Climate

News | Material Form Function | Air | Science Communication | Climate | Cloud | Collactive Materials Clustermitglied und CollActive Materials Co-Projektleiter Martin Müller wurde nach der Eröffnung von »Airbound« am 19. Oktober 2023 im CLB im Aufbauhaus zur Ausstellung interviewt. »Die Luft spielt eine existenzielle Rolle in der globalen Klimakrise. Die Ausstellung soll die Aufmerksamkeit darauf lenken, dass mögliche Zukünfte sich auch an der Luft entscheiden, an unserem Verständnis davon, was es bedeutet zu atmen, mit der Luft zu leben. Wir sind ›airbound‹ – luftverbunden.«. Mehr zur Ausstellung und das ganze Interview gibt es im Tagesspiegel vom 22. Oktober 2023. more

News | Climate | Publications Die synthetische Biologie versucht sich gegenwärtig am Re-Design ganzer Gattungen, arbeitet an der ›resurrectio‹ längst ausgestorbener Arten zur Stabilisierung kollabierender Ökosysteme und greift mittels der Genomeditierungstechnologie CRISPR gezielt in die menschliche Keimbahn ein.
Für eine Kritik dieser prometheischen Biologie verbindet Martin Müller Ansätze aus Medien- und Kulturwissenschaft mit Designtheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie und Wissensgeschichte. Seine ›Genealogie der Zoëpolitik‹ ist gleichsam eine neue Macht- und Lebenstheorie. Sie beschreibt einen ›Willen zum Lebenmachen‹, der um 1800 entstand. Dieser intensivierte sich und eskalierte im 20. Jahrhundert in der ›molekularen Revolution‹ und heute im Auftauchen der synthetischen Biologie, welche die planetarische Natur und das biologische Leben in Gänze als ein Interventionsfeld ingenieurtechnischer Kalküle begreift.  more

News | Symbolic Material | Publications | Climate The year 2022 was the year of »climate extremes«, concludes the report of the European Climate Observatory. The concentration of CO2 and methane in the earth's atmosphere is the highest it has been for millennia. Mitigation measures such as emissions reduction or reforestation remain disappointingly ineffective. It seems almost impossible to keep the global temperature rise below the critical two-degree mark. The habitability of the earth is at stake.  It is time for an ideological critique of today's predominant imperatives of climate rescue: neo-romantic ecology on the one hand and geoengineering on the other. Both approaches want to return to a nature that does not exist anymore – and perhaps never did. A critical comment by Martin Müller in the FAZ. more

Event | 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

Event | Object Space Agency | Air | Climate | Cloud | More-Than-Human | Sensing – Vibrations | Stone | Textiles | Willow | XR 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

Event | Weaving | Material Form Function | Bacteria | Biofilm | Cellulose | Climate | Prototype / Model | Yarns/Fibers The workshop »Material as Environmental Device« on September 10th, 2020 gathers researchers and practitioners from the fields of architecture, ecological anthropology and the natural sciences to discuss the status of the material as an active element of environmental design on the basis of past and contemporary buildings and current research in the Cluster »Matters of Activity«. Three thematic sessions – »Materials and Environments«, »Essential Material« and »Active Skins« – focus on different aspects of material activity, addressing design and production techniques, ecological and cultural implications and the prospects of climate-responsive architectures. more

Climate | Willow | Stretching Materialities 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

Air | Cloud | Climate | Stretching Materialities 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