Temporality

Material Form Function | Temporality The workshop »Critical Times. Part II: Ecologies of Relation« brought together Post-Doc’s, PhD’s and advanced MA students from the humanities, social science, as well as arts and design to engage in a discussion about critical times and materialities, postcolonial and posthuman critique, non-European perspectives, and notions of »deep time« of materialities. »Critical Times. Part II: Ecologies of Relation« unfolded a critical conversation, contesting linear conceptions of time, reductionist notions of materiality, and teleological solutionism, by focusing on ecologies and relations. Either term, ecology and relation, has received much attention over the last decade, especially in the arts, design, and humanities. Both emphasize the intersection of different domains of knowledge, media and practice to understand and navigate the challenges of an increasingly complex present. With the workshop, we aimed to critically address and resituate the multi-faceted dimensions of both through in-depth and creative formats. more

Material Form Function | Weaving | Object Space Agency | Waste | Temporality | Prototype / Model In March 2024, Karola Dierichs exhibits the project »Syntopia 0—Anthropos I Human« as part of the exhibition and symposium »Being Plastic/ Becoming Plastic« at the University of Virginia, US, under the direction of Ehsan Baharlou. Initially conducted under the title »ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2018«, the project explores the construction of spatial enclosures made from designed granular materials. Yet one might now call this project »Syntopia 0—Anthropos I Human« in the present discourse on human-made plastic residue. This considers the research not only as an example of materials design and construction robotics but also as a monument of anthropogenic mass superseding living biomass around 2020, given it was made of injection-molding plastic waste from the local Stuttgart car industry. more

Filtering | Toxics | Waste | Temporality In March 2023, an interdisciplinary team from design, computer science, art, and cultural studies examined various concepts of dealing with radioactive waste and the historical environmental impact of the industrial site of Oranienburg. While exploring the history of radioactive legacies in Oranienburg, we were confronted with different types of information: traces of the former industrial sites and bombings, symbols, maps, or signs of cleaning and securing as well as memorials as part of today's culture of remembrance. Oranienburg, with its multi-layered historical legacies, but also the land activations that have taken place, thus offered a concrete environment for the workshop questions as a field of research and experimentation. The group now published detailed documentation of the workshop. more

Object Space Agency | Fungi/Mycelium | Biodesign | More-Than-Human | Prototype / Model | Textiles | Temporality Architecture and nature inevitably compete for space. That poses a dilemma when resources are finite and the demand for space keeps growing. Besides, we know that the construction sector generates huge waste and emissions. All this has raised issues about the role of architecture: Does it need a shift in perspective? Could we build with nature instead of against it? The exhibition »Closer to Nature« at the Berlinische Galerie showcases three Berlin-based projects, that utilize the potential of mushrooms, living trees, and clay. This gives them an ecological quality, but also a completely new character: the buildings breathe, grow, and thus become alive themselves. One of the showcased projects is the experimental building MY-CO SPACE, which was developed, designed, and built by the interdisciplinary Berlin SciArt collective MY-CO-X, an initiative of the Department of Applied and Molecular Microbiology at TU Berlin under the direction of MoA member Vera Meyer with contributions by Dimitra Almpani-Lekka. more

Material Form Function | Temporality Time has become an increasingly critical factor and concept in the wake of Anthropocene debates. With the workshop »Critical Times. Part I: Multiple Matter«, which took place at »Matters of Activity« on November 17 and 18, the organizers asked, what times and temporalities shape the pressing crises of the present but also what temporalities allow for a critical response to a homogenizing crisis of such a present. The focus of the workshop resided in the conjunctions between speculative practices and narratives, other-than-scientific modes of sense-making as well as enchanting, violent, or haunting counter-/temporalities unfolding through eco-artistic practices. Around twenty-five multidisciplinary workshop participants engaged in discussions together with our invited guests — T.J. Demos, Sandra Jasper, Kiran Pereira and David Weber-Krebs.  more

Material Form Function | Temporality | More-Than-Human How might we rescue the future from the grips of planetary negativity, capitalist longtermism, and generalized catastrophism? It will take nothing less than cultivating an emancipated chronopolitics emerging from the traditions of the oppressed in relation to an undetermined not-yet. T. J. Demos presentation addresses recent creative modelings of radical Indigenous and Afrofuturist worlds-to-come and their radical temporal reconfigurations, founded upon social justice and environmental flourishing. more

Symbolic Material | Material Form Function | Publications | Bacteria | Temporality 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

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Doctoral Program | Bauhaus | Temporality | More-Than-Human The PhD project »(Hi)Stories of Transformation: Tracing Materials in the British Arts and Crafts Movement« by Kaja Ninnis investigates the environmental implications of the sourcing and transformation of ›raw‹ materials in the context of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. more

Doctoral Program | Forest | Temporality In her dissertation, Rahel investigates artistic practices, which are set in damaged environments and have plants, trees, and forests as their object of investigation. By analyzing selected case studies from the field of contemporary art and recent art history, the project aims to discuss arboreal politics, their medial modes of representation, and the epistemologies brought together in them more