• Matters of Activity
  • About Us
    • Directors
    • Partners
    • Contact
  • Members
  • Research
    • Projects
      • Weaving
      • Filtering
      • Cutting
      • Material Form Function
      • Object Space Agency
      • Symbolic Material
    • Laboratories and Displays
  • Activities
  • Early Career Support
  • Publications
  • Jobs
  • Activities
Event | Symbolic Material | Weaving

On Activity

A Joint Symposium on Activity and Materiality

Just before the winter semester ends, »Matters of Activity« would like to invite you to a symposium »On Activity«, on February 7th 2020, between 10:00a.m. and 07:00p.m., in the Central Laboratory of the Cluster.

In the last decades the field of research called »active matter« takes center stage concerning the research in the natural sciences, changing along its essential concepts, such as: matter, life, self-movement and self-propelling. To name a few examples one might consider the dynamical structured flocks of birds and schools of fish, the complex patterns in bacterial suspensions, the marching behavior of ants but also the opening and the closing of the pinecones and of wheat awns. In contrast to the traditional conception of matter as a passive form merely changed by outside effects, these objects propel themselves, one might say, reacting to a changing environment not only by taking energy from it but also by forming patterns. This research, collecting various phenomena from different fields, poses obvious questions such as: why purely physical interactions lead to coherent patterns which are hardly – or even may not be – explained according to the laws governing the motion of the single particle in the system? But this research prompts a new thinking regarding questions such as: does the activity of matter require the system to be living? These questions, therefore, problematize and re-conceptualize terms and paradigms of thinking which were long thought to be understood or at least well-defined, concerning, for example, »material« and its »structure«, »entropy«, and of course, the concept of »activity«. The field of active matter holds henceforth the promise not only for a re-organization of the classical division between the disciplines, but also regarding the definitions and conceptions of matter and material. This of course has in its turn ample consequences regarding fundamental concepts of the humanities, i.e. outside of the natural sciences.

Indeed, the humanities – that is, fields such as philosophy, history of science, literature and cultural studies – are also called upon to question anew the understanding of life and matter, but also the difference between nature and culture, against the background of these current developments. This new consideration concerns not only concrete examples such as the »swarm«, which already in the 17th century obtained a more theoretical character, but it also concerns broader areas such as language (to which ancient rhetoric already attributed activity and effectiveness and hence a »function«). The conference takes the ongoing revolution in the understanding of matter in the natural sciences and the question of activity as its starting point, but focuses on the answers of the humanities.

The workshop is jointly organised by the projects Symbolic Material and Weaving of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«.

Date
7.2.2020, 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Location

Central Laboratory
Sophienstraße 22a
10178 Berlin

Calendar

Add dates to iCalendar

Contact
Cluster of Excellence
Matters of Activity
Image Space Material

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin
Newsletter
By clicking »Subscribe«, you agree to our →Privacy Policy.
Links
  • → For Members
  • → Imprint
  • → Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Newsletter
  • For Members
  • Imprint
  • Privacy Policy