Haptics

Object Space Agency | Air | Biodesign | Cloud | Graphic Anthropology | Haptics | Hemp | Prototype / Model | Stone | Stretching Materialities | XR »TATour« is the title of a virtual exhibition based on preliminary fieldwork we conducted in 2020 at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). This collaborative inquiry served as a preamble to creating a physical exhibition in a museum space based in a former veterinary anatomical theater (Stretching Materialities, 2021-2022). Constrained by the COVID crisis, we invested our efforts in creating a digital tour that focused on the visible and invisible activities that remained there even when visitors could no longer access them. This recent paper by exhibition curators Maxime Le Calvé, Natalija Miodragović, Nina Samuel, Felix Sattler, Christian Stein, and Clemens Winkler, published in ethnographiques.org, issue 47, presents the production process for this immersive work, describes the creative process underlying this immersive work and its unusual approach to doing fieldwork through 360° fabulations inside an exhibition space, using sketching as a primary method. more

Filtering | Object Space Agency | Achievements | Haptics | Performance | Robotics | Teaching 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! more

Cutting | Brain | Graphic Anthropology | Haptics | Performance The NTMI (NonTrivial Musical Instrument) embodies the idea of making complex sound worlds playable by intuition. It enables children and laypersons to explore many sound synthesis processes playfully and allows expert musicians to realize their sonic imagination by adapting/expanding its open-source architecture. In the workshop on April 18th, organized by MoA member Maxime Le Calvé and conducted together with Alberto de Campo, Professor for Generative Art / Computational Art (Berlin University of the Arts), sound researcher Nico Daleman, and the Speculative Realities Lab,  the team explained and demonstrated the central concepts, then dedicated time to hands-on playing, experimenting, and improvising, first on individual setups, and finally as multiple sources of influence on a single NTMI environment. more

Object Space Agency | Cutting | Air | Haptics On Monday, June 26th, anthropologists of art and science Marina Peterson (University of Texas in Austin) & Maxime Le Calvé (MoA) invited to »Nervous Listening«, an experimental ethnography workshop, realized together with cloud designer Clemens Winkler (MoA). Entering the Central Laboratory that day, participants were greeted with balloons to inflate with their breath and a 285-hertz »Theta« sound bath, which they were invited to explore haptically through the red latex bubbles. Blown into tension, they made us subtly reactive to air vibration. Thus attuned, we started listening nervously to the atmosphere around and to each other’s vocal utterances. more

Cutting | Brain | Haptics | Science Communication | XR Are your senses up for a challenge? Dive into our interactive experiment and put your memory to the test as you enter Virtual Reality to explore digital objects using both vision and touch. Will you be able to recognize objects while racing against time? Researchers from the »Virtual Dissection« team of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« invite you to unlock the secrets of working memory performance while delving into how our brains deal with sensory information. Join us at the Long Night of the Sciences on June 17th at Zuse-Institute! more

Weaving | Filtering | Cutting | Material Form Function | Object Space Agency | Doctoral Program | Climate | Haptics | More-Than-Human | Ocean | Robotics | Textiles | Tree Bark | Wild Silk | XR | Water | Science Communication The 2022 presentation of the Doctoral Program »Matters of Activity« at the MoA Retreat in September at Landgut Stober was both a review and an outlook of the doctoral research conducted at the Cluster between 2020 and 2022. Under the title »Scaling Matters: From the Lab to the Field, «Pre-Doctoral Researchers at varying stages of their research — from the very beginning to the final phase of their theses — presented their heterogeneous work whilst continuing to negotiate common themes, methods, questions and tools. The format combined talks and an exhibition and invited MoA Members to engage individually with the presentation and a selection of their research objects. Thanks to everyone involved for making possible this all-around successful event. Enjoy some visual impressions of the exhibition, as well as the talks and have a look at the booklet. more

Filtering | Cutting | Haptics | Science Communication 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. more

Object Space Agency | Stretching Materialities | Performance | Haptics | More-Than-Human Where are the boundaries between living and dead matter? This evening of performance, artist-curator conversation, and lecture explored experiences and narratives between the organic and the inorganic associated with artifacts, natural objects, and the interior of our own bodies. This event was part of the exhibition by MoA project »Object Space Agency« at Tieranatomisches Theater »Stretching Materialities. Hidden Activities in Objects and Spaces«.  more

Cutting | Teaching | MoA Design Research Studio | Haptics This winter semester, the Cluster Professorship for ›Embodied Interaction‹ was hosting the practice project ›HyperHaptics‹ at the weißensee school of art and design berlin. Together with MoA researchers, Bachelor and Master students of the Department of Product Design explored the potential of interlocking virtual and physical tactility. ›HyperHaptics‹ is thus a direct continuation of the research work of the project »Cutting«. The overall aim of »Cutting« is to investigate the haptic dimension of the cut. How can new haptic experiences be encoded? How can the ›Sensing Knife‹ or ›Virtual Dissection‹ be experienced in a prototypical setup and what is needed for this? more

Artificial Intelligence | Haptics | XR The »Virtual Dissection« setting aims to conceive a prototypical toolbox for experiencing anatomical information in virtual environments through its parameters of spatiality and resistance. The datasets to be employed are drawn from evolutionary biology and medicine. This approach is inspired by contemporary 3D scientific illustration practices and by the haptic dimension of knowledge in the historical practices of dissection. more

Air | Artificial Intelligence | Bacteria | Biofilm | Brain | Haptics | Sound | Writing more