Article Stretching Materialities
Open Access Peer-Reviewed Article Published on the »Stretching Materialities« Exhibition's Process
»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
CollActive Materials’ Workshop »Open Lab Abend: Wachsende Architektur – Co-Design mit Pilzen« im Futurium Lab, 13. Juni 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity
Several MoA Members Contribute to the Festival on Future Design
Witness future design and art coming together to turn visions into reality: futures you can see and touch! MoA members Christian Stein, Rasa Weber, Natalija Miodragovic, Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Antje Nestler and Kristin Werner contribute to this year's Holitopia Festival with a keynote, panel, discussion and speculative workshop at Campus Wilhelminenhof of HTW Berlin. Don't miss your chance for a reduced ticket for the conference day. But there are also lots of free activities, such as the exhibition »Above the Sea of Air« with works from the Cluster.
more
Exhibition »Materiales en Expansión«, Buenos Aires, March 2023. Structural Textile Project: Miodragović, Suarez, Singer, Object Space Agency; Complex Web Structures by Daniela Castillo. Copyright: Christian Stein
Exhibition Opened at Universidad de Buenos Aires | Exposición Inaugurada en la Universidad de Buenos Aires
Together with the Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sivorí we invite you to the opening of »Materials in Expansión«, on Wednesday, March 15th at 6:00 pm, where a conversation between Daniela Castillo Cortez and Christian Stein will take place, entitled »El Entramado - Nuevas Formas de Exposición Entre Tecnología, Ciencia y Arte (The Interweaving - New Forms of Exhibition Between Technology, Science and Art)«. It is an interactive experience of Virtual Reality and textile art by Daniela Castillo, participant of the 27th Textile Art Salon, currently exhibited at the museum. This performative installation could be visited every Wednesday until May 9th (extended), 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
more
Poster OSA Talks. Links: Ester Fleckner: Woodbeds, brimming (more), 2020, Holzschnitt, Bleistift auf Papier, 143,0 x 109,0 cm, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Copyright: Courtesy of the Artist und Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin; Foto: Nick Ash | Rechts: bbildung 12a: »L’auteur«, Abb. II, Frontispiz. Gaston Bachelard und Albert Flocon, Châteaux en Espagne, Paris: Cercle Grolier, Lesamis du livre moderne 1957, hier Exemplar No. 72 (gedruckt für M. Henri Jaudon, auf Rives; gesamte Auflage 200), (S. 8, 19,5 x 14). Copyright: Marlene Militz
New OSA Event Series Kicks Off on 6 and 7 March 2023
On March 6th, 2023, OSA Talks, a new series of events, organized by members of the project »Object Space Agency« kicks off with a talk by Jenny Graser, Curator for Contemporary Arts at Berlin's Kupferstichkabinett, on Curating. Following on from the exhibition project »Stretching Materialities«, the series of events aims to bring together experts from the fields of collection and exhibition practice, design practice, the sciences and theory to discuss the «stretching« of materials and their agency in relation to objects and spaces.
more
Poster Stretching Senses School Festival. Image »Subterenaen Matters« Baris Pekcagliyan, Warja Rybakova, Nayeli Vega, Paulina Greta, adapted by NODE Berlin. Copyright: Matters of Activity
VR Worldings for Planetary Emergency at Tieranatomisches Theater
Feeling limestone grow from the inside and seeing its dispersion as urban landscape; experiencing an amphitheater through vibrations of willow branches; reaching out to the hidden electrical energies of things around us; touch the surface of cellular tissues. The »stretching senses school festival« exhibits site-specific virtual reality artworks from ongoing research at the Cluster at TA T, in the continuation of the »Stretching Materialities« exhibition.
more
Foto: Lena Dues. Design: NODE Berlin Oslo
Performance, Conversation, Lecture in the Exhibition »Stretching Materialities«
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
Anne Duk Hee Jordan, »Making Kin 3.0«, 2021, KIOSK, Ghent, Belgium. Site specific Installation, with works included »Atmospheres of Breathing«, 2020-2021, »Singing Saw«, 2018, »I am so ashamed«, 2020, »Staying with the trouble«, 2019. Curated by Simon Delobel. Photo: Paulius Sliaupa
Lecture and Artist Talk Now Online
Are there aesthetic links between clouds, robots and the sea? The lecture by Babette Marie Werner, the performative talk with visual artist Anne Duk Hee Jordan and artistic and design researcher Clemens Winkler explored relations between visual interpretations of metabolic formations, biodiversity and new ecologies in art and design. This event was part of the exhibition »Stretching Materialities« by »Object Space Agency«. Follow the link to watch the full artist talk online.
more
3D printed prototypes by B. Pekcagliyan, W. Rybakova, N. Vega, & P. Greta for »Subterranean Matters« Project, in »Stretching Senses School«, Matters of Activity.
New Publications present Findings of Stretching Senses School at TA T Berlin
Playful approaches can directly affect our sensory faculties beyond the realm of power and knowledge. The »stretching senses school« was an education-as-research project at the Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin (TA T) attached to the exhibition »Stretching Materialities«. This workshop-based contribution to the exhibition was framed as a collaboration between anthropology and immersive interaction art. Cluster members engaged with creative coders and digital artists in experimental curation work, with the intention to raise awareness of the public on the multiscale and embedded interconnections between humans and other earthly beings. Four new publications by MoA members and participants now introduce the method and implementation of the workshop which was carried out last fall in the Tieranatomisches Theater and discuss the experimental testing in three specific projects.
more
Anna Kubelík, The Well-Tempered Hygrometer III, Object Lab of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Copyright: Matters of Activity.
Sound Performances Accompanying the Exhibition »Stretching Materialities«
The »Well-Tempered Hygrometer« by artist and architect Anna Kubelík was an installative and constructive sculpture from 2013. The title reveals the hybrid character of the work: on the one hand, the artist has conceived it as a geometric interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier by making very direct and precise references to this work which is fundamental for keyboard instruments. The sound performances accompany the exhibition »Stretching Materialities« by designers and researchers of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«, which could be visited in the adjacent building of the Tieranatomisches Theater.
more
MoA Exhibition »Stretching Materialities«. Copyright: Offshore Design
Hidden Activities in Objects and Spaces at Tieranatomisches Theater
Matter is dead? Objects are lifeless? Think again! In the exhibition »Stretching Materialities« the liveliness and activity of matter could be experienced in a completely new way. From September 16th, 2021 to March 4th, 2022, the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin became an interactive playground: an actual cloud levitated in the middle of the room, reacting to body heat and movement, hovering around the visitors like a strange creature. Stones revealed their weathering as a dynamic process of change. Large willow structures, carefully co-crafted by humans and computers, were interwoven with the inhabitable space. Korean ›durumagi‹, a silk overcoat connecting the digital and physical realm, vibrated on the visitors’ skin as they interacted with diverse materials. Walking through the room with VR headsets on, visitors could enter a glass elevator and travel straight down into the materials presented – into the CT scan of a stone or high up into the clouds to interact with air molecules.
more
Banner Lab Tour »Stretching Materialities«. Copyright: Offshore Design
Getting a Glimpse of the Exhibition
In June 2021, the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« invited to a special kind of lab tour: At Tieranatomisches Theater, the project »Object Space Agency« opened virtual gates on June 29th, 3.45 pm to let you experience the hidden activities of materials:
Enter a tangible atmosphere, let the wind blow in your face, feel crackling rattan braids under your feet, immerse yourself in virtual reality perspectives and travel with our glass elevator. And it doesn't stop there: wear haptically vibrating clothing that responds to its surroundings and experience weathering over millennia with selected stone samples. In »Stretching Materialities«, you can experience what no one else sees: The objects and structures around us are active and alive. And we interact with them whether we realize it or not.
more
Enveloping atmospheres - experiment with structural textiles (knitted willow column). Copyright: Matters of Activity, Clemens Winkler, Natalija Miodragović. Photo Credit: Michelle Mantel
Clemens Winkler
The main interest of our research group lies in an integrative approach for the Cluster »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« in forming walkable ways of knowing »exhibiting as a research method«. Therefore, this interest follows new forms of witnessing material activities and enacting tacit material knowledge to further co-create and co-speculate on them. Under intensive leadership within our curatorial collective including supervision of responsibilities for the exhibition process over thirteen months, our design research further set the focus on the materiality of atmospheric processes as highly immersive environing mixed media. Through the lens of this media materiality, situated practices are intended to transform our research across our curatorial collective and guide the Cluster's future exhibition projects.
more
The undesigned consequences – the rise in acidic Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). Copyright: Natalija Miodragović
We are our environment. To comprehend this inseparability, other than human experiences are to be imagined. Creating a new habitat of active architectures is a negotiation between conservation, regeneration and innovation. If we look at the inherited city, clothing, built and woven environment, atmosphere and techno-sphere as a multi-scale homeostatic process of conservation, other ecologies are to be included to complete the conservation. For ›matter as a condensation of response-ability‹ new perspectives of processes are needed for the innovation.
more
Entering Nutritious Clouds at Phlegraean Fields, 2017. Seminar »Terranautic Instruments« with Roman Kirschner. Copyright: Clemens Winkler/ Roman Kirschner
The exhibition space can also be understood as a space for processes metabolizing substances and forms. As a blob-like organism, a relational concept of activity and space makes it necessary to experimentally experience not only human and object-related perspectives, but also their energetic and material permeations. Hereby, it is more likely to link environments known to metabolisms from a human-scale perspective, such as volcanic grounds, to the exhibition space. Metabolic formations such as sediments or traces are in constant intentional and unintentional interaction with techniques and at the same time determine the energetic and material modes of the exhibition space. How can we make these modes more tangible for critical futures acting as systems designers?
more
Material Epistemology
A museum is not only a place of objects, but also a place of practice. In its work with the objects – conservation, restoration, preparation, storage – extensive material experimentation and research take place. The material is combined with the processual and can be understood as energy potential for knowledge formation – or as a threshold for thinking. Handling different kinds of matter is part of the material knowledge of the museum. How is material activity dealt with in the museum, and what approaches are there to not only immobilize it but to put it at the center of the museum itself?
more
A young XR enthusiast in the museum – using a VR headset modification with gesture recognition and stereo camera. Copyright: Christian Stein
Looking at the virtual in the real, our museum spaces are already amalgamated of the physical and the virtual. Looking further at the virtual possibilities reveals activities that are invisible otherwise. Virtual Reality is a new medium for the interactive exploration of these activities. The idea is to digitally model the exhibition space itself and make it experienceable in virtual reality with head-mounted displays. By mapping the virtual representation onto the physical architecture, the virtual space becomes tangible – virtual columns can be felt and begin to speak when one listens to them.
more
Virtual Material Definition in a game engine – defined by characteristics, not structure. Copyright: Christian Stein
Matter has always appeared as a basic physical unit in which objects are decomposed, out of which artifacts are created. If matter means primarily any homogeneity of structure, it is not necessarily physical per se. The view on virtual materials opens up a concept of material that can transcend and deceive the boundaries of the physical. Virtual materials can have properties that initially seem impossible – and they can be thought back from the properties to the structure and not vice versa. In this subproject, virtual materials will be investigated and made tangible.
more
Open Space Event, 9 November 2023. Copyright: Matters of Activity
MoA's Showroom and Workspace
With the »Activarium«, we want to actively engage with potential partners from the industry, start-ups, NGOs, politics and society as a whole to initiate an exploratory exchange on active materials, bio- & culture-inspired innovation as well as sustainability approaches. We want visitors to experience our prototypes to make MoA’s intentions and research tangible and accessible. The »Activarium« serves as a work-in-progress showcase of different research strands and processes. Our visitors can dive into the research as it's happening, before its published results.
Walk in and experience the »Activarium« Tuesdays, 10.00 am–12.15 pm or Thursdays, 2.00–4.00 pm! If you are a group of more than 5 people or if the opening hours do not fit your schedule, please contact us via moa.activarium@hu-berlin.de to schedule a visit!
more