Dear Friends of »Matters of Activity«,

The year has already picked up some speed and the first events have passed successfully. We are particularly pleased to document some of our members' latest achievements in this issue. In February, we are looking forward to two special book launches: First, on February 22nd, Michael Friedman will present his latest study on Joachim Jungius - the first book to cover the unique encounters between weaving and mathematics at early modern Europe. Secondly, »Material Trajectories - Designing with Care?«, edited by MoA members Léa Perraudin, Clemens Winkler and Claudia Mareis, and Matthias Held, will launch on February 23rd as part of the Future Ecologies series by Meson Press, which is edited by Petra Löffler, Claudia Mareis and Florian Sprenger.
We would also like to draw your attention to the magnificent catalog accompanying the exhibition by photographer Kathrin Linkersdorff at Phoxxi - The Temporary House of Photography, that ended just a few days ago. The Microverse series, which was created in Regine Hengge's laboratory, is hopefully just the beginning of a more intensive collaboration.

Enjoy reading!
Antje Nestler, Carolin Ott & Franziska Wegener

On Friday, January 19th, a small group of MoA members made their way to Hamburg to visit Kathrin Linkersdorff's exhibition at the Phoxxi – The Temporary House of Photography, despite adverse weather conditions and very late trains. Guests were able to enjoy a special guided tour by artist-photographer Kathrin Linkersdorff, microbiologist Regine Hengge, and curator Ingo Taubhorn. The tour focused on the works from the Microverse series, created over the past few months during Linkersdorff's artist-in-residence stay in Regine Hengge's laboratory at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In front of the original works, the group was able to discuss questions raised during the BBB lecture in the Cluster in December. For those who did not make it to the exhibition, the accompanying ↗ book with contributions by Regine Hengge, Karin Leonhard, and a conversation with Kathrin Linkersdorff by Brigitte Woischnik and Ingo Taubhorn is highly recommended.

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- and culture-inspired innovation as well as sustainability approaches. We want visitors to experience our prototypes to make MoA’s intentions and research tangible and accessiblee. 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. MoA’s transdisciplinary research approach, which is based on ideas such as critical making and speculative design, enables reflections on common questions that hold the potential to contribute to the transition towards a more sustainable, resilient, and just culture of materials and to stimulate speculations about other ways of living and world-making.

The first »Activarium« installation, which opened November 8th, 2023 during Berlin Science Week focuses on architecture, alternative building materials, sustainable bio-inspired design, and our agency in (museum) spaces. Come visit!

Team & Contact

→ Antje Nestler (Science Communication)
→ Julia Blumenthal (Design Lab)
→ Kerstin Germer (Academic Management)

moa.activarium@hu-berlin.de

Opening Hours (starting February 13th)

Walk-in and experience (no prior reservation needed for groups of less than 5 people):
Tuesdays, 10.00 am – 12.15 pm
Thursdays, 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm

Are you a group of more than 5 people or do the opening hours not fit your schedule? Please contact us via moa.activarium@hu-berlin.de to schedule a visit! → more

Tree Bark Dr.-Ing. Charlett Wenig wurde im Rahmen ihrer Dissertation mit dem Titel »Sustainable Tree Bark Objects by Combining Science and Design«, in der sie sich mit Baumrinde beschäftigt hat, mit dem ersten Preis ausgezeichnet. Im Fokus stand die Frage, wie sich für diese hochwertige Anwendungsmöglichkeiten im Bereich Design und Architektur entwickeln lassen. Beim Fällen eines Baumes für industrielle Zwecke, wird aus Rinde meist Abfall. In deutschen Sägewerken fallen jährlich etwa vier Millionen m³ Rinde an. Nur ein kleiner Teil davon wird weiterverarbeitet. Das wirtschaftlich untergeordnete Interesse an Rinde sowie die hohe Variabilität der Rindenstrukturen untereinander und sogar innerhalb eines einzelnen Baumes sind Gründe, warum dieses Material im Vergleich zu Holz noch recht unerforscht ist. → more

Prototype / Model | Science Communication | Achievements We warmly congratulate Cluster Member Felix Rasehorn: His design and research lab WINT won the eco-design award 2023 in the category concept for the collaborative research project »GOLD Bio-textiles for sustainability«. As part of a research initiative, the GOLD project investigated goldbeater’s skin, a type of tissue found in cow gut. This elastic membrane was characterized biochemically to develop a recyclable, bio-based and vegan high-performance textile. → more

Symbolic Material Der Philosoph Giambattista Vico warnte Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts vor dem exklusiven Rationalismus seiner Zeit, was ihm zuweilen den Ruf eines Gegenaufklärers einbrachte. Dabei steigt in Vicos weltgeschichtlicher Konstruktion die Menschheit durchaus aus der dunklen und poetischen Barbarei der Sinne in einem Dreischritt hinauf zum Licht menschlicher Rationalität. In der vollends aufgeklärten Welt droht allerdings dialektisch eine »Barbarei der Reflexion« (barbarie della riflessione), die das Menschengeschlecht in eine neue Finsternis zu stürzen droht, aus der es sich erneut ans Licht emporarbeiten muss. Über diese italienische Version von Aufklärung diskutierten am 16. Oktober 2023 die Clustermitglieder Sabine Marienberg und Jürgen Trabant mit Ugo Perone im Rahmen des Jahresthemas »Projekt: Aufklärung!« der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Jetzt ist eine Aufzeichnung der Veranstaltung verfügbar. → more

Cutting | Object Space Agency | Graphic Anthropology In 2023, Maxime Le Calvé spent nine weeks as an invited scholar at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography of the University of Oxford, funded by the OX:BER »Flex-Fund« scheme (BUA). He presented an exhibition with twenty-eight ethnographic drawings from his study of neurosurgical experience at the ex-Tylor Library, co-curated with Elizabeth Hallam. Maxime was invited to give an accompanying research seminar at the Visual and Material Museum Anthropology program at the Pitt-Rivers Museum: »Sketching Brains. A Participant Graphic Anthropology of Neurosurgery.« As a supporting program to the exhibition, he and Elizabeth Hallam conducted a series of workshops for researchers and students on drawing and 3D sketching, as well as a writing class for the DPhil of the Medical Anthropology program. → more

Symbolic Material Fiktive Begegnungen mit Außerirdischen werden von lebensweltlichen Zusammenhängen aus entworfen, die uns vertraut sind und reichen von Ähnlichkeiten über Unterschiede bis hin zur Unverständlichkeit. Die Frage, wie sich mit Wesen kommunizieren ließe, die ganz anders und vielleicht ja doch so sind wie wir, unterscheidet sich nicht wesentlich von derjenigen, wie Angehörige verschiedener Kulturen und Sprachgemeinschaften einander verstehen können, wenn auf keinen gemeinsamen Rahmen zurückgegriffen werden kann. Das Abenteuer einer solchen rückhaltlosen Übersetzung eröffnet die Möglichkeit, durch die fremde Sprache etwas über die eigene zu lernen – und nicht zuletzt über unsere Grundannahmen, was Sprache eigentlich ausmacht. Im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung »Global Exocultures and UFO Conspiracies« spricht Clustermitglied Sabine Marienberg am Mittwoch, den 31. Januar 2024, am Romanistischen Institut der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf. → more

Object Space Agency | XR | Graphic Anthropology From February 7-9th, 2024, the Micro-Phenomenology Crash Course, instructed by Katrin Heimann, Associate Professor at the School of Culture and Society - Interacting Minds Centre of Aarhus University, took place at the Cluster. The event, organized by MoA members Maxime Le Calvé and Zeynep Akbal, had to objectives: first, providing participants with tools to dissect intricate first-person experiences of all kinds, secondly, analyzing collectively the benefits and the challenges of VR and Mixed Reality experiences to bridge art and science.  → more

Filtering | MoA Design Research Studio | Teaching | Prototype / Model The MoA Design Research studio project »deLIGHTful interactions« kindly invites you to its final presentation on February 14th, 2024 4-6 pm at Flughalle 4th floor, weißensee school of art and design berlin. Using the example of light, project contributors led by MoA member Carola Zwick explored how civilizational practices and rituals evolve when technological conditions change. Light offers itself as an exciting and, above all, highly accessible topic to illuminate this field of tension in an exemplary way. For »deLIGHTful interactions«, students worked with light as an active material, demonstration the wide range of technological possibilities at our disposal to develop meaningful and enjoyable interactions. → more

Filtering | Cutting | XR | Teaching | MoA Design Research Studio Save the date for the opening of the final exhibition and panel discussion of the interdisciplinary semester project »Coding IxD« on February 14h, 2024, at 6 p.m. at the Weizenbaum Institute to explore the interactive student projects. As we enter a world where technology does not only surround us, but is also inseparable from and inside of us, it is time to rethink how we design for and with the human body. The rise of wearables, body tattoos, and e-textiles demonstrates the increasing ubiquity of technology in capturing vital body data. → more

Weaving | Textiles | Publications Michael Friedman's book offers an analysis of Joachim Jungius' »Texturæ Contemplatio« - a hitherto-unpublished manuscript written in German and Latin that deals with weaving, knitting and other textile practices, attempting to present as well various fabrics and textile techniques in a scientifical and even mathematical framework. The book aims to provide the epistemological, technical and historic framework for Jungius’ manuscript, inspecting fabrics, weaving techniques as well as looms and other textile machines in the Holy Roman Empire during the Early Modern Period. It also offers a unique investigation of the notion and metaphor of ›texture‹ during this period, and explores, within the wider context of the ›meeting‹ or ›trading zones‹ thesis, the relations between artisans and natural philosophers during the 17th century. Save the date for the Book Presentation on Thursday, February 22nd, 2024. → more

Material Form Function | Publications »Material Trajectories: Designing With Care?« turns towards material-driven design processes with the aim of relocating technoscientific trajectories. Concerned with new forms of caretaking, it combines positions from the extended fields of design research and humanities scholarship including practice-based approaches. The contributions are an outcome of the 2021 Annual Conference of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF), organized in cooperation with »Matters of Activity«. The volume is edited by MoA members Léa Perraudin, Clemens Winkler and Claudia Mareis, and Matthias Held, Prorector for Research at Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, and published as part of the Future Ecologies Series in 2023 by Meson Press. The digital edition can be downloaded free of charge on the publisher’s website → more