Editorial Dear Friends of »Matters of Activity«,

We wish everyone a happy and healthy new year and welcome you all to our second research phase starting in 2023!

With this issue, MoA kicks off a new chapter of its funding period and that’s being said, we especially welcome all new members that already have and will join our Cluster for the next stage of research. To start this collaboration properly and give our endeavor the best start possible, personal encounters are most crucial!

There will be plenty opportunities to connect and gain more insights of our research, as we already face wonderful events this very first months of the year. We are looking forward to the book launches of the publications »Design Gestaltung Formatività« this Thursday, January 19th, and »Architectures of Weaving« on Wednesday, January 25th, with many contributors and Cluster members taking part. Furthermore, we invite you to take part in the Round Table formats accompanying the »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« exhibition at Kunstgewerbemuseum, which continues until the end of February. And for all those who have not yet made it, please feel warmly invited to the second Cluster exhibition running at the moment, »DAOULA | sheen. Westafrican Silk on its Way« at Tieranatomisches Theater. And speaking of exhibition, we are already looking forward to the panel discussion with Hans Dieter Zimmermann, Nina Samuel and Felix Sattler entitled »System Ausstellung« on February 4th.

With warm regards
Wolfgang Schäffner, Claudia Mareis, Peter Fratzl & Horst Bredekamp
also on behalf of the entire Management Office

Event | Annual Conference With »Deep Material Futures«, we discussed and rethought the potentialities, strategies, expectances, predictions and imaginaries of desirable futures in terms of interspecies and transgenerational justice. The temporalities of active matter we speak of are always about incommensurable spaces of memory and oblivion, of extinction and survival. What new and other ways of politics, design, and »healing« through materialized action might there then be at all levels of space, time, and scale? The event brought together international keynote speakers such as Sandra Jasper, Nigel Clark, James Weaver, Cymene Howe, Jeff Diamanti, Admir Masic and Vera Meyer with positions from the Cluster to discuss the different temporalities of active matter in four panels – Wastelands, Earthly Matter, Matter Across Scales, and Future Materials. The presentations and discussions from the Annual Conference can be viewed at any time via ↗ matters-of-activity.de/deepmaterialfutures.

Weaving | Daoula Sheen | Wild Silk | Science Communication The exhibition »DAOULA | sheen«, which can be seen at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin until June 30th, 2023, at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin, focuses on the natural formation and the cultural history of wild silk obtained from caterpillars in West Africa, and on the many and complex ways in which this unique material is viewed by microbiologists, materials scientists, and architects in Germany. Curated by MoA members Laurence Douny, Karin Krauthausen, and Felix Sattler, and co-created by a large and diverse multidisciplinary team, this unusual project sets out to stimulate dialogue between West African craft, European science, and design. → more

Weaving | Symbolic Material | Science Communication We are very pleased to present the audio broadcast of the public panel discussion that took place on May 4th, 2022, at the Humboldt Lab. In the interdisciplinary discussion entitled »Perspectives on Active Materials«, central theses of the Central Cluster Anthology »Active Materials« were presented. The cross-disciplinary conversation with Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Michaela Eder, Peter Fratzl, and Richard Weinkamer aimed to address one of the burning questions of our epoch: the possibility of engineering smart, active, or bio-inspired materials and the meaning these enhanced materials might have for solving the contemporary and future challenges of these tumultuous times. The event was moderated by MoA members Michael Friedman and Karin Krauthausen, who were also co-authors of the anthology. Be sure to listen in! → more

Publications Cluster researchers from humanities, design, natural and social sciences, and medicine work together, producing diverse outcomes which are all relevant for reporting to the funding agencies and society. Here, the authors Anna Arbuzova, Anne Hattwich, Alexander Struck and Martin Wagner describe the development of a researcher-oriented CRIS (Current Research Information System) embracing not only text publications but also other research outcomes on equal footing. They illustrate the flexibility of the system by introducing a new output category ›Research Prototypes‹. They discuss the challenges and benefits of a local CRIS solution for a small, non-permanent organization, in which researchers from several organizations are working on specific research topics. → more

Weaving | Publications The volume »Architectures of Weaving«, a rich anthology edited by MoA members Christiane Sauer, Mareike Stoll, Ebba Fransén Waldhör, and Maxie Schneider, published by Jovis Verlag, Berlin in November 2022, is available open access now at De Gruyter. Taking as its point of departure a symposium of the same title held in July 2021, the lavishly illustrated volume brings together contributions from numerous researchers from various disciplines of the Cluster of Excellence and experts from other institutions. → more

Cutting | Brain | Publications In this study, to which MoA Members Lucius Fekonja and Thomas Picht contributed to, the authors looked at a new way to use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS, a brain stimulation method) to map language in the brain. The new method uses information about the brain's white matter pathways to target specific areas of the brain that are important for language. The study compared this new method to a more general method that targets a wider area of the brain. We found that the new method was more effective in disrupting language abilities and provided more specific information about the brain regions involved in language. This new method could be useful in future studies of the brain's language network. → more

Event | Workshop The HCC Data Lab contributed to the two-day workshop on »Automation, Control, and Incompetence – Socio-Technical Ecologies of Responsible Filtering in the 20th and 21st Century«. For the final day, December 2nd, the HCC Data Lab conceived and organized a hands-on workshop session that was led by ↗ Katrin Glinka. Click more to read her full report. ↗ more

Filtering | Teaching | XR In December 2022, MoA Principal Investigators Christian Kassung and Jürgen Sieck traveled to Malaysia for the Filtering project in preparation of the DAAD Summer School »Digitisation of Indigenous Knowledge for Extended Reality and Cultural Heritage« taking place on-site at the University of Technology Sarawak in March 2023. The journey was dedicated to visits of several cultural institutions and museums, meetings and workshops with managers of local project partners, and field trips. → more

Press We are delighted that »Matters of Activity« has been highlighted again by different news outlets lately. A portrait of the Cluster including an interview with Co-Director Peter Fratzl was published in Tagesspiegel. In the section »Wissenschaft in Berlin« Eva Murašov writes about »guten Stoff für eine nachhaltige Zukunft«.
↗ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/berliner-spitzenforschung-guter-stoff-fur-eine-nachhaltige-zukunft-9015268.html

Furthermore, the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« was highlighted by TAZ. In detail, the TAZ describes the work of the curators Michaela Büsse and Emile De Visscher and all the exhibitors. You can still visit the exhibition until February 26th. Read more in German here:
↗ https://taz.de/Ausstellungsempfehlung-fuer-Berlin/!5892190/

News | Exzellent erklärt The German science podcast ↗ Exzellent erklärt (»Excellence Explained«) on current scientific topics reflects the research diversity of Germany’s leading research institutions and Clusters of Excellence, from Africa Studies to Quantum Physics. In each episode, listeners can expect insights into the interdisciplinary work of one research network. The researchers of the Clusters of Excellence, funded by ↗ DFG, talk to podcaster Larissa Vassilian about how they want to find scientifically sound answers to relevant topics of our time – for the society of tomorrow. In Episode 22, researchers give insights into the work of the Cluster of Ex­cel­lence ↗ The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Un­charted In­ter­face in Bremen, in episode 23, experts from ↗ ImmunoSensation2 in Bonn explain the latest findings on the innate and acquired immune system. In episode 24, an interesting exchange on the topic »Fuels for the future - From design to application« with experts of the Cluster ↗ Fuel Science Center of RWTH Aachen University is waiting for you while in episode 25 we learn more about our Berlin colleagues' research on memory function at ↗ NeuroCure. Plug in your headphones during your lunch break and have a listen! ↗ more

Material Form Function | Fish Skins | Sand | Rubber | Textiles | Tree Bark | Yarns/Fibers | Tessellation | Science Communication | Material Legacies The exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin explored contingencies and ruptures between traditional crafts and the most recent developments at the crossroads of material research, design, engineering, and architecture. It brought together artifacts from the museum’s collection with work-in-progress installations by designers and researchers from the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« in order to initiate a dialogue about the historical, contemporary, and future conditions under which materiality unfolds.
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. → more

Weaving | Writing On Wednesday, January 18th, MoA Member Karin Krauthausen holds a guest lecture at the University of Graz. Karin Krauthausen researches one of the most famous French writers and writing theorists around 1900: Paul Valéry and his handwritten writing practice initiated in the »Cahiers«. These practical and theoretical engagements with a ›writing in motion‹ shape all of Valéry's subsequent printed publications as well as his understanding of authorship. In her lecture, Karin Krauthausen will talk about the role of the ›hand in motion‹ that oscillates between writing, drawing and scribbling. The hand movement on the paper and the body movement in space trigger the French writer to numerous reflections of a ›thinking in motion‹ and the relationship between thinking and line on the sheet of paper, which Krauthausen will discuss with the help of examples and in doing so also pursue the question of the technical printing preparation of the notes.

Material Form Function | Symbolic Material | Publications What do the gestures of a neurosurgeon, a painter, an engineer, a craftsman or a biologist have in common? Based on the concepts of ›design‹, ›gestaltung‹, and ›formatività‹, this book takes a new look at the processes of formation and transformation of the material world we live in. Researchers in history, philosophy, psychology, media, and cultural studies question the processes of giving form, while artists, designers, engineers, and scientists describe their creative processes based on their own work. We cordially invite you to take part in the presentation of the book »Design, Gestaltung, Formatività. Philosophies of Making« (Birkhäuser 2022) in the presence of the editor, MoA member Patricia Ribault, and several authors, such as Peter Fratzl, Lorenzo Guiducci, Barbara Schmidt, Jörg Petruschat, Judith Seng, Martin Müller and Khashayar Razgandhi (tbc). The graphic designer of the anthology Olaf Avenati will also be present. The book launch is on Thursday, 19th January 2023 at 7:30 pm at »Pro qm« bookstore. → more

Weaving | Publications | Science Communication On Wednesday, January 25th, 2023, the publication »Architectures of Weaving« was launched with a transdisciplinary roundtable discussion at the Architecture Gallery Aedes in Berlin-Mitte. The editors Christiane Sauer, Mareike Stoll, Ebba Fransén Waldhör, and Maxie Schneider invited the public to exchange on the idea of »Architectures of Weaving« with book-contributors and members of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« Peter Fratzl, Lorenzo Guiducci, Regine Hengge, Heike Illing-Günther and Karin Krauthausen. → more

Weaving | Material Form Function | Material Legacies | Tree Bark | Science Communication We cordially invite you to the Round Table »Rinde: Gestaltung mit Resten« which continues the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On January 26th designer and Cluster Member Charlett Wenig will discuss her work with Ferréol Berendt (HNE Eberswalde) and Nikolaus Stolle (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt). Moderated by cultural theorist and Cluster Member Robert Stock. → more

Object Space Agency | Science Communication We cordially invite you to the panel discussion »System Ausstellung« with Hans Dieter Zimmermann, and Cluster Members Nina Samuel and Felix Sattler in the context of the exhibition »Language in the Technical Age«. Starting with a review of Walter Höllerer's exhibition »Welt aus Sprache« (World of Language), which took place in 1972 at the Akademie der Künste Berlin (West) and broke completely new ground with the design of immersive environments, the panel will discuss current issues of exhibition conception between art and science, nature and culture. This will be followed by drinks as part of the finissage. → more

Material Form Function | Sand | Material Legacies | Science Communication Don't miss the Round Table »Politics and Poetics of Sand« which is part of the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On February 9th design anthropologist and Cluster Member Michaela Büsse will discuss her work with geographer Katherine Dawson (University College London), communication expert Hannah Tollefson (McGill University Montreal) and environmental anthropologist Jerry Zee (Princeton University). Moderation: Jeff Diamanti (University of Amsterdam). → more

Symbolic Material On February 22nd-23rd, 2023, MoA Member Michael Friedman and Daniela Zetti of TU Munich will organize a workshop at the Deutsches Museum entitled »Paper(s) as Epistemic Carrier of Knowledge. A history of provoking thought and memory«. The event aims to think on paper as an object of circulations of knowledge and of practices of enabling and transforming collective memory. Paper here should be however considered in plural, not only due to the various functions it had and has, but also since its characterization as an epistemic object. From MoA, Stefan Zieme will contribute to the workshop with the talk »The Transmission of the Almagest in Manuscript Culture«. → more