Editorial Dear friends of »Matters of Activity«,

Before we start this well-deserved Summer Break, we would like to inform you about exciting news and events you can look forward to. On the one hand, the Humboldt Lab will finally be physically opened, so you can visit from July 20th and admire various exhibits from »Matters of Activity«.

On the other hand, our Members are already planning many activities directly after the Summer Break, so please save the dates!

We wish you all a hopefully relaxing summer vacation and lots of fun reading,
Antje Nestler, Carolin Ott & Franziska Wegener

Design Lab In the Design Lab, all Cluster Members have the possibility to try their hand on the 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC mills, and CAD workstations under the guidance of the (workshop) team. Here, the independent development and revision of models and prototypes from conception to execution are made tangible for the researchers. From a hammer to a programmable microchip with sensors, the Design Lab provides a fertile ground for trials and experiments while mediating between the various disciplines and projects.

The Design Lab now has a brand new website, where you can also read about all available tools. → more

Cutting | Symbolic Material | Publications | Brain The paper »Biological Constraints on Neural Network Models of Cognitive Function« is one of the first key outputs from a recently initiated Advanced Grant funded by the European Research Council called »Material Constraints Enabling Human Cognition«. In this project and in the Cluster, Friedemann Pulvermüller and his team are now systematically approaching material-based answers to questions such as the following: How can humans learn a vocabulary of 10,000s of words whereas our closest relatives are normally stuck with 10s? How is it possible that little children quickly interlink signs with meanings, upon only one experience in the extreme, although our closest relatives have great difficulty building such links and neural networks require excessive time for learning them? By which mechanisms can we build abstract concepts and what contribution (if any) makes language to this process (… and many others)? → more

Weaving | Material Form Function | Teaching | MoA Design Research Studio »Minimal Machines« was an MoA Design Research Studio Project investigating the development of machines for non-augmented and augmented spinning on an architectural scale. The machines were to be used as devices in conjunction with a designed material. Given that one of the core paradigms of designing matter is the abolition of machines in favor of matter’s own inner activity, these machines were to be minimal. This could imply tools that are designed to perform the bare minimum required in the assembly of a designed material. Still, it could also mean that matter is designed to become operational—or machinic—itself.  → more

Weaving | Material Form Function | Teaching | MoA Design Research Studio | Yarns/Fibers The MoA Design Research Studio »Scaling Fiber: Experimental Yarn« explored the upscaling of fiber into yarns as structural elements for the architectural scale and context. It was carried out as a transdisciplinary exchange between architecture, textile technology, materials science and cultural studies aiming at new concepts for sustainable design technologies. → more

Science Communication On July 13th, we were happy to welcome media theorist Marie-Pier Boucher from the University of Toronto at our last »Talking Matters« event before the Summer Break 2021. Boucher introduced us to »Being Material«, a curated collection of essays and artefacts which resulted from a symposium held in 2017 by the Center for Art, Science and Technology at MIT, where she was invited as co-editor and author on the project – a journey that brought her to explore the legacy of this institution in a different light. → more

Science Communication After a long wait and numerous postponements, the time has come: The Humboldt Forum, a place for culture and research, for exchange and debate, opened its doors to the public and with it the Humboldt Lab – the event and exhibition space of Berlin's Universities and Clusters of Excellence. From July 20th, visitors are be able to admire exciting exhibits and projects. The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« is represented with various contributions. → more

News | Humboldt Lab The Humboldt Lab in the Humboldt Forum presents research by all the Berlin Clusters of Excellence, the Berlin University Alliance, and other cutting-edge institutes and faculties at the Humboldt-Universität. It aims to become a living workshop of ideas where top-level research enters into a dialogue with the public on pressing issues of our time. The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« contributes to this discourse with various exhibits, opening up diverse insights into its research projects starting July 20th.

Thus you can soon finally take a close look at the »Active Curtain Project«, an ongoing experimental setting, which brings together various disciplinary skills for the rediscovery of adaptive textile techniques – crafted and grown – in the quest to create an active basis for our relationship with our environment, the »Adaptive Digital Twin«, that works on generating adaptive holographic models of the human brain as well as »Stone Web«, a spatial module system made from basalt fiber at weißensee school of art and design berlin or the Orobates Pabsti.

Please find an introduction to all our exhibits following the link. → more

Weaving | Bacteria | Biofilm | Cellulose | Science Communication The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« investigates materials that are built by bacteria. Architects and biologists work together to explore new, sustainable materials. Some of these bacterial structures were on display at the Humboldt Lab. In the interview with Cluster Members Bastian Beyer and Skander Hathroubi, parts of the development of the »Active Curtains Project« are presented in more detail. → more

Weaving | Filtering | Cutting | Material Form Function | Object Space Agency | Symbolic Material | Science Communication The Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« was represented with some exciting objects in the exhibition »Nach der Natur« at the Humboldt Laboratory of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. You can watch an introduction to the Cluster right here. Follow the link to the video in German with either English subtitles or in easy German language. → more

Filtering | XR What does materiality mean for art and culture from today’s perspective? How can materiality be understood in our post-digital age, where digital technologies permeate creative work from start to finish, both in terms of tools and materials and conceptually? The exhibition »Extended Reality – Code and Materiality in Art and Culture,« September 3rd to 30th, 2021, illuminated various aspects of (digital) materiality through selected works from design, art, literature, music, performance and science that have been created with Extended Reality technologies (Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality). → more

Object Space Agency | Stretching Materialities | Air | Climate | Cloud | More-Than-Human | Sensing – Vibrations | Stone | Textiles | Willow | XR | Performance Matter is dead? Objects are lifeless? Think again! In the exhibition »Stretching Materialities« the liveliness and activity of matter could be experienced in a completely new way. From September 16th, 2021 to March 4th, 2022, the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin became an interactive playground: an actual cloud levitated in the middle of the room, reacting to body heat and movement, hovering around the visitors like a strange creature. Stones revealed their weathering as a dynamic process of change. Large willow structures, carefully co-crafted by humans and computers, were interwoven with the inhabitable space. Korean ›durumagi‹, a silk overcoat connecting the digital and physical realm, vibrated on the visitors’ skin as they interacted with diverse materials. Walking through the room with VR headsets on, visitors could enter a glass elevator and travel straight down into the materials presented – into the CT scan of a stone or high up into the clouds to interact with air molecules. → more