Editorial Dear Friends of »Matters of Activity«,

Before we all head into a well-deserved summer break, we would like to once more inform you of what's going on in and around the Cluster. Especially tomorrow, July 18th, with more than one exciting event will be a very busy day for the Cluster. We will start with the final presentation of the MoA Design Research Studio entitled »Syntopia - Harvesting the Forest« at weißensee school of art and design berlin and end with a hands-on workshop called »Symbolic Dimensions of Platonic Polyhedra« at the Cluster.

Apart from that, you can read reports on our Cluster Members' activities and look at our Cluster report for the years 2019-2022.

Happy reading
Antje Nestler, Carolin Ott and Franziska Wegener

News | Weaving | Young International Fellows Architectural design conventionally operates within or creates seemingly static and permanent conditions. The two-week project developed by Tairan Li (MoA Young International Fellow 2022) and Daniel Suárez, led by Bastian Beyer, in the context of the project »Weaving« aimed to interrogate these conditions through a series of experiments with hydrogels. This group of materials mainly consists of water held together by three-dimensional polymer chains. Compared to inert materials, hydrogels are in constant dynamic exchange with their surrounding environment. Their water content can vary according to external conditions. They shrink substantially when dried and expand in humid environments and, therefore can be understood as latent buffer materials with ever-changing properties. Furthermore, this volume change can induce strong forces which lead to curling or buckling of the material during the drying process. → more

News | Publication We are pleased to announce that the report of the Cluster’s first research phase (2019–2022) is now available in print and pdf. It documents research questions, methods and outcomes from our research projects and serves as an outreach publication, providing an illustrated overview of the many Cluster activities over the past four years and highlighting events and formats across projects. Many thanks to all who contributed! → more

News | Cutting | Object Space Agency | stretching senses school On Monday, June 26th, anthropologists of art and science Marina Peterson (University of Texas in Austin) & Maxime Le Calvé (MoA) invited to »Nervous Listening«, an experimental ethnography workshop, realized together with cloud designer Clemens Winkler (MoA). Entering the Central Laboratory that day, participants were greeted with balloons to inflate with their breath and a 285-hertz »Theta« sound bath, which they were invited to explore haptically through the red latex bubbles. Blown into tension, they made us subtly reactive to air vibration. Thus attuned, we started listening nervously to the atmosphere around and to each other’s vocal utterances. → more

Event | Doctoral Program Under the title »matterscapes« the 2nd cohort of the MoA doctoral program gave insights into their dissertation projects.  By researching modes of activating and passivating matter in named contexts, this year’s progress presentation demonstrated and discussed the current research progress in one of the cohort’s ›natural habitats‹ — the studio on the 4th floor. All Cluster Members were invited to listen, share ideas, identify common grounds, offer suggestions, and exchange with one another. → more

News | Weaving More than 6000 participants from 135 countries, 150 sessions, 250 science papers & 400 speakers came together this month in Copenhagen for the  World Congress of Architecture – all with one goal: Sustainable Futures – Leave No One Behind! Also from »Matters of Activity«, two research groups contributed to this important event for architects and the building industries: Natalija Miodragović, Daniel Suárez, Nelli Singer presented their project »Plektonik - Active Yarns for Adaptive Loop-Based Material Systems«. This research investigates contemporary textile techniques and plant-based ›active‹ yarns to describe a new material system and fabricate lightweight structural prototypes. Second, Aurélie Mosse, Daniel Suárez, and Bastian Beyer gave insights into their preprint »Towards a Bacterially-Induced Textile Architecture«. → more

On July 28th and 29th, the workshop »Intercultural Views on Matter«, organized by Sabine Marienberg and Wolfgang Schäffner, took place with the participation of Cluster Members and guests from Tongji University Shanghai. In lectures, discussions and practical sessions we were amazed at how spontaneously connecting points between Chinese perspectives and the lines of thought of ›Active Matter‹ could be discovered and explored. The encounter was accompanied by joint intercultural cooking in the Cluster kitchen and crowned by a Chinese tea ceremony. A visit to the Gerhard Richter exhibition in the New National Gallery provided the opportunity to deepen the previously developed reflections on the flow and materiality of color. The event introduced »Intercultural Views on Matter« as a new item on the Cluster’s agenda to be followed up in the future. → more

News | Talk | Symbolic Material Giambattista Vico is the first thinker who, in his so-called »First New Science« of 1725, consistently considered the corporeality of the human relation to the world as well as the notion of animate, active matter. It would be too narrow to see this book only as a first edition of the later »New Science« of 1744, for it is a work in its own right and a major work of the emblematic philosopher of Italy. Unlike Descartes, who gains certainty from pure thought alone, Vico finds certain knowledge in a comprehensive consideration of fantastic and bodily human creations. MoA Member Jürgen Trabant, renowned linguist and recognized Vico specialist, has now translated it into German for the first time. In the video recording, you can follow the book presentation with Jürgen Trabant in conversation with Sabine Marienberg as well as an introduction by Sara Fortuna. → more

Podacst | Exzellent Erklärt Wie kommunizieren die Zellen eines Lebewesens miteinander? Erfahrt dies in der neusten #Podcast Folge von Exzellent Erklärt! Der Exzellenzcluster »CIBSS - Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies« erforscht die biologischen Signale, die in vielzelligen Lebewesen dafür sorgen, dass Zellen und Gewebe zusammenarbeiten und sich an Umwelteinflüsse anpassen können. Diese „Sprache des Lebens“ zu verstehen, hilft, wichtige gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen wie Gesundheit und Ernährungssicherheit zu meistern: Denn vielen Krankheiten liegen fehlerhafte Signalprozesse zugrunde – und Signale beeinflussen, wie Pflanzen auf ihre Umwelt und ein verändertes Klima reagieren. ↗ more

Event | Object Space Agency 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). → more

Event | 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. → more

Event | Clay | Water Platonic solids are regular polyhedra, whose faces are congruent regular polygons and vertices connecting the same number of faces. In the 3D Euclidian space, there exist only five such solids: tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. Plato theorized that all mater was composed of small polyhedra and related them to Earth’s elements. In this hands-on workshop, the participants are going to immerse themselves in the mindful activity of working with their hands, explore body-to-body transitions when modelling with clay and water, comprehend topological ideas and its dematerialization when modelling real materials, and collectively reflect about the experience of modelling Platonic solids. → more

Event | Exhibition | Object Space Agency For the exhibition »Víctor Delhez« »Object Space Agency« has supported the Museo Sivori in the heart of Buenos Aires. The exhibition revolves around Víctor Delhez and allows an interactive 360° tour through his house with insights into his archive and workplaces. This provides an intimate glimpse into his work, which fascinates and raises questions. The exhibition can be seen in three VR headsets from »Object Space Agency« in Buenos Aires and is a cooperation between the museum and »Matters of Activity«. → more

Event | Exhibition On July 22nd and 23rd, 2023, 12.00–8.00 pm, weißensee school of art and design berlin will again open its studios for the traditional Open House. Like last year, there will be the opportunity to learn more about the students’ projects and works developed during the previous year, some of them in cooperation with or in classes led by researchers of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«. → more

Event | Object Space Agency In an era fraught with dizzying socio-political events and burgeoning ecological catastrophes, this workshop for a special issue will delve into the concept of epistemic dizziness as a disordered state of whirling vertigo, applying it to the contemporary state of STS. As we navigate the tumultuous landscape of an open-ended pandemic, war, and socio-ecological devastation (Stengers 2021), the research practices of STS itself risk inducing ›epistemic dizziness‹. This workshop, inspired by Donna Haraway (2016), draws on ›serious fun‹ as a means of staving off paralysis and fainting, urging that knowledge production can serve as both a coping mechanism and a source of resilience. Repurposing the concept of ›ilinx‹, as delineated by Roger Caillois (1961), the series of lecture performances will critically examine playful dizzying practices in Western, indigenous, and other worlds as a pathway towards comprehending our vertiginously speedy world. → more

CAREER At the Hermann von Helmholtz Center, there are currently three positions available in the area of Knowledge Exchange, Science and Society, and Curation (Humboldt Lab). You will find all information at the following ↗ link. The application deadline for all calls is August 11th, 2023.