Links: Detail des Himmels um die Darstellung der Asia im Deckenfresko Giovann Battista Tiepolos im Treppenhaus der Würzburger Residenz. Copyright: WikimediaCommons, Foto: Myriam Thyes, CC BY-SA 4.0; rechts: Kasimir Malewitsch, Das schwarze Quadrat, Öl auf Leinwand, 1915, Tretjakow-Galerie, Moskau. Copyright: Public Domain.
Cluster Co-Sprecher Horst Bredekamp und Olaf Müller über naturphilosophische und bildwissenschaftliche Perspektiven der Aufklärung
In der Ideengeschichte der Metaphysik, Kunst, Naturphilosophie und Naturwissenschaft treten immer wieder ganze Netze dualer Gegensätzlichkeiten wie die zwischen Licht und Schatten, Geist und Materie, Wärme und Kälte, Plus und Minus, Gott und Schöpfung, Ausdehnung und Zusammenziehung, Vernunft und Gefühl, Denken und Wahrnehmung auf. Die im Wintersemester 2023/2024 von Cluster Co-Sprecher Horst Bredekamp und Olaf Müller angebotene Vorlesung wird in ihrem Versuch, eingeschliffenen Dualismen zu entgegnen, zentrale Anliegen von »Matters of Activity« thematisieren. Im Wechselspiel der Fächer Kunstgeschichte und Philosophie, also auch mit Blick auf die Polarität von Text und Bild, werden historische Varianten dieser Ideen zur Diskussion gestellt und mit dem aktuellen Stand derartiger Überlegungen verknüpft. Start ist Montag, der 30. Oktober 2023 um 18 Uhr, die Vorlesung ist offen für Hörerende aller Fakultäten sowie für die interessierte Öffentlichkeit.
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Claudia Mareis spricht auf Auricher Wissenschaftstagen
Die Auricher Wissenschaftstage richten sich an Schülerinnen und Schüler. Ob Vorträge von Nobelpreisträger:innen oder hautnahe Einblicke in renommierte Forschungszentren – seit 1992 bietet das Veranstaltungs- und Stipendienprogramm spannende Weiterbildungsmöglichkeiten. Cluster Co-Direktorin Claudia Mareis ist Teil des Programms mit dem Titel »Welt als Entwurf. Gestaltung im Kontext sozialer, politischer und ökologischer Probleme«.
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Syntopia. Copyright: Jihae Lee, weißensee school of art and design berlin
Final Review of MoA Design Research Studio
We hereby cordially invite you to the final review of the MoA Design Research Studio »Syntopia—Harvesting the Forest«, which will take place on Tuesday, July 18th, in Room 2.03 at weißensee school of art and design berlin. The studio led by Cluster Professor Karola Dierichs, 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.
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Still of documentation of the workshop »Anthrologies of Technique, Techniques of Anthrology«. Copyright: Xu Ding
Multimodal Ethnographies of Making
The Cluster Members Maxime Le Calvé and Sharon Macdonald organized the final workshop presentations of the seminar »Anthropologies of Technique, Techniques of Anthropology: Multimodal Ethnographies of Making« on Friday, July 14th, in the Objekt Labor of the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik. The students introduced the participants ›hands-on‹ to techniques that they have explored during the semester, such as etching, live photos, sketching, dancing, self-portrait or lorming (a technique for tactile communication with people who have both visual and hearing impairments).
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»Textile Gestures - Mapping Tactile Practices with Architectural Yarns«, Hand-on Workshop at Bauhaus Study Rooms. Copyright: Thomas Meyer
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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Hybride Formen. Copyright: Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch
A Participative, Artistic-Research Theater Piece of the Master's Program »Spiel und Objekt«, Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, Taught by Clemens Winkler
The participatory, artistic-research theater piece by the students of the Master's Program »Spiel und Objekt« at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts is divided into »Three Perspectives« and »Playing Emissions«. In »Playing Emissions« you enter the theme park of air futures! Experience the production of steam, body heat, sweat, feelings, breathing exercises in various eventful dramaturgies. How do we transform strong personal emotions from moments of crisis into new forms of collaborative play? The piece was created in collaboration with the experimental lab »CollActive Materials«, the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
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Poster Lecture Series, May–June 2023. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin
Cluster Professors Present their Research at Public Lecture Series at weißensee school of art and design berlin
On Wednesday, May 17th, at 5 pm, the public lecture series »see - ander(e)s sehen« started at weißensee school of art and design berlin, with four MoA members taking part in this semester's program. The first lecture was given by Karola Dierichs, Cluster professor for »Material and Code«, sharing her insights about »Designing Matter-Teaching Research and Research through Teaching.« Patricia Ribault, Thomas Ness, and Lucy Norris will give further lectures in the following weeks.
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Borneo Summer School 2023, Photo: Gary Loh Chee Wyai. Copyright: Jürgen Sieck/HTW Berlin
Report on Summer School 2023 at Borneo Cultures Museum, Kuching
From March 1st to 15th, 2023, MoA members Alwin Cubasch and Jürgen Sieck, together with Eileen Klingner, Verena Metze-Mangold, Elisabeth Thielen, Sophie Schauer, as well as several students, traveled to the Malaysian state of Sarawak on Borneo for the Filtering project to conduct the DAAD-funded Summer School »Digitization of Indigenous Knowledge for Extended Reality and Culture« on site. In addition, six Malaysian scholars and 20 students participated who not only have insight into the indigenous culture and way of life of Borneo but are also members of different indigenous groups. The Summer School took place at the Borneo Cultures Museum in the provincial capital of Kuching, the second-largest museum in Southeast Asia.
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Minimal Machines 2
Hygroscopic Hemp
The MoA Design Research Studio »Minimal Machines 2« investigated functional applications for the shape-change of hemp-rope under variant ambient humidity conditions. Hemp is a biogenic plant-based material. It displays hygrophilic behaviour meaning that it absorbs water from the environment and consequently changes shape.
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»Extracting the Surface« workshop at Tieranatomisches Theater during the stretching senses school, 2022. Copyright: Subterranean Matters
Yoonha Kim and Maxime Le Calvé Reported at Conference of the Film Festival at the Royal Anthropological Institute
Cluster members Yoonha Kim and Maxime Le Calvé represented the Cluster at the online conference of the Film Festival at the Royal Anthropological Institute (London, UK), an event bringing together the global scene of visual anthropology. Together, they presented the paper »The patchy paths of the stretching senses school: the coming-of-age of an emerging learning community and immersive media collective between speculative ethnography and creative coding in Berlin« on March 8th, 2023.
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Teaser Coding IxD (7), Let’s Get: Physical, 2023.
From the Practice of Interdisciplinary Education: Making Data Tangible
In the winter semester 2022/23, »Coding IxD« entered its seventh round. This time, students were researching and discussing the possibilities of data physicalization to take informed action based on personal data. The results of their explorations can be experienced during an exhibition at the CityLAB Berlin from February, 16th–23rd, 2023.
The interdisciplinary course for students from the Department of Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin and the Department of Product Design at weißensee school of art and design berlin is based on a long-standing cooperation between MoA members from these institutions: Claudia Müller-Birn (Freie Universität Berlin) from the Human-Centered Computing Research Group and Carola Zwick, Judith Glaser and Thomas Ness from the Embodied Interaction Group at kunsthochschule weißensee. more
The interdisciplinary course for students from the Department of Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin and the Department of Product Design at weißensee school of art and design berlin is based on a long-standing cooperation between MoA members from these institutions: Claudia Müller-Birn (Freie Universität Berlin) from the Human-Centered Computing Research Group and Carola Zwick, Judith Glaser and Thomas Ness from the Embodied Interaction Group at kunsthochschule weißensee. more
Final Presentation »The Tone of Things«. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin
Final Presentation of the Interdisciplinary Semester Project (eLAB)
In the interaction with our environment, all senses play together shaping this experience. In addition to visual and tactile qualities, physical things also have a sound inherent in their material and form, which can be experienced in the process of interacting with them. Objects of the technosphere often use sound only in a very primitive form to convey information. In this project, we explored the auditive space in order to enrich everyday objects and situations through consciously designed sound experiences. The goal of the studio project, finally presented on February 16th, 3.00 pm was to create an interaction or an object that exemplifies this new quality and thus establishes the »tone« as a dimension to be designed.
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Coding IxD 7, Invitation Flyer, 2023. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin
Interactive Exhibition of the Project »Coding IxD« Runs until 23 February
Unconsciously or consciously, we record our routines, for example by using a pedometer, marking our favorite places in the city, or monitoring our electricity and water consumption. How can this personal data be made tangible? This is the question that students from the Department of Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin and the Department of Product Design at the weißensee school of art and design have been exploring together as part of the interdisciplinary course »Coding IxD.« The results of the project are presented in an interactive exhibition at CityLAB Berlin from February 16th-23rd, 2023, between 11 am and 5 pm.
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MoA Diagram: Workshop Research Modules for the Creation, Cognition and Perception of Matter. Copyright: Franziska Wegener
Intensive PhD Workshop hosted by MoA
For the Cluster's newly formed doctoral cohort the year started with an intensive workshop on interdisciplinary collaboration hosted by »Matter of Activity« under the supervision of Karola Dierichs and Franziska Wegener. The workshop »MATTER. Research Modules for the Creation, Cognition and Perception of Matter through Design, Materials Science and Cultural Science« that was held February, 5th–10th, 2023, invited Pre-Doctoral Candidates to engage in an interdisciplinary discourse and practice diving deeply into the challenge of how to learn and appropriate each other’s scientific language for more productive research collaborations.
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Rain-sheltered pathway at the University of Technology Sarawak, Sibu, 2022, Photo: Christian Kassung. Copyright: Matters of Activity
Filtering Project Prepares DAAD Summer School in March 2023 at University of Technology Sarawak in Malaysia
In December 2022, MoA Principal Investigators Christian Kassung and Jürgen Sieck traveled to Malaysia for the Filtering project in preparation of the DAAD Summer School »Digitisation of Indigenous Knowledge for Extended Reality and Cultural Heritage« taking place on-site at the University of Technology Sarawak in March 2023. The journey was dedicated to visits of several cultural institutions and museums, meetings and workshops with managers of local project partners, and field trips.
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Stretching senses school logo with a photo of mycelium growing on willow, 2022. Copyright: Natalija Miodragovic & Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Biomaterials Lab TU Berlin and MoA, 2022
at UdK »InKüLe – Innovationen für die künstlerische Lehre«
The stretching senses school, an MoA project curated by Cluster anthropologists Yoonha Kim (OSA) and Maxime Le Calvé (Cutting), is starting a longer teaching collaboration with the UdK-based project InKüLe »Innovationen für die Künstlerische Lehre«. The stretching senses school is an emerging learning community around immersive arts, creative coding and speculative ethnography. It aims to explore more-than-human perceptions through making practices bringing in conversation various immersive media. The collaborative workshops with InKüLe were focused on the potential of artistic education to change our relations to the environment through an engagement at the level of anthropotechniques.
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Poster »Frictioned Functionality«. Copyright: Matters of Activity
MoA's First Interdisciplinary Autumn School 17–22 October 2022
Against a background of ecologies in crisis, the interdisciplinary Autumn School »Frictioned Functionality: Un/Designing Un/Sustainable Matter« invited Post-Docs, PhDs and MA students from the humanities, natural sciences and design to work through the conflicted entanglement of materiality, design and un/sustainability, using frictioned functionality as the guiding principle. In the context of this Autumn School, frictioned functionality has been understood as a working concept to reopen other narrative and performative spaces of imagination in and beyond unruly times. The autumn school took place from October 17th–22nd, 2022.
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Flyer MOD at Humboldt Lab Event. Copyright: June Audirac
Open Design Master's Students' Projects Exhibited at Humboldt Lab
Our ever-so-evolving world presents us with numerous dilemmas and challenges when it comes to designing a better tomorrow. A new sensibility is required, gathering and collaborating with intelligences within nature, and thus fundamentally shifting away from obsolete and destructive routines.
The students of the Open Design Master Program are facing those challenges by radical unlearning, creating new strategies focused on the necessity of »growing sensescapes«. We are happy to invite you to a day full of the growth of sensescapes on July 25th at Humboldt Lab.
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Master Students and Visitors at the »Growing Sensecapes« event in the Humboldt Lab. Photo: Carmen Gloria Cuello Quintana.
Open Design Master's Students' Projects Exhibited at Humboldt Lab
With the event and exhibition »Growing Sensecapes«, the students of the »Open Design« Master Program wanted to bring forward the numerous dilemmas and challenges they face, not only as students but also as individuals, when it comes to designing a better tomorrow. A permanent flow of people engaged with the students in their reflections at the Humboldt Labor on July 25th 2022. Visitors encountered the six projects that were developed during the Seminar Laboratory Projects led by Cluster members Frank Bauer, Bastian Beyer, Maxime Le Calvé, Jose D. Cojal Gonzaléz, the lecturers from the Universidad de Buenos Aires Rodrigo Martin Iglesias, José Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin and the support of Brazilian artist Rejane Cantoni.
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Students during a visit to HNE Eberswalde/ Seminar Spatial Structures with Karola Dierichs and Michaela Eder. Copyright: Carmen Gloria Cuello Quintana
3rd Semester in Berlin is Almost Over
After two semesters of online interactions, 27 students came together in Berlin for their third semester of the international interdisciplinary Master’s program »Open Design« While having focused in the themes Elements and Experiments during previous semesters, Projects has been the key word guiding the student’s work during these weeks. Their focus has been on analyzing specific interdisciplinary design processes and applying design strategies for the development of innovative projects, bringing together the various elements of Gestaltung and empirical methods.
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Minimal Machines 2 – Hygroscopic Hemp. Copyright: Nuri Kang / weißensee school of art and design berlin, Image: Karola Dierichs / weißensee school of art and design berlin, Matters of Activity.
Final Presentation of MoA Design Research Studio
Please join us for the final review of the MoA Design Research Studio »Minimal Machines 2 – Hygroscopic Hemp«. We will meet live from 03.00 till 04.00 pm on 5 July 2022 in room A 2.06 at weißensee school of art and design berlin. The MoA Design Research Studio »Minimal Machines 2« investigates functional applications for the shape-change of hemp-rope under variant ambient humidity conditions.
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