copyright: Digital Surgery Lab, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
22.4.2024
Researchers from Matters of Activity Awarded the Max Rubner Prize 2024
Interdisciplinary Teams Want to Empower Patients Through VR Experiences and Robotics
On April 22nd, 2024 the Charité Foundation awarded the Max Rubner Award 2024 to four members of »Matters of Activity«, Zeynep Akbal, Moritz Queisner, Igor Sauer, and Claudia Müller-Birn, among others. Our warmest congratulations on this prestigious award!
The researchers and their colleagues from the Digital Surgery Lab at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin want to use the award money to advance the PERISKOP project, which focuses on reducing preoperative anxiety and uncertainties of patients in the operating theater environment. The »Communication Robot in the Emergency Department« project, in which Claudia Müller-Birn (FU Berlin) is involved, aims to improve communication and check-in processes for patients in the emergency department. more
The researchers and their colleagues from the Digital Surgery Lab at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin want to use the award money to advance the PERISKOP project, which focuses on reducing preoperative anxiety and uncertainties of patients in the operating theater environment. The »Communication Robot in the Emergency Department« project, in which Claudia Müller-Birn (FU Berlin) is involved, aims to improve communication and check-in processes for patients in the emergency department. more
Gestalten mit Cellulose, Wasser und Luft. Copyright: Eva Bullermann
9.5.2024
Magic Machines aus Bio-Plastik
Open Lab Abend der Reihe »Materialzukünfte besuchen« im Futurium
In diesem Workshop ging es um flexible Materialien wie Cellulose, Bio-Plastik und Silikon als mögliche (neue) Materialien für Soft Robotics oder gar biologische Maschinen. Soft Robotics ist ein relativ junges Forschungsfeld, das sich mit alternativen Ansätzen zur Gestaltung der Maschinen von morgen beschäftigt. Wie können wir Maschinen bauen, damit sie sensibler und anpassbarer werden? Können wir dafür adaptive vielleicht sogar nachhaltige Materialien nutzen, statt immer mehr Metall, Plastik und Energie zu verbrauchen? Mit den Design-Forscherinnen Anna Schäffner und Eva Bullermann spekulieren wir darüber, wie die Maschinen der Zukunft gestaltet sein könnten. Wie sieht deine Magic Machine aus?
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Copyright: Sistemas Materiales
11.4.2024
Trazos
Pioneering Publication on Biomaterials Launched in Buenos Aires
»Trazos« is a pioneering publication in Spanish in the interdisciplinary field of biomaterials developments. The book is divided into three sections which explore, interrogate, shape, and reflect on these scientific and creative advancements. This book encourages interaction between the Spanish-speaking community and provides access to a topic predominantly discussed in English. It seeks to stimulate dialogue and amplify the reach of the Latin American biomaterials field to a broader audience. Likewise, it aspires to foster collaborations that transcend language barriers, promoting enriching exchanges of ideas and knowledge. The book, edited by MoA Associated Member Heidi Jalkh and Gisela Pozzetti, and designed by Paula Rodríguez, includes contributions by MoA researchers Bastian Beyer, Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten, Wolfgang Schäffner, Daniel Suárez, Charlett Wenig and by Rodrigo Martin Iglesias, Coordinator of the Master Open Design.
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The struggle for the best ideas is also a social survival strategy, believes the design researcher Claudia Mareis. Her ideas are changing how we view design. | Image: Kostas Maros / 13Photo. Copyright: Horizons
7.12.2023
All is Design
Interview with Claudia Mareis in »Horizons – The Swiss Research Magazine«
When we hear the word ›design‹, we usually think of shapes and colours, maybe of specific chairs, lamps or appliances in the area of product design. Perhaps even architecture comes to mind. But the projects and publications of Claudia Mareis open up a completely different field. She is concerned with ›governance through design‹, with so-called active material, techniques of creativity and knowledge cultures. How does all this fit together? There are two traditions of thought, says Mareis in an interview with »Horizons – The Swiss Research Magazine«.
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Marco Tamborini: Biorobotik zur Einführung
17.5.2024–31.5.2024
Biorobotik zur Einführung
Neue Publikation von Clustermitglied Marco Tamborini
Was ist Biorobotik? Unter welchen philosophischen, historischen und ethischen Voraussetzungen können bioinspirierte Roboter gebaut werden? Wie haben sich das Bild des Menschen und das Verhältnis von Natur und Technik durch die Herstellung von biohybriden Robotern verändert?
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Mykoplektonik by Natalija Miodragović and Dimitra Almpani-Lekka. Copyright: Matters of Activity
13.6.2024
Growing Architecture - Co-Designing with Fungi
Last Open Lab Evening of the Series »Visiting Material Futures« at the Futurium
In the last workshop of the series at Futurium, we dive into the interconnected world of fungi and their mycelium. Together with architects Dimitra Almpani-Lekka and Natalija Miodragović, we explore the properties and behaviors of mycelium in nature and architecture, to speculate about future relations and applications: Could the buildings of tomorrow be grown in collaboration with plants and fungi? Can fungi help us build life-supporting networks in the cities to maintain natural resources and the local biodiversity? How can co-designing and co-habiting with a living organism transform our experience of future architecture and our relationships with other species? The workshop is already fully booked.
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»Yu Li, a diary of cooking a curtain« by Tin Qizhen Gao, detail of curtain. Copyright: Mareike Stoll for MoA Design Research Studio Beyond the Curtain
13.2.2024
BEYOND THE CURTAIN. Creating Transient Environments
Documentation of the Final Presentations and Exhibition
The Final Presentations of the MoA Design Research Studio »BEYOND THE CURTAIN. Creating Transient Environments« took place on February 13, 2024, at the Foyer of the Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. The MoA Design Research Studio »BEYOND THE CURTAIN. Creating Transient Environments« explored curtains as active spatial elements. Within the framework of the semester project, numerous inspiring and convincing works were developed.
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Thermography shows the effect of shading and the influence of solar radiation on surface temperatures. Copyright: Maxie Schneider
14.3.2024
Materialzukünfte besuchen: Smartes Material für überhitzte Städte
Workshop Series at Futurium
Gestaltet das Futurium Lab selbst mit! In der öffentlichen Workshopreihe »OPEN LAB ABEND: Materialzukünfte besuchen« spekulierten Teilnehmende darüber, aus welchen Materialien die Welt von morgen gemacht sein könnte. Die Workshopreihe umfasste 4 Termine und fand von März bis Juni im Futurium statt. Forschende von »Matters of Activity« (MoA) gaben Einblick in ihre Arbeit. Davon ausgehend entwickelten Teinehmende Zukunftsszenarien und gestalteten Prototypen, die im Anschluss zusammen mit Objekten aus der MoA-Forschung im Lab ausgestellt wurden. Begleitet wurden Teilnehmende dabei vom spekulationserfahrenen Team von »CollActive Materials«.
It’s getting hot in here... In diesem ersten Workshop ging es darum, wie wir mit smarten Materialien die Städte der Zukunft gestalten können. Im Sommer machen steigende Temperaturen, Metall und Beton das Leben in der Innenstadt für alle Bewohnenden immer mehr zur Herausforderung. Welche Materialien schaffen Abhilfe in überhitzten Städten?
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Intro, Excursion Filtering Oranienburg, 2023. Foto: Sybille Neumeyer.
23.2.2024
Tracing Tainted Environments: Legacies of Oranienburg
Online Documentation of Interdisciplinary Cluster Workshop Available Now
In March 2023, an interdisciplinary team from design, computer science, art, and cultural studies examined various concepts of dealing with radioactive waste and the historical environmental impact of the industrial site of Oranienburg. While exploring the history of radioactive legacies in Oranienburg, we were confronted with different types of information: traces of the former industrial sites and bombings, symbols, maps, or signs of cleaning and securing as well as memorials as part of today's culture of remembrance. Oranienburg, with its multi-layered historical legacies, but also the land activations that have taken place, thus offered a concrete environment for the workshop questions as a field of research and experimentation. The group now published detailed documentation of the workshop.
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Cover Material Trajectories, 2023. Coypright Meson Press
23.2.2024
Future Ecologies | Material Trajectories. Designing With Care?
Book Launch on 23 February at Pro qm Bookstore
»Material Trajectories: Designing With Care?« turns towards material-driven design processes with the aim of relocating technoscientific trajectories. Concerned with new forms of caretaking, it combines positions from the extended fields of design research and humanities scholarship including practice-based approaches. The contributions are an outcome of the 2021 Annual Conference of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF), organized in cooperation with »Matters of Activity«. The volume is edited by MoA members Léa Perraudin, Clemens Winkler and Claudia Mareis, and Matthias Held, Prorector for Research at Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, and published as part of the Future Ecologies Series in 2023 by Meson Press. The digital edition can be downloaded free of charge on the publisher’s website
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MoA Design Research Studio »DeLIGHTful«, 2023/2024. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin
14.2.2024
deLIGHTful Interactions | eLab Studio Project
Final Presentations of MoA Design Studio at Weißensee School of Art and Design
On February 14th, 2024 the MoA Design Research studio project »deLIGHTful interactions« held its final presentation at Flughalle 4th floor, weißensee school of art and design berlin. Using the example of light, project contributors led by MoA member Carola Zwick explored how civilizational practices and rituals evolve when technological conditions change. Light offers itself as an exciting and, above all, highly accessible topic to illuminate this field of tension in an exemplary way. For »deLIGHTful interactions«, students worked with light as an active material, demonstration the wide range of technological possibilities at our disposal to develop meaningful and enjoyable interactions.
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Microverse I-6, 2023. Copyright: Kathrin Linkersdorff
26.10.2023–21.1.2024
Microverse
Photographs Created by Kathrin Linkersdorff in Collaboration with Regine Hengge Exhibited at Deichtorhallen
Circularity and sustainability of material flows is a hallmark 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 Cluster member Regine Hengge, Professor for Microbiology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The exhibition at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg will be on view from October 27th, 2023 to January 21st, 2024.
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Cover of »Architectures of Weaving«: »Stone Web«. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin / Natascha Unger, Idalene Rapp
6.12.2023
Multidisciplinary Anthology Architectures of Weaving
Now Open Access
The volume »Architectures of Weaving«, a rich anthology edited by MoA members Christiane Sauer, Mareike Stoll, Ebba Fransén Waldhör, and Maxie Schneider, published by Jovis Verlag, Berlin in November 2022, is available open access now at De Gruyter. Taking as its point of departure a symposium of the same title held in July 2021, the lavishly illustrated volume brings together contributions from numerous researchers from various disciplines of the Cluster of Excellence and experts from other institutions.
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Plektonik Structural Textiles column – continuous wooden ›Active Yarns‹ 40 mm diameter loops. Copyright: Daniel Suárez & Natalija Miodragović
17.11.2023–31.1.2024
Design for Rethinking Resources
Cluster Members Beyer, Miodragović, Mossé and Suárez Publish in Proceedings of the UIA World Congress of Architects Copenhagen 2023
The book provides new perspectives from leading researchers accentuating and examining the central role of the built environment in conceiving and implementing multifaceted solutions for the complex challenges of our understanding of planetary resources and circularity, revealing critical potentials for architecture and design to contribute in more informed and long-term ways to the urgent transition of our society. Bastian Beyer et. al. contributed with the article »Towards a Bacterially-Induced Textile Architecture« and Daniel Suárez and Natalija Miodragović an article on »Plektonik— Active Yarns for Adaptive Loop-Based Material Systems«.
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Open Space Event, 9 November 2023. Copyright: Matters of Activity
8.11.2023–9.11.2023
Open Space – Active Matter on Stage
MoA Opened its Doors
We are surrounded by matter that is vibrant and active. Yet we often treat matter as if it were passive. Instead of using active material properties and structures, industrial and digital manufacturing, as well as conventional approaches to engineering, design, and architecture, still heavily rely on the passivation of materials, and external energy is added. On November 8th and 9th, Matters of Activity opened its doors to the general public for the first time as part of Berlin Science Week. More than 140 guests on both days were given an insight into the Cluster of Excellence's research.
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Gosia Lehmann, Breathless Choir. Copyright: CollActive Materials, Foto: Michelle Mantel
20.10.2023–9.11.2023
Bound through Air
A Report on the Exhibition »AIRBOUND. Sensing Collective Futures«
Ubiquitous and yet invisible: Air accompanies us daily and is an essential foundation of life. More than that, air will play a fundamental role in determining what futures become possible for us as humans. The exhibition »AIRBOUND. Sensing Collective Futures« (Oct 20th-Nov 9th, 2023) by CollActive Materials offered new perspectives on air as a material, a connecting social element, and a decisive space for negotiating futures.
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Syntopia 1:Soma I Body. Roland Halbe
13.11.2023
Cultures of Creation. »The Intelligence of Art« in Computational Design
Cluster Professor Karola Dierichs Holds Lecture at IntCDC on November 13
Karola Dierichs lecture at the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC) is a first attempt at arguing for an »intelligence of art« in computational design. It will do so by introducing the notion of design as the creation of novelty and will ask the question how this novelty is produced: is it a result of computational data processing or are there other forces at play?
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Workshop participants discussing T.J. Demos recent book »Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today« with the author. »Critical Times« at »Matters of Activity«, 17 & 18 November 2023
17.11.2023–18.11.2023
Critical Times. Part I: Multiple Matter
Workshop with Contributions by T. J. Demos, Sandra Jasper, Kiran Pereira & David Weber-Krebs
Time has become an increasingly critical factor and concept in the wake of Anthropocene debates. With the workshop »Critical Times. Part I: Multiple Matter«, which took place at »Matters of Activity« on November 17 and 18, the organizers asked, what times and temporalities shape the pressing crises of the present but also what temporalities allow for a critical response to a homogenizing crisis of such a present. The focus of the workshop resided in the conjunctions between speculative practices and narratives, other-than-scientific modes of sense-making as well as enchanting, violent, or haunting counter-/temporalities unfolding through eco-artistic practices. Around twenty-five multidisciplinary workshop participants engaged in discussions together with our invited guests — T.J. Demos, Sandra Jasper, Kiran Pereira and David Weber-Krebs.
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Samples of Flax Fiber Bundles as a precursor for Architectural Yarns, adapted by Node Berlin/Oslo. Copyright: Maxie Schneider, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, weißensee school of art and design, Matters of Activity
8.11.2023
Threads: Localities & Temporalities of a Fiber Bio-Economy
Activating Circular Networks Goes Berlin Science Week 2023
How can we deal with the complexities of transitioning to a bio-economy in which natural fiber could play a major role? The second event in the »Activating Circular Network« series unfolded on November 8th, 2023 as a pivotal part of MoA Berlin Science Week. The aim of the organizers Lucy Norris, Khashayar Razghandi, and Hanna Wiesener was to bring together diverse actors — researchers, designers, entrepreneurs, activists and artists — to explore the complexities of transitioning to a bio-economy of natural fibres.
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Brainroads. Copyright: Lene Zech
2.11.2023
Brain Roads
Exploring Neuroplasticity through Art and Science
Like the sculptor with marble, neurosurgeons dialogue with the brain they operate on. Mapping and representing these ›brain roads‹ can be achieved through various imaging methods, which help neurosurgeons extend their knowledge of the cerebral anatomy. The French Professor in neuro-oncology Hugues Duffau is famous for operating on low-grade gliomas by performing awake surgery with very little technology. His methodology includes a complex mix of techniques, disciplines and experiments based on the concept of neuroplasticity and a limited use of medical imaging in the operating room. The workshop, organized by Patricia Ribault, will explore these »Brain Roads« during Berlin Science Week on November 2nd from 10.00 am– 5.00 pm.
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Exhibition Opening »Airbound«, 19 October 2023. Copyright: Matters of Activity
19.10.2023–9.11.2023
Airbound. Sensing Collective Futures
Speculative Exhibition by the »CollActive Materials« Experimental Laboratory
Invisible, and yet everywhere. Air is always already on its way to becoming something else. From molecule to atmosphere: the global climate crisis and thus the possible futures of our coexistence will be decided by means of air. How could a new sensorium emerge for the coming? What will connect us in the future? »Airbound« runs until November 9th and provides space for discussing geopolitical urgencies of the present through climate fictions and speculative everyday scenarios.
As part of Berlin Science Week »CollActive Materials« also organizes the workshop »Introducing: The Breathless Choir« November 4th at Naturkundemuseum.
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»Textile Gestures - Mapping Tactile Practices with Architectural Yarns«, Hand-on Workshop at Bauhaus Study Rooms. Copyright: Thomas Meyer
15.6.2023–16.6.2023
Textile Gestures - Mapping Tactile Practices with Architectural Yarns
Hand-on Workshop at Bauhaus Study Rooms
The Architectural Yarns research group at »Matters of Activity« has been hosting a hands-on workshop on tactile knowledge in performative research at the Bauhaus Study Rooms 2023.
During the one-day workshop, a group of 45 international students from Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, Coop Design Research of the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences explored, verbalized and mapped tactile practices and textile gestures with large-scale yarns made of natural fibers. By investigating reconfigurable textile techniques with yarn samples, insights into collective design and construction processes of fiber-based materials such as ›Architectural Yarns‹ were gained.
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Design, Gestaltung, Formatività. Philosophies of Making. Copyright: Birkhäuser, 2022
15.9.2023
Design, Gestaltung, Formatività. Philosophies of Making
A Central Cluster Publication Edited by Patricia Ribault Released – Now Available Open Access
After the release of the anthology edited by Patricia Ribault, including contributions by Cluster members Samuel Bianchini, Cecile Bidan, Horst Bredekamp, Mason Dean, Emile De Visscher, Peter Fratzl, Lorenzo Guiducci, Leonie Häsler, Claudia Mareis, Martin Müller, Jörg Petruschat, Emanuele Quinz, Khashayar Razghandi, Patricia Ribault, Wolfgang Schäffer and Charlett Wenig, we're happy to announce that the publication is now available open access.
Through the concepts of »Design, Gestaltung and Formatività«, this book sheds new light on the processes of formation and transformation of the material world we live in. In the first part— »Giving Form« —philosophers, historians, psychologists and cultural studies scholars question our modes of giving form, while in the second— »Form Given« — artists, designers, engineers and scientists unfold their creative processes. These »philosophies of making« invite us to reflect on what we do, what we can do, and how to do it, but they also spur us into action.
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Syntopia 1—Soma I Body. Copyright: Karola Dierichs, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, weissensee academy of art and design and Matters of Activity
5.9.2023
Minimal Machines
Paper Published on Augmented Reality (AR) Framework
Elaine Bonavia, Jessica Farmer, Alexandre Mballa-Ekobena, Nikolai Rosenthal, Laurence Douny and Karola Dierichs have published a paper on an augmented reality (AR) framework that uses hand-based motion tracking and data capture. The main contribution lies in the use of haptic data flows rather than visual ones. The AR framework was tested in a one-to-one scale architectural application emulating the spinning behavior of silkworms.
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We're Hiring!
From Left to Right:
Footprint in Cacao. Copyright: Matters of Activity
PhD project of Iva Rešetar. Copyright: Jens Ziehe
Weaving process of stripes of wild silk and indigo dyed cotton. Copyright: Laurence Douny
Extra-Cellular Matrix Liver at Experimental Surgery Lab. Copyright: Igor Sauer
Drawing showing the relation of the cerebral arteries. Copyright: Lucius Fekonja
Project »Performing Clouds«. Copyright: Clemens Winkler
Do you want to join our team? We’re currently searching for three student assistants in different fields and positions. Check out matters-of-activity.de/jobs for more information and apply now!
Unsteady Matter – Investigating Water-Based Design Pathways and 3D Printing Techniques for Hydrogel Composites. Copyright: Tairan (Aurora) Li, Daniel Suárez, Dr. Bastian Beyer
26.5.2023–31.7.2023
Unsteady Matter
Investigating Water-Based Design Pathways and 3D Printing Techniques for Hydrogel Composites
Architectural design conventionally operates within or creates seemingly static and permanent conditions. The two-week project developed by Tairan Li (MoA Young International Fellow 2022) and Daniel Suárez, led by Bastian Beyer, in the context of the project »Weaving« aimed to interrogate these conditions through a series of experiments with hydrogels. This group of materials mainly consists of water held together by three-dimensional polymer chains. Compared to inert materials, hydrogels are in constant dynamic exchange with their surrounding environment. Their water content can vary according to external conditions. They shrink substantially when dried and expand in humid environments and, therefore can be understood as latent buffer materials with ever-changing properties. Furthermore, this volume change can induce strong forces which lead to curling or buckling of the material during the drying process.
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Brochures, doctoral presentations 2023. Layout: Ada Favaron. Project coordination: Franziska Wegener
27.6.2023
MATTERSCAPES. A Studio Visit
Doctoral Presentations on 27 June 2023
Under the title »matterscapes« the 2nd cohort of the MoA doctoral program gave insights into their dissertation projects. By researching modes of activating and passivating matter in named contexts, this year’s progress presentation demonstrated and discussed the current research progress in one of the cohort’s ›natural habitats‹ — the studio on the 4th floor. All Cluster Members were invited to listen, share ideas, identify common grounds, offer suggestions, and exchange with one another.
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Bacterial cellulose curtain. Experiments: Bastian Beyer and Iva Rešetar (design), Skander Hathroubi (microbiology). Photo: Bastian Beyer, adapted by Ada Favaron. Project coordination: Elisabeth Obermeier & Franziska Wegener
1.1.2019–31.12.2022
Cluster Report Now Available
Research Phase 2019–2022
We are pleased to announce that the report of the Cluster’s first research phase (2019–2022) is now available in print and pdf. It documents research questions, methods and outcomes from our research projects and serves as an outreach publication, providing an illustrated overview of the many Cluster activities over the past four years and highlighting events and formats across projects. Many thanks to all who contributed!
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Layout: Pilar Cebey. Photo: Javier Deyheralde
18.7.2023
Symbolic Dimensions of Platonic Polyhedra
Hands-on Workshop on 18 July 2023
Platonic solids are regular polyhedra, whose faces are congruent regular polygons and vertices connecting the same number of faces. In the 3D Euclidian space, there exist only five such solids: tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. Plato theorized that all mater was composed of small polyhedra and related them to Earth’s elements. In this hands-on workshop, the participants are going to immerse themselves in the mindful activity of working with their hands, explore body-to-body transitions when modelling with clay and water, comprehend topological ideas and its dematerialization when modelling real materials, and collectively reflect about the experience of modelling Platonic solids.
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Poster Workshop »Intercultural Views on Matter«, June 2023, Image: DALL•E, Sabine Marienberg. Copyright: Matters of Activity
28.6.2023–30.6.2023
Intercultural Views on Matter
Gemeinsamer Workshop des Exzellenzclusters mit der Akademie für Europäische Kulturen der Tongji Universität Shanghai
Am Mittwoch, den 28. Juni, und Donnerstag, den 29. Juni, begrüßte »Matters of Activity« Wissenschaftler*innen der Akademie für Europäische Kulturen der Tongji-Universität Shanghai, um den bereits seit 2016 bestehenden Austausch über gemeinsame Forschungsthemen fortzusetzen. In Ergänzung der philosophischen und kunsthistorischen Ausrichtung um naturwissenschaftliche und designtheoretische Perspektiven war neben übergreifenden Diskussionen zur Materialität ein thematischer Schwerpunkt die Beschäftigung mit Wasser als Active Matter, die auch Gegenstand der aktuellen Clusterforschung ist. Die Veranstaltung fand auf Deutsch und auf Englisch statt und stand einer Anzahl von zehn Interessierten offen. Die Planung und Durchführung der Veranstaltung lagen bei Cluster-Direktor Wolfgang Schäffner und Sabine Marienberg, Projektleiterin »von Symbolic Material«.
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Fungi as Building Material. Copyright: Vera Meyer, MY-CO PLACE
12.5.2023–31.7.2023
MY-CO PLACE – Architecture of Sustainable Growth
Cluster Members Natalija Miodragović and Dimitra Almpani-Lekka Give Talk on Textile Architecture Associated with Mushrooms
MY-CO PLACE is now open! The TU Berlin transdisciplinary urban laboratory is a learning station, exhibition space and discussion platform that places mushrooms and mushroom materials at the center of the debate about a future way of building and living. In this place, people from science, art and urban society come together and discuss their ideas for a jointly built and sustainable future. In MY-CO PLACE, visitors can come into direct contact with the microscopically small but macroscopically tangible world of fungi. MY-CO PLACE is a transdisciplinary real laboratory by biotechnologist and molecular biologist Prof. Vera Meyer (TU Berlin) and Prof. Sven Pfeiffer (University of Bochum). Vera Meyer opened an accompanying lecture series about fungi as the future building material on May 15th. Natalija Miodragović and Dimitra Almpani-Lekka will give a talk on textile architecture associated with mushrooms on July 10th.
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Visual Bauhaus Study Rooms, International Network Meeting, 15+16 June 2023. Copyright: Bauhaus Dessau
15.6.2023–16.6.2023
Design Acts: Gestures of Performative Research
MoA Members Contribute to International Network Meeting with Bauhaus Dessau
Performative dimensions of design, sensory cognition, and body knowledge were essential modules of Bauhaus theory. In the context of this year’s thematic preoccupation of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation with the human body, the Bauhaus Study Rooms 2023 on June 15th and 16th focus on the topic of performativity as an integral component of design processes and design activities. Design is viewed as a reciprocal process and a corporeal activity. In different formats and learning environments, the event explores the extent to which performative methods contribute to new design approaches. The two-day mini-festival is conducted by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in cooperation with the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
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Copyright: Mina Mahouti
1.6.2023
Talking Wool – Wool in Exchange
Activating Circular Networks Event Series Will Kick Off on 1 June at Uferhallen Wedding
On June 1st, 2023, from 3 to 7 pm, at the Uferhallen in Wedding, the ›Activating Circular Networks‹ event series will kick off with »Talking Wool«: an event that brings designers, academics, politicians, and farmers together to discuss the issues surrounding European and local German wool, the problem of wool waste in particular, and fiber security. The workshop takes place within the ongoing group exhibition »Zur Nachahmung empfohlen - Erkundungen in Ästhetik und Nachhaltigkeit«. Our host for the event is professor and artist Folke Köbberling, an expert in exploring these challenges and potentials of coarse wool for years.
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Driving the Human Book Launch at Matters of Activity, 10 May 2023. Copyright: Camille Blake / Driving the Human
10.5.2023
Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal
Book Launch with Hand-On-Workshops, Guided Tours, a Talk, and Debates at Matters of Activity
On May 10th, the three-year initiative »Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal« celebrated the Berlin launch of the final publication with »Matters of Activity« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. From 3.30 pm, the Cluster opened the doors to its premises in Sophienstraße 22a and invited interested guests to workshops and guided tours, a talk, and lively debates reflecting on the three-year process of »Driving the Human«. Partners, experts, and project authors were on hand to discuss with guests the relationship between research, design and art. On this occasion, many cluster members also provided insights into their research work at »Matters of Activity«.
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Futures of Air. Copyright: CollActive Materials
6.5.2023–20.5.2023
Futures of Air
Speculative Workshop Series in May
Ungraspable! Air is invisible, yet it is eyerywhere. Always already on its way to becoming something else. From molecule to atmosphere: the global climate crisis and thus the possible futures of our coexistence will be decided by means of air. Does the air belong to all of us? What stories lie in the air? What will connect us in the future? Our workshop series invites you to speculate about »Futures of Air« – together with researchers from »Matters of Activity« and »Science of Intelligence«. In three different co-design workshops, we explore and negotiate the critical role of air as a collective, active, and intelligent material. An exhibition will present the workshop conversations and outcomes in the fall of 2023 at Aufbau Haus (CLB Berlin).
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Poster Lecture Series »Designing in Times of the Anthropocene«, 2023. Copyright: Matters of Activity
19.4.2023–12.7.2023
Designing in Times of the Anthropocene
New Online Lecture Series Organized by MoA Co-Director Claudia Mareis Starts on 19 April
The online lecture series, a joint event between the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« and the Department of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, will kick-off on April 19th, 2023. Together with international design scholars and practitioners, it aims to navigate the tensions between technotopianism, critique, and transition in the context of designing in the so-called Anthropocene. We will not only look at the potential, problems, and limitations of calls for ever more design and construction, but also look at alternative ways and narratives of world-making, transformation, and futurity.
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Exhibition Opening DAOULA | sheen, 17.11.2022, Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin. Copyright: Matters of Activity
18.11.2022–30.6.2023
DAOULA | sheen
West African Wild Silk on its Way
The exhibition »DAOULA | sheen«, which can be seen at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin until June 30th, 2023, at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin, focuses on the natural formation and the cultural history of wild silk obtained from caterpillars in West Africa, and on the many and complex ways in which this unique material is viewed by microbiologists, materials scientists, and architects in Germany. Curated by MoA members Laurence Douny, Karin Krauthausen, and Felix Sattler, and co-created by a large and diverse multidisciplinary team, this unusual project sets out to stimulate dialogue between West African craft, European science, and design.
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Incandescent mantle for Continental lamps -- artificial silk. BBWA U3/31 Auergesellschaft/MSA Germany, No. F/14.
Research Project Explores the History of the Town as a Radioactive Industrial Landscape
The project explores the history of the town of Oranienburg as a radioactive industrial landscape. At the turn of the 20th century, large chemical factories that supplied Berlin‘s gas light industry began to cluster in and around Oranienburg. Tons of monazite sands were accumulated and refined to extract radioactive thorium and the rare earth cerium, among other elements. The residual radioactivity in Oranienburg can be traced back to these industrial activities, and to the destruction of several production sites during a bombing raid in March 1945, near the end of World War II. »Filtering Oranienburg« addresses, first, in environmental historical terms, the power structures that shaped industrial materials' extraction, refining, and disposal. On the other hand, Oranienburg serves the project as an experimental site for exploring and developing approaches to collective futures in damaged landscapes, through which the understanding of filtering as a fundamental cultural technique is tested and further developed.
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Panel Discussion Materials Matter, May 4th, 2022, Humboldt Lab. Copyright: Matters of Activity
13.1.2023
Materials Matter – Perspectives on Active Materials
Audio Broadcast of the Panel Discussion at the Humboldt Lab Online Now
We are very pleased to present the audio broadcast of the public panel discussion that took place on May 4th, 2022, at the Humboldt Lab. In the interdisciplinary discussion entitled »Perspectives on Active Materials«, central theses of the Central Cluster Anthology »Active Materials« were presented. The cross-disciplinary conversation with Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Michaela Eder, Peter Fratzl, and Richard Weinkamer aimed to address one of the burning questions of our epoch: the possibility of engineering smart, active, or bio-inspired materials and the meaning these enhanced materials might have for solving the contemporary and future challenges of these tumultuous times. The event was moderated by MoA members Michael Friedman and Karin Krauthausen, who were also co-authors of the anthology. Be sure to listen in!
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Annual Conference »Deep Material Futures« at silent green, November 2022. Copyright: Michelle Mantel
16.11.2022–17.11.2022
Deep Material Futures
Exploring the Different Temporalities of Active Matter at MoA's Annual Conference, 16 November 2022
With »Deep Material Futures«, we discussed and rethought the potentialities, strategies, expectances, predictions and imaginaries of desirable futures in terms of interspecies and transgenerational justice. The temporalities of active matter we speak of are always about incommensurable spaces of memory and oblivion, of extinction and survival. What new and other ways of politics, design, and »healing« through materialized action might there then be at all levels of space, time, and scale? The event brought together international keynote speakers such as Sandra Jasper, Nigel Clark, James Weaver, Cymene Howe, Jeff Diamanti, Admir Masic and Vera Meyer with positions from the Cluster to discuss the different temporalities of active matter in four panels – Wastelands, Earthly Matter, Matter Across Scales, and Future Materials. The presentations and discussions from the Annual Conference can be viewed at any time by clicking more.
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Panel »Interdeterminacy and Liveliness« at MoA Annual Conference »Tipping Points« 2021. Copyright: Matters of Activity
17.10.2022–16.11.2022
»Tipping Points« Now Part of MoA Virtual Cluster Space
View Conference Contributions of MoA Annual Conference 2021 in 360° Knowledge Rooms Now!
The 2021 MoA Annual Conference »Tipping Points« was all about matter in motion. We discussed transition and contingency, processes of acquiring and losing form, and the creative potential of the unfinished and indeterminate. All conference contributions our now shown as part of MoA's Virtual Cluster Space, where you can view a variety of 360° knowledge rooms and all contributions of the four panels »Plasticity & (In–)Stability«, »Interdeterminacy and Liveliness«, »Fragile Entanglements« and last but not least »Contingent Matters«.
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1.9.2022
What is our Future Made Of? Active Materials and Bio-Inspired Design
Episode 18 of the DFG Podcast Series »Exzellent Erklärt« Gives Insights Into Matters of Activity
How do we deal with materiality in the age of digitalization? Can other understandings of materiality lead to other modes of production or other ways of living? Episode 18 of the DFG podcast series »Exzellent erklärt« (English: Excellent Explained), available from 1 September 2022, focuses on the interdisciplinary research at »Matters of Acticity«. Journalist Larissa Vassilian speaks with Cluster Co-Director Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis, designer and cultural historian, and Research Associate Dr. Khashayar Razghandi, a materials scientist and design teacher about topics like sustainability and bio-inspired design and what active materials have to do with it.
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Joining Perspectives on Haptics - Design Workshop Filtering 2022. Foto: Felix Rasehorn
14.3.2022–16.3.2022
Joining Perspectives on Haptics
Online Documentation of Interdisciplinary Cluster Workshop
Why is the topic of haptics important to us humans and what does this mean for the multitude of scientific disciplines represented in the Cluster? In three dense days of workshop, the participants explored the topic of haptics together through the lens of design practice, history of knowledge, cultural studies, philosophy and computer science. Through experiencing demos, creating rapid prototypes, and reflection experiments, a practice-based mode of exploration was collectively developed. Through this rather broad approach, the participants sought to unfold the layers that make up haptic experiences in order to develop a shared understanding and vocabulary of the term. This is the beginning of a critical exchange on haptics with the goal of establishing a dynamic platform for MoA researchers around the haptic sense(s).
In the online documentation the group shares their abstracts, the workshop findings and questions, and invites to future collaborative formats and projects.
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Multiscale architectures. Left: the wooden tower of Lake Mjøsa, Norway Reproduced with permission from [1]. Copyright: Voll Arkitekter AS & Ricardo Foto. Right: the internal structure of wood based on parallel tube-like wood cells with diameters in the range of tens of microns (shown for several wood species from top to bottom). The white arrow points to a sketch where nanometer-thick cellulose fibrils are indicated by black lines [2] John Wiley & Sons. Copyright: 2020 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
8.7.2022
Bioinspired Architectural and Architected Materials
Special Issue Edited by Cluster Members K. Razghandi, C. Sauer and P. Fratzl
Architecture stands as a paradigm for the development of structural entities, which define functionality from the nanoscale to entire buildings. However, the distinction between structure and material becomes totally blurred in biological systems where it is impossible to distinguish between material and device or organ. A tree stem, as a prototypical example, is both material and plant organ with specific biological functions. Partially inspired by this, there are recent parallel movements—in materials development as well as in architectural design—towards the merging of materiality, structure and function into one integral construction system.
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Collection Overview - Tessellation Archive. Copyright: Felix Rasehorn
13.6.2022–31.12.2022
Launch of the Tessellation Archive
An Online Collection of Tiled Tissues and Architectures from Across the Natural World
Tessellations are structural motifs made up of repeating tiles, found in many forms and serving a variety of functions in nature. Perhaps partly inspired by natural examples, tessellations have also been a part of human history in art, design and culture, commonly in the form of mosaics, and more recently in the realm of bio-inspired design and engineering. This collection showcases the diversity of this motif, exploring commonalities in structure and function across environments and taxa, to inspire biological and biomaterials research, but also bioinspired design and architecture. Follow the link to explore the classification scheme and compare the similarities and differences between the tessellations.
https://tessellated-materials.mpikg.mpg.de
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CollActive Materials Workshop. Copyright: CollActive Materials
The Experimental Laboratory »CollActive Materials«
In the experimental laboratory »CollActive Materials«, society and science are speculating together about the materials of tomorrow: What might they look like or feel like? Could they be more active or more intelligent than the materials of today? By trying things out together, the speculators develop new future scenarios, stories and objects and invite discussion of various conceivable futures.
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Still from Interview with Bastian Beyer and Skander Hathroubi showing the making of parts of the »Active Curtain Project« shown at the exhibition »After Nature« at Humboldt Lab. Copyright: Anne von Petersdorff (info@annevonpetersdorff.com) for Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
8.7.2021
Bacteria as Architects
Interview with Bastian Beyer and Skander Hathroubi
The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« investigates materials that are built by bacteria. Architects and biologists work together to explore new, sustainable materials. Some of these bacterial structures were on display at the Humboldt Lab. In the interview with Cluster Members Bastian Beyer and Skander Hathroubi, parts of the development of the »Active Curtains Project« are presented in more detail.
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All 7 Berlin Clusters of Excellence are represented with a film at the foyer at Humboldt Lab. Copyright: Matters of Activity, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
6.5.2021
Matters of Activity Film at Humboldt Lab
Cluster Video Online Now
The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« was represented with some exciting objects in the exhibition »Nach der Natur« at the Humboldt Laboratory of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. You can watch an introduction to the Cluster right here. Follow the link to the video in German with either English subtitles or in easy German language.
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Symbolic Material. Copyright: Myfanwy Evans, adapted by NODE Berlin Oslo
The change of view from allegedly passive material to »active matter« that engenders symbolic processes according to its inherent structure provokes a shift in the traditional boundaries between nature and culture. Thus, other traditional opposites (body-mind, active-passive, material-symbolic) can also be rethought as changeable polarities. The project »Symbolic Material« investigates the material foundations of symbolic processes in interaction with the symbolic dimension of materials from the viewpoint of Philosophy, History of Mathematics, Physics, and Neuroscience.
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Copyright: Matters of Activity
From a historical perspective, modern culture and technology have been extensively built on passivated materials, like concrete, steel, plywood or glass, resulting in anthropogenic ecological crises. The core objective of »Material Form Function« is to overcome this logic, which considers matter as an exploitable, passive and ahistorical substance.
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Fiber tractography delineating the white matter of the brain. Copyright: Lucius Fekonja, adapted by NODE Berlin Oslo.
A material guides a cutting tool along its inner boundaries and structure. Take a stonemason splitting a rock: the rock’s internal tensions do most of the work once the cut has been started. Similarly, surgeons and paleontologists, using data from scans and models, make their path within brains or fossils following the lines set by the active material. We understand cutting as healing and shaping rather than the extractive or destructive separation and reunification. Such an approach to material-guided cutting requires concepts and tools that connect the skilled operator with the activity of the material as a partner in the process.
In the axis »From Brain Matter to Function«, we investigate innovative ways of navigating brain surgery, in particular by using biologically inspired neural network models. In the axis »Hybrid Interactions«, we contribute to the future of robotic-assisted surgery automation, digital fossil preparation, and experimental surgical tools based on microscopy techniques. Together, we explore different dimensions of the ›cut‹ in the digital age, integrating predictive models, tools and visualizations in surgery, paleontology and beyond.
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Flour Cloud. Copyright: Clemens Winkler, adapted by NODE Berlin Oslo
In »Object Space Agency«, the researchers of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« are gathered to examine the relationships of active materials in the sphere of objects, persons and architectural structures. Material objects appear to be temporally and spatially at once stable and changeable. Check out the brand new project website.
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Cellulose in E. coli biofilm. Copyright: Diego Serra & Regine Hengge, adapted by NODE Berlin Oslo.
Can bacteria weave? Can architecture become soft? Can humans learn from caterpillars how to develop a more sustainable construction? And how do material processes build communities? In our research, we challenge the common understanding of weaving, as we focus on bacterial cellulose, West-African wild silk cocoons and the use of yarn in architecture. We address relationships of two- or three-dimensional longitudinal elements interconnected by entanglement, interlacing, braiding or classical weaving. Such fiber-based matter can be the product of natural or cultural processes and occur ubiquitously from the nano-scale in biological systems to the macro-scale in architectural contexts. By doing experiments on biological fiber-based matrices and tissues, by upscaling microscopic structures into architectural prototypes and by historical and theoretical investigations, we are redefining woven structures as a material practice running through nature and culture.
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