Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Soft Colission, Anna Schäffner. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Soft Colission, Anna Schäffner. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Dear friends of Matters of Activity,

We hope you had a great start into 2025 and wish you a very healthy and happy new year! We're kicking off this year with lots of new publications by our members and, of course, some new events. Our Cluster members published in a variety of formats and very different topics, such as »West African Wild Silks Techniques: Preserving Marka-Dafing’s Heritage of Knowledge« by Laurence Douny and Salif Sawadogo, »Paper(s) as Carrier of Knowledge« by Michael Friedman, the »Growth of a Tesselation« by Peter Fratzl, Mason Dean, Binru Yang, and Jana Cicierska-Holmes, »Operate with Fungi«, edited by Vera Meyer and Wolfgang Schäffner and the »Architectures of Syntopia: An Interdisciplinary Speculative Model for Constructions with Insect-infested Wood« by Pelin Asa, Karin Krauthausen, Robert Stock and Karola Dierichs.

We are particularly excited about our upcoming interview series »Making« and the Open Space #4 event by Berlin University Alliance with Claudia Mareis, Anupama Kundoo, and Regula Lüscher about materials of the future and innovation for construction, architecture and urban development at the air traffic controller tower of the former Tempelhof airport on February 19th!

Happy reading
Antje Nestler & Carolin Ott

A Look Back at Berlin Science Week 2024
Workshop »In a Seashell«, Berlin Science Week, 2024. Photo: Anne Freitag

Workshop »In a Seashell«, Berlin Science Week, 2024. Photo: Anne Freitag

Heidi Jalkh, Science Slam, Berlin Science Week, 2024. Photo: Kay Herschelmann

Heidi Jalkh, Science Slam, Berlin Science Week, 2024. Photo: Kay Herschelmann

1.11.2024–10.11.2024

Science Communication Never before have members of Matters of Activity been involved in so many events and different formats during Berlin Science Week as in 2024 - have a look at some of the highlights.
The workshop → In a Seashell at the Natural History Museum with Heidi Jalkh, Angie Dub and Christiane Sauer, held in cooperation with Bauhaus Earth and Experimental, focused on the development and utilization potential of biomaterials made from seashell waste. Rasa Weber took part in a panel discussion on »Science and Design for Marine Ecosystem Restoration« at the French Embassy before her exhibition → The Whispering World: Words by a Silent Sea opened in the foyer. For two days, José Hernandez supervised the traveling exhibition → Bakteriopolis from the TU Dresden, which was placed in a shipping container in front of the Natural History Museum, and gave insights into his PhD research. Fardin and Siamak Gholami presented their co-filter project as finalists at the pitching event → The Future of Green Chemistry, which was organized by the scientific publisher Wiley and the Berlin-based chemical innovation association greenCHEM. Claudia Banz and John Nyakatura were among those involved in the ↗ roundtable on Robertina Šebjanič's »Lygophylia« exhibition at the Kunstgewerbemuseum. The crowning finale was the → Science Slam of the seven Berlin Clusters of Excellence, in which Heidi Jalkh took a fantastic 2nd place.

Kiki Prototype by Rasa Weber, Exhibition Opening »The Whispering World: Words by a Silent Sea« at French Embassy, Berlin Science Week 2024. Photo: Matters of Activity

Kiki Prototype by Rasa Weber, Exhibition Opening »The Whispering World: Words by a Silent Sea« at French Embassy, Berlin Science Week 2024. Photo: Matters of Activity

Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures
Conference Contributions Now Online as Audio Series
Image: https://koozarch.com/interviews/planetary-design-reclaiming-futures

Image: https://koozarch.com/interviews/planetary-design-reclaiming-futures

23.10.2024–26.10.2024

Material Form Function | Science Communication | Climate | More-Than-Human | Biodesign | Circular Economies | Speculative Design | Temporality The conference »Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures« brought together critical thinking and doing around the role of design in making, unmaking and remaking worlds. Starting from the intersection of design, infrastructure, and the planetary environment, it offered a generative platform open to artists, academics, and activists for rethinking design’s role in producing the present and for developing alternative planetary futures. The conference gathered artists, academics, and activists to rethink design's role in producing our present and developing alternative planetary futures.

The conference contributions, including those from → Claudia Mareis and → Anke Gruendel, have now been uploaded as an audio series by the independent publication platform Koozarch. ↗ more

Sensing Common Grounds. Towards Collaborative Speculation
Symposium by CollActive Materials
Seaweed resonance, presentation by Julia Lohmann (Aalto, Helsinki). Photo: Clemens Winkler

Seaweed resonance, presentation by Julia Lohmann (Aalto, Helsinki). Photo: Clemens Winkler

14.11.2024–15.11.2024

Material Form Function | Collactive Materials | Speculative Design | Air | Climate | More-Than-Human | Robotics | Water | Cloud The symposium »Sensing Common Grounds. Towards Collaborative Speculation«, organized by Léa Perraudin and Martin Müller, asked about the ›how‹, foregrounding the methodologies of such speculations and projections: How to relate speculative design proposals to critical diagnoses of the present and attempts at historical speculation? How specifically can collaborative speculation in inter- and transdisciplinary contexts enable us to sense ›what is in the air‹? What narratives, prototypes, materials, and media hold knowledge (and non-knowledge) of these scenarios? → more

Paper(s) as Carrier of Knowledge
Special Issue Edited by Michael Friedman and Daniela Zetti
A computer program listing from the 1970s. Before computers had screens, paper printouts were the only way to correct and adapt programs to new requirements. A program was developed in a series of iterations and printed on continuous form paper with green and white ›zebra‹ stripes. Copyright: ArnoldReinhold, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons 

A computer program listing from the 1970s. Before computers had screens, paper printouts were the only way to correct and adapt programs to new requirements. A program was developed in a series of iterations and printed on continuous form paper with green and white ›zebra‹ stripes. Copyright: ArnoldReinhold, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons 

27.11.2024

Symbolic Material | Publications On February 22nd and 23rd, 2023, MoA member Michael Friedman and Daniela Zetti from the University of Lubeck organized a workshop at the Deutsches Museum entitled »Paper(s) as Epistemic Carrier of Knowledge, «and a special issue resulting from this workshop has recently been published. The special issue investigates and reflects on the possibilities and limitations that various historical actors saw in the development and use of paper. The contributions by Thomas Morel, Axel Hüntelmann, Lotte Schüßler, and Michael Zakim provide insights into historical fields in which technology, administration, and science existed side by side and were partly interrelated and partly independent of one another. The special issue aims to think about paper as an object of circulation of knowledge and practices that enable and transform collective memory. It is published in »Technikgeschichte« at »Nomos eLibrary«. → more

Visualizing the Invisible
Essay by MoA Member Babette Werner in Award-Winning Book about Marta Djourina
Cover »Firefox« by Marta Djourina, Distanz Verlag 2024.

Cover »Firefox« by Marta Djourina, Distanz Verlag 2024.

3.12.2024

Object Space Agency | Publications The publication »Foxfire« by artist Marta Djourina with a contribution by Cluster member Babette Werner has been awarded Bronze in the »Conceptual-Artistic« category at the prestigious German Photobook Prize 2024. The book offers a comprehensive insight into the experimental work of the Berlin-based artist, celebrated for its innovative approach and aesthetic brilliance. In Foxfire, Marta Djourina explores the boundaries of analog photography, merging poetic gestures with performative experiments. Her work – characterized by luminous, color-intense compositions – delves into the nature of light and its interplay with sensory perception, natural phenomena, and the body. Employing unique techniques and light sources such as bioluminescent organisms, sunlight, and historical methods like Kirlian photography, she creates striking visual narratives. Babette Werner's essay provides a deep insight into Djourina's creative processes focusing on touch in analog and virtual space. → more

Horst Bredekamp Received the Knight’s Cross
Cluster Co-Director Awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
4.12.2024

Achievements On December 4th, 2024, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Horst Bredekamp received the Knight’s Cross, Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Cavaliere dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana) from the Italian Ambassador Varricchio, awarded by President Sergio Mattarella. We warmly congratulate our Cluster's Senior Co-Director, Professor Bredekamp, on this special honor. → more

Growth of a Tesselation
Team Led by MoA Researchers Mason Dean and Peter Fratzl Present New Findings
Hyomandibula - Tesserae shapes and their growth. Image: Mason Dean

Hyomandibula - Tesserae shapes and their growth. Image: Mason Dean

4.12.2024

Material Form Function | Publications | Tessellation The skeletons of sharks and rays, consisting of cartilage and armored with a covering of mineralized tiles (tesserae), pose a mathematical challenge: How can continuous coverage be maintained as the skeleton grows? New insights into the geometric rules governing the development of stingray skeletal patterns by a research team including MoA members Peter Fratzl, Mason Dean, Binru Yang, and Jana Cicierska-Holmes, can be read in an article published in last December's issue of »Advanced Science«. The study used microCT and custom visual data analyses of growing skate skeletons to systematically examine the tessellation patterns and morphology of the many thousands of interacting tesserae that cover the hyomandibula, a skeletal element critical for feeding. → more

West African Wild Silks Techniques: Preserving Marka-Dafing’s Heritage of Knowledge
Publication Project by Laurence Douny and Salif Sawadogo
Douny, Laurence (2024). Degumming process - cooking the cocoons. The British Museum. Image: https://doi.org/10.25420/britishmuseum.27960084.v1

Douny, Laurence (2024). Degumming process - cooking the cocoons. The British Museum. Image: https://doi.org/10.25420/britishmuseum.27960084.v1

9.12.2024

Weaving | Publications | Yarns/Fibers | Wild Silk For centuries, Indigenous wild silks have been traded across West Africa and used in Marka-Dafing’s textiles production in the Mouhoun regions of Burkina Faso. Over the past twenty years, the precious materials that are used by women for weaving their ceremonial wrappers called tuntun, which stands as their material identity, have become a scarce resource due to climate change and human impact on both the insect species and their ecosystem. The publication project by Cluster members Laurence Douny and Salif Sawadogo, as well as Lonsani Dayo and Abdoulaye Séré, aims at co-constructing digital documentation of wild silk production with close involvement of Marka-Dafing communities. → more

Operate with Fungi
New Publication Edited by MoA Members Vera Meyer and Wolfgang Schäffner
13.12.2024

Object Space Agency | Fungi/Mycelium | Publications »Operate with Fungi« is the final book in a trilogy dedicated to the world of fungi and their possibilities. In all three projects, various scientific, artistic and civil society actors from the Berlin area worked together in different constellations to learn from the life of Funga, to be inspired by the possibilities of fungal biotechnology and, building on this, to jointly develop new fungal-based biomaterials that can form the basis of a circular and bio-based economy and architecture. While the first two books focused more on the why and how of transdisciplinary collaboration, this book, edited by MoA members Vera Meyer and Wolfgang Schäffner, reports on how working with fungi can bridge divides and build strong connections. Between highly specialized scientific and artistic disciplines, and between closed university laboratories and open social spaces. See you at the book presentation on January 22nd at the Mitkunstzentrale! → more

Mahamadi Ilboudo Knight of the Order of Merit of Arts, Letters, and Communication
MoA Associated Member Receives High Honor from the Government of Burkina Faso
13.12.2024–31.1.2025

Weaving | Achievements On December 13th, 2024, Mahamadi Ilboudo, MoA Associated Member to Weaving, was made a Knight of the Order of Merit of Arts, Letters, and Communication, with an Arts clasp. The ceremony took place in the courtyard of the National Museum of Burkina Faso and was attended by a host of guests including members of the government, leading figures from the cultural sector, and the recipients’ friends and family. Ilboudo's contribution to the development of culture and the quality of his curatorial projects were recognized. Congratulations on this honorable award! → more

Architectures of Syntopia: An Interdisciplinary Speculative Model for Constructions with Insect-infested Wood
Publication Authored by Pelin Asa, Karin Krauthausen, Robert Stock and Karola Dierichs Out Now
Beetle-infested Spruce. Copyright: Pelin Asa, MPICI

Beetle-infested Spruce. Copyright: Pelin Asa, MPICI

15.12.2024

Material Form Function | Wood | Forest | More-Than-Human | Publications The new article »Architectures of Syntopia: An Interdisciplinary Speculative Model for Constructions with Insect-infested Wood« is out now, authored by Pelin Asa, Karin Krauthausen, Robert Stock and Karola Dierichs. The research was conducted at Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. Thanks to the editors Cordula Kropp and Simon Aicher and the great team at TATuP – Journal for Technology Assessment in Theory and Practice. → more

Mareike Stoll Solkatten Scholar 2025
Research at the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books in Stockholm
6.1.2025–31.12.2025

Achievements We are delighted to announce that Mareike Stoll is this year's Solkatten Fellow. During her visits to the Swedish Institute for Children's Books in Stockholm, she will examine the Institute's collections of photographic picture books published in Sweden between 1940 and 1980, with a particular focus on Karin Fryxell and Anna Riwkin-Brick. Mareike was a Research Associate in the projects »Weaving«, »Material Form Function« and »Object Space Agency« for several years until the end of 2024, including as a co-editor of the book »Architectures of Weaving. From Fibers and Yarns to Scaffolds and Skins«. We congratulate Mareike on her fellowship and wish her every success in her next career step. → more

Cutting in the Brain for Fun
A Newly Published Peer-Review Research Article in Graphic Anthropology on an Experimental Neurosurgical Simulation by Maxime Le Calvé
Vanessa at work on the operating table, with her instruments plunged into her brain, seated at the binocular microscope. The giant screen shows what she is seeing, allowing the head surgeon to supervise her. Copyright: Drawing by Maxime Le Calvé, digital, 2019

Vanessa at work on the operating table, with her instruments plunged into her brain, seated at the binocular microscope. The giant screen shows what she is seeing, allowing the head surgeon to supervise her. Copyright: Drawing by Maxime Le Calvé, digital, 2019

15.1.2025

Cutting | Publications | Graphic Anthropology | Brain How to prepare those aspiring to make a profession of cutting into a living human brain? In this article, Maxime Le Calvé recounts, drawing on ›live‹ graphic field notes, the development of a neurosurgical simulation. This narrative is contextualized and theorized through a literature review on the anthropology of doing, the formation of habit, and the technologization of skill transmission in surgery. The peer-reviewed research article in graphic anthropology on an experimental neurosurgical simulation is published in French in »Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances (RAC)«. → more

No Data Without Excellence
A Coffee Lecture Series
14.1.2025–18.3.2025

Join us for the Coffee Lecture Series, where we explore the essentials of research data management and its role in driving excellence in science. Under the theme »No Data Without... Excellence«, this series delves into key topics like research integrity, FAIR principles, persistent identifiers, electronic lab notebooks, and more. This series is proudly organized by MATH+, NeuroCure, Matters of Activity, and UniSysCat, bringing together expertise from leading Clusters of Excellence in Berlin. Starting mid-January 2025, join us every Tuesday at 2:00 PM (GMT) for a 10-minute presentation followed by questions and discussions, all held online via Zoom. → more

How to Design for Cells Rather than for Humans? 
Visual Essay by Emile De Visscher Published on .able
Emile de Visscher, Vascularizations, still of video article released on 15 January 2025 at <em>.able</em> journal.

Emile de Visscher, Vascularizations, still of video article released on 15 January 2025 at .able journal.

15.1.2025

Material Form Function | Biodesign | Publications »How can we design for cells rather than for humans?« is the question that drives MoA member Emile De Visscher's latest video article for .able, »Vascularization«. Inspired by vascular networks (vessel-like structures that enable fluid flow and are widely found in nature) and fulgurites (formations created when lightning strikes sand), this research investigates how lightning-like processes can create microvascular networks for potential medical applications. By bridging biology, experimental surgery, design, and physics, this research proposes a unique approach to addressing organ donation scarcity while moving towards more resilience in materials science. .able is an image-based journal at the intersection of art, design, and sciences responding to the complexities of today’s society. → more

MAKING_
New Documentary Series Takes Viewers Behind the Scenes of Matters of Activity
Teaser »MAKING« with Anna Schäffner and her project »Soft Collision«. Production: Richard Ley & Maxim Landau. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Teaser »MAKING« with Anna Schäffner and her project »Soft Collision«. Production: Richard Ley & Maxim Landau. Copyright: Matters of Activity

19.1.2025

Science Communication | Robotics | Water | Ocean | Air | MAKING_ How can we make a robot feel? What does it take to build an artificial reef? And how do we design structures that move effortlessly like plants? Find out in the Cluster's new mini-documentary series, MAKING_. Here, our researchers share insights into their groundbreaking work in simple terms. We’re kicking off with Anna Schäffner's Soft Collision. On Thursday, January 23rd, the first episode will be released on the Cluster’s website and social media, followed by Rasa Weber's hidden coral cities on January 30th and Heidi Jalkh's auxetic materials on February 6th. → more

The Mestiza Ways: Ontologically Oriented Speculative Design of Mestizo Women
Master Student Ana Belén Palacios Earns 2nd Place in this Year’s THESys Award for her Thesis
The Symbiosis Keeper, Carolina Valivieso & Ana Belén Palacios. Illustration: Nashely Lascano

The Symbiosis Keeper, Carolina Valivieso & Ana Belén Palacios. Illustration: Nashely Lascano

30.1.2025

Master Open Design | Speculative Design We're happy to congratulate former Master Open Design student Ana Belén Palacios on winning 2nd place of this year’s THESys Award for her Thesis »The Mestiza Ways: Ontologically Oriented Speculative Design of Mestizo Women«. Belén continues her work in her PhD project »WomenAmasamientoNature: A Historicization of Ecuadorian Women’s Socionatural Ontological Design Practices« as part of the MAKE/SENSE program at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW in partnership with the University of the Arts Linz supervised by Cluster Co-Director Claudia Mareis. → more

On Care, Repair and Breakdown in Contemporary Arts
Cluster Member Rahel Kesselring Gives a Talk at the 3rd International Care Ethics Research Consortium Conference
24.1.2025

Material Form Function | Forest | Temporality Rahel Kesselring will give a talk at the 3rd International Care Ethics Research Consortium Conference in Utrecht. In her talk entitled »›If we do not seek to fix what has been broken, then what?‹: On Procedures of Care, Repair, and Breakdown in Contemporary Arts«, Rahel will give insights into her recent field research. The talk is part of the panel »Care Beyond Repair«. The conference brings together care ethicists and scholars, artists, designers, and makers, artistic researchers, performers and philosophers, educators, policymakers, and others to explore a fundamental question: What does it mean to care? → more

GHOST MINES — Sensing Pasts/Casting Futures
Call for Participants
GHOST MINES. Copyright: Johanna Mehl

GHOST MINES. Copyright: Johanna Mehl

17.12.2024–31.1.2025

Material Form Function »GHOST MINES — Sensing Pasts/Casting Futures« invites participants to explore the haunting legacy of abandoned mines and extractive landscapes, questioning how these sites can inform our understanding of resource-driven histories and speculative futures. The research studio delves into the concept of »ghost mines« — both as literal sites of abandonment and metaphorical markers of environmental trauma and contested futures. To participate in the research studio, please send your CV, portfolio and a short motivation letter elaborating on your background, research interests and connection to the theme of »GHOST MINES — Sensing Pasts/Casting Futures« to Michaela Büsse, organizer of the research studio. → more

PAPER:DRIVE – Coding IXD Studio Project for Coeducation in Computer Science and Design
Project Exhibition 12–15 February 2025 at Modulor Aufbauhaus
Akhil Amer, Claudia Plascencia: Experiments within Coding IxD studio project »Paper:Drive«, 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Akhil Amer, Claudia Plascencia: Experiments within Coding IxD studio project »Paper:Drive«, 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity

12.2.2025–15.2.2025

Filtering | MoA Design Research Studio | Teaching In this year's Coding IxD research-oriented studio project, students from Computer Science at the Freie Universität Berlin and product design at weißensee school of art and design berlin will explore paper as a medium to store and interact with digital data. We will investigate how to design physical machines and digital processes to output, transfer, interact with, store, and read information within a novel explicit use case. The seminar is supervised by Cluster members Prof. Thomas Ness, Peter Sörries and Hanna Wiesener. The project exhibition will take place from February 12th– 15th, starting with the opening at 6.00pm, at Modulor. → more

Materials of the Future
Public Event with Cluster Co-Director Claudia Mareis, and Architects Anupama Kundoo and Regula Lüscher
Visual Open Space. Copyright: Berlin University Alliance

Visual Open Space. Copyright: Berlin University Alliance

19.2.2025

Science Communication How can innovative materials revolutionize our built environment? The fourth edition of the »OPEN SPACE« salon series invites you to explore this question. Novel materials are more than just technical innovations - they are the key to future-proof architecture, sustainable urban development, and climate- and resource-friendly construction. We kindly invite you to learn more about and discuss these issues at the 4th »OPEN SPACE« organized by Berlin University Alliance. We are very much looking forward to the input from Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis (Co-Director of the Berlin Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«), Prof. Dr. Anupama Kundoo (Anupama Kundoo architects, TU Berlin), and Regula Lüscher (architect, urban planner, and Former Senate Building Director and State Secretary for Urban Development in Berlin). Please register now, as spots are limited. → more

Living Relations and Epigenetic Memories – Collaborative Imaginaries in Nomadic Reindeer Worlds
Artist Talk by Cluster Member Emilia Tikka at Conference »Memories of Tomorrow«
21.2.2025

Material Form Function | Temporality | Climate Emilia Tikka presents the research-driven collaborative art/science project called »Johtingeaidnu – The Path Within«, and its exploration of memory, drawing from bioscience research on transgenerational epigenetic memories and the understanding of memory as place-based in the reindeer worlds of the Arctic Sápmi. In the conference »Memories of Tomorrow« critical questions, such as how biotechnological advancements can allow us to alter the course of human memory and history or in what ways the Earth itself stores the memories of human interaction, and how we can repair the ecological damage we've caused, will be discussed. Registration for the online conference is now open. → more

Remixing Analog and Digital
Call for Papers for XXII. Conference Culture and Computer Science
25.4.2025

In its defining form, remix is about the reuse of existing material to create something new. Rooting back into the artistic avant-garde of the 1920s with its montage and collage techniques and having sprout flowers in the context of music production, remix today is a wide cultural practice that is performed by folks and professionals using, transforming and drawing upon the spectrum of our analog world, its references and extensions in the digital sphere.

Without sources form the past, a remix couldn’t exist. Archives and museums can use the participatory power of remixes by giving access to their digitalized cultural heritage to creators of a new spectrum of applications, cultural education formats, and artworks.

At the same time, a remix of existing material has always meant the originators’ loss of control over the new outcome and goes hand in hand with questions of creativity, originality and copyright. In this sense, the concept of remix gains new relevance and can be discussed in view of the rapid development of AI technologies, the intention of machine-made remixes, their influence and long-term impact on our contemporary culture.

The »XXII. International Conference on Culture and Computer Science« will take place on September 25th–26th, 2025, in Berlin. The conference is chaired by Cluster members Johann Habakuk Israel, Christian Kassung, and Jürgen Sieck together with Dagmar Schürrer and Maja Stark, both HTW – University of Applied Sciences Berlin.

The submission deadline will be Friday, April 25th, 2025. Articles must be in English and will be double-blind peer-reviewed.