Visiting Material Futures

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 lab CollActive Materials employs the concept of co-speculation. Through this method, it invites knowledge not only from research, but also experience and everyday life, into a co-creative exchange about what material futures seem possible to us today.

The exhibition explores active materials and material concepts that might shape life in the future in novel and unexpected ways: Architects Maxie Schneider and Bastian Beyer open up the possibilities of new urban concepts through temperature-adaptive materials. Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten and Michaela Eder raise questions about re-imagined designs based on tree bark. Futures with novel concepts for human-machine interaction, possibly even using degradable bioplastics, come to life in the design research of Anna Schäffner and Eva Bullermann. Finally, Natalija Miodragović and Dimitra Almpani-Lekka explore the world of mycelial architecture using structural fibers.

At Futurium, these concepts from cluster research provide the basis of a series of co-creative speculation workshops. Participants explore these active material concepts in their speculations, from future applications to new everyday material cultures. In the process, they create speculative sketches and rapid prototypes, all of which are part of the continuously growing exhibition.

Visit the exhibition

May-August 2024
Free of charge

Opening Hours:

Mondays 10 am - 6 pm
Tuesdays closed
Wednesdays 10 am - 6 pm
Thursdays 10 am - 8 pm
Fridays 10 am - 6 pm
Saturdays 10 am - 6 pm
Sundays 10 am - 6 pm

Team

Exhibition Design: Eva Bullermann
Concept: Antje Nestler, Kristin Werner
Support: Julia Blumenthal, Richard Ley

Contributing Cluster Members

Dimitra Almpani-Lekka
Bastian Beyer
Eva Bullermann
Michaela Eder
Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten
Natalija Miodragović
Anna Schäffner
Maxie Schneider

Funding Note

CollActive Materials is an experimental laboratory of the Berlin Clusters of Excellence Matters of Activity (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Science of Intelligence (Technische Universität Berlin). The project is led by Léa Perraudin and Martin Müller and funded by the Berlin University Alliance via the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the State of Berlin as part of the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments.