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

Object Space Agency | Fungi/Mycelium | Biodesign | More-Than-Human | Prototype / Model | Textiles | Temporality Architecture and nature inevitably compete for space. That poses a dilemma when resources are finite and the demand for space keeps growing. Besides, we know that the construction sector generates huge waste and emissions. All this has raised issues about the role of architecture: Does it need a shift in perspective? Could we build with nature instead of against it? The exhibition »Closer to Nature« at the Berlinische Galerie showcases three Berlin-based projects, that utilize the potential of mushrooms, living trees, and clay. This gives them an ecological quality, but also a completely new character: the buildings breathe, grow, and thus become alive themselves. One of the showcased projects is the experimental building MY-CO SPACE, which was developed, designed, and built by the interdisciplinary Berlin SciArt collective MY-CO-X, an initiative of the Department of Applied and Molecular Microbiology at TU Berlin under the direction of MoA member Vera Meyer with contributions by Dimitra Almpani-Lekka. more

Material Form Function | Cellulose | Collactive Materials | Science Communication | Biodesign | Speculative Design | Climate | Forest | Prototype / Model | Tree Bark | Textiles | Fungi/Mycelium »Matters of Activity« und das Experimentallabor für Wissenschaftskommunikation »CollActive Materials« starteten im März eine neue Veranstaltungsreihe im Futurium Lab. Unter dem Titel »Materialzukünfte besuchen« finden über vier Monate vier Workshops statt, die die Forschung des Clusters mit der Zivilgesellschaft zusammenbringen und in denen gemeinsam über Materialzukünfte spekuliert wird. Begleitet werden die Veranstaltungen von einer temporären Ausstellung im Futurium Lab, die ab 4. Mai besucht werden kann. more

Filtering | Teaching | Water | Prototype / Model In the »Shaping Water« project, starting in the summer semester of 2024, Prof. Carola Zwick, design researcher Dominic Eger Domingos, and design students want to examine and challenge civilizational standards, usage patterns, and experiences to rethink the medium of water and how we experience it. Through this exploration, we aspire to develop new interaction concepts and product ideas, brought to life in prototypes and exhibits that resonate with users on a tangible level. The project is part of the Design Research Studio within the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« (Filtering) and is constantly supported by eLAB (Laboratory for Interactive Technologies of KHB) throughout the project starting with a hands-on workshop delving into physical computing as expression of design. more

Material Form Function | Teaching | Biodesign | Textiles Rapidly increasing socio-ecological damage and the urgent need for care, repair, and recovery have led to renewed calls for regenerative design as a means of wayfinding towards new forms of just and sustainable life on earth, prompting critical questions concerning the reconfigured pasts they invoke to the possible futures they open up. Aiming to (re)design the way we live to support our interdependence on natural ecosystems, regenerative systems thinking is being applied to fundamental fields of human activity, from food production and agriculture to medicine, textiles, architecture, rural revival, and the urban built environment to other-worldly materialities. The lecture series organized by Lucy Norris, which begins on May 2nd, will, among other things, explore how traces of former ways of being in the world and concepts such as ›indigenous knowledge‹ are referenced as ways to move forward and ask what futures are being imagined by whom and for whom, and how some forms of living are enabled while other possibilities are negated. more

Object Space Agency The images of chaos and fractal geometry are probably the best-known mathematical symbols of the rise of computer visualization in the sciences. While these popular pictorial inventions of the mid-1980s and 1990s had a rather low epistemic potential and no direct relation to the operations of the thinking mind, the situation was quite different in the years before their popularization. In her talk on May 2nd at the workshop »Writing the History of Computer Visualizations in the Sciences« at Paris, MoA researcher Nina Samuel will discuss the relationship between abstract reasoning and visual imagination in complex dynamics and fractal geometry from 1960–1980. more

Material Form Function | Sand | Air The building masses produced by humans have a direct impact on the weather. Buildings and construction account for 30 percent of Germany's CO2 emissions. The concretization of the land not only creates new heat phenomena with urban heat islands, but also a largely uncontrolled and far-reaching exploitation of natural resources such as sand and gravel. Cluster member Michaela Büsse will be part of the lecture performance and talk »100 Neue Wörter für Wetter: Verbautes Wetter«.

Teaching We kindly invite you to the exhibition »Randabfallend« that opens on May 4th and runs through May 10th at weißensee school of art and design. Students will present their photobooks and works on paper, all examining the limitations, freedom,m and possibilities both book and photography as medium and material hold. In projects that explore the forest as place of storytelling and photosynthesis, make visible vestiges of oppression in Namibia, or embrace the wish to hold on to the memory of the perfect summer, each of the artists found their way to interpret the photobook as tactile object anew. The exhibits are results from the seminary »Das Fotobuch. Theorie & Praxis«, co-taught over two semesters by Cluster Member Dr. Mareike Stoll and photographer Andreas Rost at gathering students from all departments of weißensee, from Textile and Material Design, Visual Communication, to Painting and Sculpture. more

Material Form Function | Robotics | Cellulose | Water | Collactive Materials | Speculative Design | Science Communication In diesem Workshop geht es um flexible Materialien wie Cellulose, Bio-Plastik und Silikon als mögliche (neue) Materialien für Soft Robotics oder gar biologische Maschinen. Soft Robotics ist ein relativ junges Forschungsfeld, das sich mit alternativen Ansätzen zur Gestaltung der Maschinen von morgen beschäftigt. Wie können wir Maschinen bauen, damit sie sensibler und anpassbarer werden? Können wir dafür adaptive vielleicht sogar nachhaltige Materialien nutzen, statt immer mehr Metall, Plastik und Energie zu verbrauchen? Mit den Design-Forscherinnen Anna Schäffner und Eva Bullermann spekulieren wir darüber, wie die Maschinen der Zukunft gestaltet sein könnten. Wie sieht deine Magic Machine aus? more

Sketching has long been the mark of the designerly knowing. At the core of the modern forming process, there is a mysterious act that evades partly the intentions of the maker: when hand, paper and idea meet, an intuitive digestion of spatial knowledge happens through quasi-conscious gestures. Like the motile fingers of mycelium networks growing through their environment, these lines embrace forms, making sense of their relations. Together in the space of the museum, small groups of visitors equipped with augmented reality headsets will be invited to sketch in 3D following a score inspired by design research, graphic anthropology and the neurobiology of fungi. We will bring the visitors to experience the collections of the KGM through the luminescent movement of digital lines, repurposing a contemporary immersive design technology into a mediation tool. We kindly invite you to participate in this Pop-up exhibition with workshops on 29-30th May at the Kunstgewerbemuseum including short lectures and activities by Elaine Bonavia, Paulina Stefanovic, and Maxime Le Calvé. There will be hands-on 3D sketching guided tours in the following weeks. more