Copyright: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Gestaltung: cyan Berlin
The Making of »Matter of South. Biomaterial Cultures form Latin America«
Roundtable and Q&A
Material Form Function | More-Than-Human | Biodesign | Fungi/Mycelium | Rubber | Water | Climate | Circular Economies On July 12th 2024, the exhibition and research project »Matter of South. Biomaterial Cultures from Latin America« opened its doors. Its curators Heidi Jalkh, Gisela Pozzetti and Valentina Aliaga Vargas are investigating to which extent the development of biomaterials can create new relationships between people and their environment in the future. What alternatives can there be to our extractivist practices? In this round table discussion with the three curators and further players, on July 17th, you can find out more about the background and vision of the »Matter of South« initiative.
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TRAZOS Edición Biomateriales, 2024, Gisela Pozzetti, Heidi Jalkh, Sistemas Materiales. Photo: Maia Croizet
Matter of South. Biomaterial Cultures from Latin America
Exhibition Opening at Kunstgewerbemuseum on 12 July
Material Form Function | Biodesign | More-Than-Human Under the new discursive platform »More Than Human: Design after the Anthropocene« at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, created by Claudia Banz, Heidi Jalkh has been invited to curate a project in collaboration with co-curators Gisela Pozzetti and Valentina Aliaga. The »Matter of South - Biomaterial Cultures from Latin America« project explores how biomaterial initiatives in this region harness local culture and biodiversity to create new material cultures. This endeavor also aims to reframe our relationship with the immediate environment while questioning and providing alternatives to the established extractivist model. The exhibition will open on July 12th, 7 pm, and runs through August 26th. A two-day international symposium on this topic is scheduled for the project, tentatively set for July 17th-18th.
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Fermentation preparation with Tanyaporn Tantasathien. Thailand 2024. Copyright: Emma Sicher
Generating Biomaterials By Acetic Fermentation
Emma Sicher Exchanged Knowledge with Researchers and Practitioners in Thailand
Weaving | Bacteria | Biodesign | Biofilm | Cellulose | Doctoral Program Between May and June, doctoral researcher Emma Sicher spent three weeks in Thailand as part of her PhD in Design Studies. Invited by Professor Aracha Krasae-in, she presented the work of the Cluster and her current research at the Faculty of Architecture of Kasetsart University in Bangkok. There, she also exchanged ideas with Professor Prakit Sukyai, an expert in Biotechnology and Biopolymers. Additionally, she presented at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts of Thammasat University, invited by Professor Wuthigrai Siriphon.
The heart of the experience consisted of visits to two sites associated with acetic fermentation techniques that can generate biomaterials. These techniques range from ancient practices to more recent methods, employed in various ways from fertilizers to health-promoting substances. The visits took place in small artisanal production realities in Nakhon Ratchasima province, including Stefano and Somporn Abbruzzese, and Micro Friends, an initiative run by Tanyaporn Tantasathien and Waratchanat Thongthiangtham at the Baan Ama farm stay.
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Detail Poster Weaving Study Day, Material Culture Forum, 11 June 2024. Copyright: University of Cambridge
Textile Thinking for the Future
Christiane Sauer Contributes to Weaving Study Day in Cambridge
Weaving | Biodesign | Textiles On June 11th, MoA Member Christiane Sauer will contribute to a Weaving Study Day organized by the Material Culture Forum at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her talk will explore textile potentials for a novel design approach. The hierarchical structure of fibre, yarn, fabric offers multiple possibilities to »program« a surface for specific performance in an applied context. Experimental prototyping and bio-inspired design become the base for resilient and adaptive structures that examine the boundaries between softness and rigidity, between material and shape, and between functionality and structure.
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Marco Tamborini: Biorobotik zur Einführung
Biorobotik zur Einführung
Neue Publikation von Clustermitglied Marco Tamborini
Symbolic Material | Publications | Robotics | Biodesign Was ist Biorobotik? Unter welchen philosophischen, historischen und ethischen Voraussetzungen können bioinspirierte Roboter gebaut werden? Wie haben sich das Bild des Menschen und das Verhältnis von Natur und Technik durch die Herstellung von biohybriden Robotern verändert?
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Poster Lecture Series 2024, Photo: Charlotte Linton. Copyright: Matters of Activity.
Cultures of Regeneration
On 11 July, David Jeevendrampillai Speaks about Extra-Terrestrial Anthropology: Design Thinking for a Post-Planetary Social Life
Material Form Function | Teaching | Biodesign | Textiles Rapidly increasing socio-ecological damage and the urgent need for care, repair, and recovery have led to renewed calls for regenerative design as a means of wayfinding towards new forms of just and sustainable life on earth, prompting critical questions concerning the reconfigured pasts they invoke to the possible futures they open up. Aiming to (re)design the way we live to support our interdependence on natural ecosystems, regenerative systems thinking is being applied to fundamental fields of human activity, from food production and agriculture to medicine, textiles, architecture, rural revival, and the urban built environment to other-worldly materialities. The lecture series organized by Lucy Norris, which started on May 2nd, will, among other things, explore how traces of former ways of being in the world and concepts such as ›indigenous knowledge‹ are referenced as ways to move forward and ask what futures are being imagined by whom and for whom, and how some forms of living are enabled while other possibilities are negated.
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Exhibition view »Closer to Nature. Building with Mushroom, Tree, Clay«, Berlinische Galerie. Copyright: Photo: Harry Schnitger
Closer to Nature
Experimental Building by SciArt Collective MY-CO-X on Show at Berlinische Galerie
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.
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Presenting the Humboldt Award to Heidi Jalkh. Photo: Phil Dera. Copyright: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Heidi Jalkh Awarded with Humboldt Price »Research to Innovation« 2022
Material Form Function | Master Open Design | Achievements | Teaching | Biodesign Cluster member Heidi Jalkh has been awarded for her master thesis »Making matter active through form. Fabricating bio-inspired behavior with auxetic structures« with the Humboldt Award 2022 in the category »Research to Innovation«. Our warmest congratulations! The thesis at the department of Cultural History and Theory and is part of the Master »Open Design« and shows how the use of geometry and spatial arrangement can be used to provide a conventional elastic material with unconventional behavior and functionality. Thus, through interdisciplinary research, Heidi Jalkh has succeeded in weaving concepts from biology, materials science, and engineering from a designer's perspective to create new »active materials«.
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Close up of mistletoe berries containing sticky seeds. Copyright: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces / Nils Horbelt
Natural Super Glue from Mistletoe Berries
A Cellulose-Based Material Could be Useful for Medical Applications such as Wound Sealant
Biodesign A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPICI) and McGill University in Canada discovered strong adhesive properties of white-berry mistletoe. The mistletoe berry's flexible fibers adhere to both skin and cartilage as well as to various synthetic materials and could find application in many fields, such as wound sealant in biomedicine, through ease of processing.
Poster virtual symposium »Material Negotiations«. Copyright: Julia Lohmann, adapted by NODE Berlin
Material Negotiations: Practices of Biodesign
Virtual Symposium on 8 October
Material Form Function | Science Communication | Biodesign In search of non-extractive production models, biological systems became a central interest for the design practice for 10 years. Designers embraced growing strategies rather than shaping technologies, transient organisms rather than stable materials, environment-sensitive assemblages rather than resistant and passivated objects. How this ›biological turn‹ is questioning the methods, tools, attitude and political role of designers today?
The virtual symposium »Material Negotiations« gathered design practitioners to discuss and understand the scope, challenges and interest of such a shift. The symposium was hosted by Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis and Dr. Emile de Visscher as part of the »Material Form Function« group.
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Scaling Nature (1): Wrinkles«: Liquid Lacquer. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin / Luis Magg | Bacterial cellulose curtain. Copyright: Bastian Beyer and Iva Rešetar
3D Fabrication of Biologically Inspired Structures
»Talking Matters« Lecture Series Continues with a Talk by Materials Scientist James Weaver
Material Form Function | Science Communication | Biodesign On Tuesday, 15 June 2021, 4:15–5:45 pm, the Cluster lecture series »Talking Matters« continued with a talk by James Weaver from Harvard University. The materials scientist spoke on invitation of the project Material Form Function about »High Resolution Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing: 3D Fabrication of Biologically Inspired Structures«.
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Poster Online Lecture Series »Talking Matters«, Copyright: Lucius Fekonja, Bastian Beyer, Iva Rešetar, adapted by NODE Berlin
Talking Matters
Online Lecture Series of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«
Weaving | Filtering | Cutting | Material Form Function | Object Space Agency | Symbolic Material | Science Communication | Biodesign | Brain | Computational Design | More-Than-Human | Yarns/Fibers On Tuesday, May 18th, 2021, »Matters of Activity« launched the online lecture series »Talking Matters«, in which external speakers from various disciplines were invited by the six cluster projects to provide insights into their research, which is related to central issues of »Matters of Activity«. In addition to researchers and students from various disciplines, the lecture series was open to anyone interested in our research.
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Can Bacteria Spin a Yarn? Kick-Off event »MitWissenschaft/ WeSearch«, Humboldt Forum Berlin, 29 April 2021. Copyright: Humbolt Forum
Can Bacteria Spin a Yarn? We Need a New Culture of Materials
Cluster Members Opened Event Series »MitWissenschaft/ WeSearch« at the Humboldt Forum
Filtering | Weaving | Bacteria | Biofilm | More-Than-Human | Science Communication | Yarns/Fibers | Biodesign On Thursday, April 29th, 7–9:30 pm, members of the Cluster gave insights into the research of »Matters of Activity« in an interactive live show, thus opening the event series »MitWissenschaft/ WeSearch« at the Humboldt Forum.
Using concrete examples from the Cluster projects »Weaving« and »Filtering«, MoA members Bastian Beyer, Alwin Cubasch, Peter Fratzl, Regine Hengge, Claudia Mareis, Léa Perraudin, Christiane Sauer and Wolfgang Schäffner showed how the natural sciences, the humanities and the design disciplines work closely together to find innovative solutions to contemporary problems.
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»Materialwissenschaft – von der Biomimese zur Bioinspiration«
Guest Article from Peter Fratzl in the »Austria Presse Agentur – Science«
Material Form Function | Publications | Biodesign Peter Fratzl has published a guest article in »Austria Presse Agentur – Science« in the series »Lehrmeisterin Natur«. Under the title »Materialwissenschaft – von der Biomimese zur Bioinspiration«, he explores the question of what makes natural materials so interesting for materials scientists. On the one hand, there are the renewable raw materials such as wood or cotton, which are widely used as building materials or textiles. On the other hand, it is the fact that nature succeeds in producing materials with an incredible variety of properties and applications from comparatively few and not always very high-quality basic materials. The article is available in German.
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Biological materials are built with a limited number of building blocks, based on polysaccharides, proteins, and minerals. Copyright: Julia Blumenthal
Interdependence of Structure and Function in Biological Materials
Peter Fratzl holds Lecture Series for an Interdisciplinary Audience at HU
Material Form Function | Teaching | Biodesign The lecture series took place every second Tuesday 4:15–5:45 pm and was addressed to a pluridisciplinary audience, including sciences, design and cultural studies. All required basics from biophysics and biochemistry to mechanics were provided. The lecture series introduced relevant structural features from molecular to macroscopic scales using examples for materials based on proteins or on polysaccharides, in particular cellulose and chitin.
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Hydroweave. Copyright: Stefanie Eichler & Juni Neyenhuys, weißensee school of art and design berlin
»Hydroweave« at the Raumprobe Material Award 2020
The Work was Realized at weißensee school of art and design berlin Within the Framework of the MoA Design Studio
Achievements | MoA Design Research Studio | Teaching | Biodesign | Textiles »Hydroweave« by Stefanie Eichler and Juni Neyenhuys was awarded a recognition in the field of »Study« at the Raumprobe Material Award 2020. The project, which centers on a research-based design approach, was created in 2019 at weißensee school of art and design berlin as part of the MoA Design Studio »Scaling Nature (1): Wrinkles« under the direction of Prof. Christiane Sauer. Since 2005, Raumprobe has been a constantly growing online material database and physical material exhibition in Stuttgart. Raumprobe has been awarding the prestigious Material Prize annually since 2013, recognizing special materials.
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Copyright: Jonas Lauströer, Amir Andikfar, John Nyakatura (HU Berlin)
Reverse-engineering the Locomotion of a Stem Amniote – Insights from a Multidisciplinary Approach
Hosted at ExC Science of Intelligence our Member John Nyakatura Talks About Contemporary Paleobiological Research on 14 January
Cutting | Biodesign Reconstructing the locomotion of key vertebrate fossil specimens offers insights into their palaeobiology and helps to conceptualize major transitions in vertebrate evolution. A unique combination of an articulated nearly complete early land-living vertebrate fossil specimen and fossilized trackways was the starting point for an in-depth reconstruction of the locomotion based on the integration of image-based analyses with engineering techniques. The reconstruction involved experimental as well as computer-aided modeling approaches (›virtual paleontology‹).
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Yin 阴 , Cindy Peng. Copyright: weißensee school of art and design berlin, Cindy Peng
Scaling Nature (3): Growth
Works on Display at weißensee school of art and design
Weaving | Material Form Function | Teaching | MoA Design Research Studio | Biodesign The MoA Design Research Studio on »Growth« was a continuation of the »Scaling Nature« series introduced in Summer 2019. In this context, the core idea of the studio was to investigate matter as an active agent in the design process. This means that it has its own innate capacity of formation and performance, that is being designed from the bottom up. Scaling nature can be understood as the process of extracting principles from naturally occurring systems and taking them as inspiration for specific applications – during this process scaling operations necessarily are one key aspect of this translation. The results of the MoA Design Research Studio on »Growth« were on internal display at the weißensee school of art and design berlin from September 22nd to October 14th, 2020.
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Cluster Member Clemens Winkler becomes Jury Member at »Gingko Bioworks –The Organism Company«
Residencies between Creative Disciplines and Synthetic Biology
Object Space Agency | Achievements | Biodesign At »Gingko Bioworks – The Organism Company« designers can spend a three month residency working at the intersection of creative disciplines and synthetic Biology. Through an open call process, they invited designers to submit a design project proposal in response to the theme: »Skin: Designing Biological Interfaces«. Cluster Member and Design Researcher Clemens Winkler was part of the jury. The jury members will now provide mentorship during the residency and interact with the residents on a regular basis.
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»Scaling Nature (2): Fibers, Muscles and Bones« Final Presentation. Copyright: weissensee academy of art berlin
MoA Design Studio: Scaling Nature (2): Fibers, Muscles, Bones
Final Presentation at weißensee school of art and design berlin
Weaving | Material Form Function | Teaching | MoA Design Research Studio | Biodesign On February 11th, 2020 the final presentations of MoA Design Studio »Scaling Nature (2): Fibers, Muscles and Bones« took place at weißensee school of art and design berlin. We are very happy that many MoA Members were able to attend and discuss the students' works, as the final presentations showcased the inspiring journey of this semester's research-based design projects.
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Animal Materialities
Compositions and Practices in the History of Science
Weaving | Biodesign The Workshop »Animal Materialities« organised by Lisa Onaga & Laurence Douny (project »Weaving«) took place at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Dec 5-6, 2019. The workshop examined the range of components of animal bodies used and transformed over time by animals, and humans.
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Stone Web – Spatial module system made from basalt fibre at the weissensee academy of art berlin (Idalene Rapp, Natascha-Katharina Unger, Christiane Sauer). Copyright: weissensee academy of art berlin, I. Rapp, N. Unger
Nature as Source of Inspiration
The Innovation Potential of Bio-inspired Materials
Material Form Function | Science Communication | Biodesign Nature is a source of inspiration for the production of new materials. A project by acatech in cooperation with the Cluster Co-Director Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Peter Fratzl, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), highlights the innovation potential of bio inspired materials – from chemistry and energy to medicine and robotics, art and design.
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Harvesting reed in Brandenburg for mechanical testings of future design applications. Photo: Charlett Wenig
Paludicultures
Biodesign | Climate | More-Than-Human | Water How might we (re)learn ways of living well in re-wetted landscapes, develop appropriate technologies of making with local resources, and speculate on entangled emergent futures in watery worlds? A collaboration between Charlett Wenig, an interdisciplinary material researcher, and Lucy Norris, a social anthropologist working in the field of design, this project looks at the potential of peatland resources (especially reed canary grass
Phalaris arundinacea, and water sedge
Carex aquatilis) as materials in the proposed wetlands of northern and eastern Germany.
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»Syntopia 0—Anthropos I Human«, Karola Dierichs, 2024. Photo: Roland Halbe
Syntopia 0—Anthropos Human
Biodesign | Computational Design »Syntopia 0—Anthropos I Human« is a critical architectural response to anthropogenic mass surpassing living biomass around the year 2020.»Syntopia 0« is part of a collection of architectural prototypes investigating the notion of syntopy, a term which was coined in biology by Luis René Rivas in 1964. The term is a combination of the Greek words syn*meaning together and *topos meaning place. To develop Syntopia thus means to create designs sourced from and situated within a specific site—a topos.
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Extracellular matrix. Experiments by Emile De Visscher, 2020. Credits and copyright: Experimental Surgery, Charité.
Vascularizations
Biodesign »Vascularisations« stems from experimental surgery and explores methods for the (re-)generation of vascular structures that are environmentally sensitive, and have regenerative and evolutive functions.
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