Siri, Big Data, affective computing, interconnected bodies—the plethora of heterogeneous fragments that our present is split up into is unimaginably vast. Their composition is a question of milieu. The concept of determining how living beings relate to each other and to their natural environments was originally associated with the life sciences. While this concept was valid, if we are to bring the milieu concept up to date, we need to give particular consideration to current technological and aesthetic conditions. more

The field of connectomics aims to comprehensively describe the physical and functional coupling among the neural elements of the brain. Creating personalized models of the brain of tumor patients helps to better understand the impact of a brain tumor on the cerebral network and plasticity and functional reserve capacity. Similarly, it helps to improve effects of neurosurgery on the connectome and identify key nodes and edges, i.e., potential high-risk areas for surgery, reveal the network basis of language function in relation to tumors, and predict the course of recovery. more

UCL's Multimedia Anthropology Lab (UCL MAL) presents »Multimedia Encounters«, the latest exhibition created to coincide with UCL MAL’s first academic conference, taking place January 12th - 15th, 2021. Multimedia Encounters attends to the relationship between anthropological thought and virtual intelligence. Our Cluster Members Maxime Le Calvé and Yoonha Kim have ethnographic artworks shown in a virtual group exhibition called »Multimedia Encounters: Experimental Approaches to Ethnographic Research« using the digital platform Mozilla Hubs. more

Reconstructing the locomotion of key vertebrate fossil specimens offers insights into their palaeobiology and helps to conceptualize major transitions in vertebrate evolution. A unique combination of an articulated nearly complete early land-living vertebrate fossil specimen and fossilized trackways was the starting point for an in-depth reconstruction of the locomotion based on the integration of image-based analyses with engineering techniques. The reconstruction involved experimental as well as computer-aided modeling approaches (›virtual paleontology‹). more

For anthropologists and artists »doing fieldwork« in contemporary worlds, art can be much more than an object of investigation. Curation and creation through visual, audio, or performing arts are at the heart of their work, extending the established anthropological interest in writing as a medium of thought and knowledge sharing. The exhibition »Field/Works« presents works by anthropologists and artists who break disciplinary boundaries, and whose practice foregrounds experimental, and open approaches to the theme »field/works«. This series is curated by Jen Clarke and Cluster Member Maxime Le Calvé. more

The MoA Design Research Studio »Designing Matter 1« investigated designed filaments and fabrics as architectural material systems. Designing matter denotes the definition of the form and the materiality for the component elements of a material in order to achieve a specific functionality. This process allows to utilize and enhance the inherent properties of a given material and ultimately to generate novel ones. Codes – either analogue or digital – are used to implement the design of the material by means of a systematization of this form-function interrelationship. In this context the MoA Design Research Studio makes contributions with respect to the development of designed filaments and the close adherence of the architectural designed fabrics to the production sequences and patterns observed in silk-cocoons. more

Design is deeply engaged with materials. Yet the attempt to make sense of the properties, composition and behavior of matter, artifacts and built infrastructures is accompanied by a pressing question: »Who is in fact designing?«. The 17th Annual Conference 2021 of the DGTF (German Society for Design Theory and Research), that takes place from May 6th to 8th in cooperation with »Matters of Activity« and the weißensee school of art and design berlin intends to make this and other questions graspable and to discuss the contribution of design through four interlaced strands: Sympoiesis of Making, Performative Surfaces, Living Matter, Designing Resilience. The conference will most likely be held in virtual form. more