Mind Blind Pathetic Sublime
Online Performance Lecture by Sarah Hermanutz

16 February 2021, 8 PM



Five years since she presented the lecture-performance Mind Blind: Therapeutic Interventions for Human/NonHuman Communications for Transmediale|Vorspiel 2016, artist Sarah Hermanutz revisits the problems of social cognition in this time of isolation and multiple intersecting crises.

While previously this performance played with the discomfort and tensions of an audience's physical presence made captive within the social conventions of an in-person lecture, in 2021 the human observers may only join remotely through Zoom. Within the gallery, the artist will livestream from her unvisitable installation environment. Seeking comfort, escape, and clarity amid the leaking infrastructures of our times, she will be using whatever tools at her disposal to finally help axolotls to understand the Pathetic Sublime.

Registration required: register@artlaboratory-berlin.org


Organised by Art Laboratory Berlin in cooperation with Lacuna Lab.
This event is part of the Vorspiel Programme of the CTM and transmediale 2021





Community Dialogs

VIRAL CLOUD | Berlin Tokyo
A Network for Hybrid Arts and DIY Bio Cultures


Since spring 2020 Art Laboratory Berlin and BioClub Tokyo have been arranging online meetings between hybrid artists and associates in our respective cities and beyond. These meetings are a forum for exchange of research, practice and solidarity in times of crises. (More information)





Meeting #13 | 9 February 2021, 1 pm CET/ 9 pm JST
Presentations by Hideo Iwasaki and Matthias Rillig

Hideo Iwasaki is a biologist and artist, director of metaPhorest (biological art/ bioaesthetics platform), Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Bioscience, Waseda University, Tokyo.

Matthias Rillig is Professor at the Institute of Biology, Plant Ecologies, FU Berlin. They will speak about their ongoing project as well as artists in lab, and artist/scientist collaborations.

These events are part of the Vorspiel Programme of the CTM and transmediale 2021..





Past events

Interdisciplinary Symposium

THE CAMILLE DIARIES Symposium



26 September 2020, 10:00 am – 7:45 pm CET Time Zone
Online conference, with livestream
(https://youtu.be/9VAIXGHwj0k)

THE CAMILLE DIARIES Symposium will discuss new artistic projects by eleven international women and non-binary artists (installations, video, objects, performance), currently exhibited in our show The Camille Diaries. Current Artistic Positions on M/otherhood, Life and Care (until 4 October 2020).

Reflecting on the current conditions of our world (environmental changes, gender aspects, biopolitics, etc.), the artists' positions propose an 'aesthetics of care' as the basis for inter-species coexistence. Here, the planet is understood as a symbiotic web in which we are all entangled with one another (humans, plants, animals, environment) – on molecular, organic, ethical and biopolitical levels. The artistic positions investigate reproductive mechanisms, biochemical connections between humans and nonhumans, and refer to alternative biomaterials as "source of life" in future times of scarcity and crisis.

The one-day symposium will bring the artists together with researchers from the humanities and natural sciences into a critical dialogue. In different panels we will discuss alternative concepts of m/others, wombs and placentas, fluid inheritance and modes of care.
(More information)





Talk Show Series


Feminist SF: Visions of M/otherhood & Reproduction.


Curated and hosted by Isabel de Sena


This 3-part event series pays tribute to the powerful alternative images of mothering we've inherited through the pioneering work of feminist Sci-Fi writers, most notably regarding their defiance of conventions on (technological) reproduction, child-rearing, the maternal body, and sexuality, as well as their invention of ecofeminism and myriad forms of transspecies kinship.

Rather than a nostalgic reflection, the events examine these authors' sustained relevance within the current sociocultural and political landscape, inviting experts from divergent fields (visual arts, gender-studies, literature, biotechnology and political science) to programme their "ideal TV and reading evening" on the topic.

Through a live Talk Show format, the selected footage and live readings are interspersed with conversation, so that the audience (re)discovers the works through the guest's eyes.


Invited Guests & Schedule
27 August 2020, 6 - 8 pm: Mary Maggic (Artist)
24 September 2020, 6 - 8 pm: Alison Sperling (Scholar | Literature and Gender Studies)
13 October 2020, 6 - 8 pm: Noemi Yoko Molitor (Artist and Scholar | Post-Colonial Studies and Queer Art)

All episodes will be conducted in English

(More information)

This Talk Show series takes place in the context of the project The Camille Diaries. New Artistic Positions on M/otherhood, Life and Care at Art Laboratory Berlin.


With the generous support of:



Associated project partners:
The project THE CAMILLE DIARIES arose from a generous invitation to take part in the international curatorial swarm for the open call »M/others and Future Humans«, initiated by Ida Bencke (LABAE,Copenhagen, DK) and Eben Kirksey (Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, USA).


Media partners:
art-in-berlin.de, www.art-in-berlin.de
AVIVA-Berlin Online Magazin für Frauen, www.aviva-berlin.de






Discussion and Livestream


A Future for Food

with Amy Youngs, Ken Rinaldo, Anna Paltseva, Daniel Lammel, Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz


4 June 2020, 4-6 pm CET / 10-12 am EDT







Can we break away from current agricultural practices which are intimately connected to desertification, water and soil pollution, antibiotic resistance, climate change and social and economic inequalities? In a two-hour discussion we are interested in considering a sustainable, multispecies perspective to farming, which could start in the soil and progress through thinking about the multiple ways we can consider food. Aquaponics, vertical farming, worms, soldier flies, and permaculture offer real solutions, where food is grown while respecting living beings, and the intertwined ecologies that support them.

Humane food can be grown in urban or rural communities, though the soil is critical. How can we learn and care about living beings we cannot quickly know or see? What is care like in practice? We are also interested in exploring the concept of "citizen eco-artist" as so much of what we do resides in the spaces between actual science, sustainable practice and speculative fiction.
(More information)



A coproduction of the Network for Prototyping the Future and Art Laboratory Berlin


With the generous support of the Senate Office for Culture and Europe:






Discussion Workshop and Livestream

Mind the Fungi

MATERIAL DRIVEN DESIGN. Sculpting with Bioplastic Textile
Workshop/ Livestream with Fara Peluso
6 May, 2020 6-8 pm CET



Today Material Research is a central point in the theory and practice of designing new technologies, in cooperation with art and design. These fields are currently collaborating, merging their knowledge and practice to develop a new generation of materials, by focusing on specific characteristics, to create new environmentally friendly materials. Another approach, however, has also arisen in the last years combining making, crafting and personal fabrication of new materials through a form of Do It Yourself (DIY) biology and craftmaking.

This Mind the Fungi workshop discusses this new material driven design movement and methodology, learning how to build a new material by studying and using a living organism like mycelium. Discovering the features, possibilities and limits of mycelium-based materials, the participants will work together growing material and developing new material, building sculptures, assembling DIY packaging and drawing and cutting patterns on a new material made of biofilm.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis the initial workshop has been postponed and will hopefully take place later this year.


On 6 May a livestream talk and workshop with Fara Peluso took place.
Documentation here


Fara Peluso, a Berlin based artist-designer, graduated in industrial design and graphic design at University of Spienza, Deptm. for Architecture, Rome. Through speculative research her work connects the human being with nature, living organisms and biological processes to form a deeper relationship. Together with biologists, she has pursued deep research into algae, taking constantly inspiration from them, experimenting and understanding how to work with them inside the fields of Art and Design. In collaboration with BioArt Laboratories in Eindhoven, she developed the prototyping of a speculative wearable accessory, WeaReactor, which connects the algae's photosynthesis process with the breath of the wearer (exhibited at DDW17 in Eindhoven in 2017; at Art Laboratory Berlin in 2019). Peluso has extended this knowledge over the last 15 months by working with researchers at the TU Berlin Institute of Biotechnology on mycelium-based materials as an artist-designer-in-residence in the project Mind the Fungi.


Mind the Fungi (2018-20) is a collaborative project between the Institute of Biotechnology TU Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin. Biotechnologists and process engineers are researching local tree fungi and lichens (Prof. Vera Meyer/ Applied Molecular Microbiology; Prof. Peter Neubauer / Bioprocess Engineering). The focus is on developing new ideas and technologies for fungal and lichen based materials for the future. Art Laboratory Berlin bridges the gap between science, art, design and the public and offers various Citizen Science formats. The Artist- and Design-Residencies with Fara Peluso and Theresa Schubert bring in art and design as constructive sources of ideas for this research project.
(More information)

With the generous support of the Technische Universität Berlin as part of the program Citizen Science - Forschen mit der Gesellschaft:





Discussion Workshop and Livestream:

DIY Hack the Panke

Microplastics and Coexistence
Kat Austen and Nana MacLean

Wednesday 22 April 2020 from 5:30-7:00 pm



More information and video documentation

What we consider to be our environment unequivocally and ubiquitously contains plastic. It has been found at the outskirts of human reach: at the top of Mount Everest, in Arctic ice, and at the bottom of the Mariana trench. Plastic is becoming part of our geology and the lively surrounding of many organisms on this planet – a new material and habitat providing new stories and life forms.

The overabundance of this human-made material challenges our concepts of the natural and former sites of waste and refuse might have gotten a new fertile potential: Trees grow on plastic dumps, bacteria and fungi evolve to feed on PET. Plastic might be disrupting our idea of nature but is it really disrupting nature itself?






 
Previous Events:

2020

     
2 January 2020, 7:00-9:30 PM

Mind the Fungi

Open Lab Night
at the Institutof Biotechnology/ Bioprocess Engineering, TU Berlin

Ackerstr. 76, Raum Z20, Hof 3 Aufgang F, 13355 Berlin

The Art & Science project Mind the Fungi is a cooperation between the Institute of Biotechnology at the TU Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin and is dedicated to the research of local fungi and lichens. Scientists of the Department of Bioprocess Engineering will give short presentations to give an insight into the world of lichens and their potential for new natural products is presented. Afterwards, production tools, in particular bioreactors, that are used to reproduce the lichen cultures and their valuable materials, will be presented. There is also the opportunity to have hands-on experiences with the material – even under the microscope. Using lichens from the environment, experimental methods for isolation and characterization in laboratory experiments will be shown and the morphology of the symbiosis observed under the microscope.

Lichens represent a symbiosis of algae and fungi. Fungi and lichens offer a resource of diverse substances, the spectrum ranges from compounds to fine and basic chemicals such as bioplastic components to valuable food components and even building materials. In the case of lichens, the cultivation for the production of such diverse products is still at the beginning. Appropriate isolation and subsequent bioprocess optimization should greatly shorten growth times and unlock the potential for producing valuable substances.
The bioengineering research is expanded through artistic and design-based approaches. The Institute of Biotechnology works together with Berlin artists and designers to develop new ideas and technologies for the mushroom and lichen-based materials of the future and would like to involve the public in these developments.

(More information)

Part of the Vorspiel programme in partnership with the CTM and transmediale

With the generous support of the Technische Universität Berlin as part of the program Citizen Science - Forschen mit der Gesellschaft:.




5 January 2020, 3-6 PM


Florence Razoux: The Lumenses Project


Artist and scientist Florence Razoux will be presenting the Lumenses Project, a series of creative initiatives that offers a new perspective on menstruation and examine how the taboo that surrounds menstruation impacts society, and especially the biomedical research. The interactive art and science installation Bloody Holidays, questioning our perception of menstruation, will be presented to the public, with the opportunity to donate menstrual blood for the making of the piece. Please get in touch with the artist if you're interested in participating: zweigeist.bln@gmail.com

Florence Razoux is a scientist and artist with a PhD in neuroscience and biomedical engineering. Their work bridges science, art, design and technology, and was presented in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (Gray Matters, 2017), MONOM, Berlin Center for Spatial Sound (Sgr-A*, 2018) and most recently ETH Zürich in Switzerland (Waddington, 2019).



2019
  29 November 2019, 7:30 PM, Project presentation

Symbiosis in intra-flux of the Anthropocene


Saša Spačal

Artistic research at the Rillig Group, Ecology of Plants, Institute of Biology, Free University Berlin in cooperation with Art Laboratory Berlin

29. November 2019, 7:30 PM: Project presentation: Saša Spačal in converation with Dr. India Mansour

For the month of November 2019 bio media artist Saša Spačal will provide artistic research for her new project Symbiosis in intra-flux of the Anthropocene at the Rillig Group, Ecology of Plants, Institute of Biology, FU Berlin.Towards the end of the residency Art Laboratory Berlin will host a public presentation and discussion about the topics that residency covered, together with scientists from the Rillig Group.
(More about Symbiosis in intraflux of the Anthropocene)




13 October und 10 November 2019, 11 AM - 6 PM

Local Area Network (LAN). Workshop Mit Martin Howse

Local Area Network (LAN) open workshop is a collective, speculative investigation of local fields/particles, and energetic exchanges, towards the hacking and re-routing of energy flows and networks at all stacked levels of local geological, environmental and technological "Umwelten", forking into a forensic exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin.

(More information)



05 October 2019

DIY Hack the Panke


Pankquelle
an audiovisual performance with Sarah Hermanutz and Nenad Popov

5 October 2019, 8PM


Artists Sarah Hermanutz und Nenad Popov will perform a new work based on their involvement in the citizen science collective 'DIY Hack the Panke'. The two artists' previous collaboration have mixed Hermanutz's artistic research into wetland ecologies with Popov's sound and programming based work. For "Pankquelle', the artists draw inspiration from the Panke River's source in Brandenberg, and it's journey through the changing urban landscapes of Berlin.
(More information)




05 October 2019

DIY Hack the Panke


Wasserpank.
Workshop and Jam session with Kat Austen and Nenad Popov

5 October 2019, 2-6PM


Artist and chemist Kat Austen and sound and new media artist Nenad Popov will take the Panke River and its water as a starting point for this exciting workshop on sound experimentation from water and the environment. Mixing hydrophone recordings, DIY water and soil sensors, participants will be able to make their own recordings and the workshop will end in a group jam session along the river.
More about DIY Hack the Panke
(More information)



28 September 2019

Mind the Fungi

WALK & TALK #3


Briesetal | 28 September, 2019 (Day excursion)
Lab excursion, TU Berlin | 1 October, 2019

Artist Theresa Schubert will offer diverse perspectives on the forest and its cultural meaning. Together with biotechnologists from the Institute of Biotechnology | TU Berlin she will guide us through the forest of Briesetal in search of tree mushrooms. This Walk and Talk forms part of a research project combining cutting edge biotechnological research, citizen science and artistic research.

Bertram Schmidt and Carsten Pohl from TU Berlin will show participants how to collect samples of fungi and preserve them for further study and cultivation. At a follow-up lab at the Dept. of Applied and Molecular Microbiology | TU Berlin on 1 October, participants will be shown how to inoculate Petri dishes with samples for cultivation.
http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-Mind-the-Fungi.htm

(More information)


22 September 2019

DIY Hack the Panke

Summer Walk and Talk #2:
Decay and Feedback: reckoning with the wild and the unsightly
with Nenad Popov, India Mansour and James Whitehead

22 September 2019, 3PM, starting at Art Laboratory Berlin

For the last day of summer, sound and new media artist Nenad Popov and biologists India Mansour and James Whitehead (FU Plant Ecology) will walk along the Panke and give a series of short talks interwoven with participatory actions and interactions between visible and invisible ecological layers surrounding the Panke river. They will explore themes including the human modification of urban landscapes through time, 'natural' cycles of decomposition in soils and rivers vs. the decay of man-made materials and the feedbacks between the synthetic waste and ecosystems in the city.

The research group DIY Hack the Panke, founded in January 2018, consists of a group of artists, scientists and curators promoting Citizen Science projects along the Panke River in north and central Berlin. Through interdisciplinary practice, the group aims to explore the Panke River for living organisms and critically examine its complex history of human use.
(More information)

 

7 September 2019, 3-5 PM

Curators' talk


Mind the Fungi.
Local Tree Mushrooms as Sustainable Material for the Future


Venue: FUTURIUM | Futurium Lab, Alexanderufer 2, 10117 Berlin
Curated by Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz, Art Laboratory Berlin


Mind the Fungi is a collaboration between the TU Berlin Institute of Biotechnology and Art Laboratory Berlin, combining scientific research, citizen science and artist and designer residencies-in-lab. The project researches innovative uses for biomaterials produced from tree fungi. Researchers at TU Berlin's Institute of Biotechnology create new materials from natural sources. How and what you grow the material on defines its qualities. Art Laboratory Berlin brings together for this topic artists, scientists and the public to share knowledge and experience new forms of creativity through exhibitions, talks and workshops.
(More Information)





13 July 2019

DIY Hack the Panke

Summer Walk and Talk #1
13 July 2019, 3.30PM, starting at Art Laboratory Berlin


Microbiologist Daniel Lammel and biochemist and illustrator Eliot Morrison from the artist and scientist collective DIY Hack the Panke will guide participants along the Panke River in Berlin-Wedding, discussing the interaction of water, soil and atmosphere from the molecular level and how this effects and is affected by organisms up to the larger ecological level. They will explain how water, plants and soil take part in cycles of carbon and nitrogen that support life, and how Berlin's urban environment can both nurture and threaten biodiversity.

The meeting point is Art Laboratory Berlin at 3.30PM, where curators Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz will give a short introduction to the current exhibition "The Silk Worm Project" before the Walk and Talk.
(More information)



  15 June 2019

Mind the Fungi as part of the Long Night of Science @ Technical University Berlin

Institute of Biotechnology
Bio Process Engineering

Ackerstr. 76
13355 Berlin
Raum: Raum 394

Mind the Fungi! - Mushrooms and their contribution to biotechnology
Everyone knows champignons, mold and co. But mushrooms can do more than just taste good or spoil bread. Already today they are used to produce detergent enzymes and bioplastics. And we are just beginning to understand the complex biology of fungi. Immerse yourself in the delicate and fragile world of mushroom microbiology. The Department of Applied and Molecular Microbiology of the TU Berlin with Art Laboratory Berlin gives you an insight into the modern molecular biology of mushrooms. Identify them by their DNA; use modern microscopes to discover a world hidden and enchanting to the human eye. Learn how today's biotechnology can solve tomorrow's problems.
(More information)


8/ 30 June 2019

THE SILKWORM PROJECT Workshop with Vivian Xu

June 8, 2019, 3-6pm @ Art Laboratory Berlin

THE SILKWORM PROJECT Workshop will give insight into the artistic research and practice by Vivian Xu and offers a hands-on part, based on artist Vivian Xu's solo exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin of the same name.
(More information)


30 June 2019, 3PM @ Art Laboratory Berlin

"Conversations in Silk" presents a dialogue between historian of biology Lisa Onaga and artist and designer Vivian Xu. They will reflect on the complex and intermingled topic of silk, spanning from the historical and cross-continental context of sericulture, to specultations of the future of the silkworm-human relations within a technoscience framework. Onaga will draw from her own research inquiries into the histories of silk cocoon production and standardization in Japan, and silkworm heredity experiments spanning various continents, introducing to audiences new research from her upcoming book Cocoon Cultures. Xu will speak of her work and research for The Silkworm Project, which takes on a more speculative and cybernetic view, drawing inspiration from the silkworm's behaviour and biology, to better design labour machines and system logics. The talk takes into consideration the ongoing exhibition "The Silkworm Project" and will conclude with conversations between the speakers and audience.
(More information)

In close cooperation with Max Planck Institute for the History of Science



26 May 2019

DIY HACK THE PANKE

Panke Life. Microbiodiversity. Workshop with Sarah Hermanutz, India Mansour and Fara Peluso

This workshop will research the diversity of invisible life in the Panke River. Choosing a site along the river in Berlin-Wedding artists Fara Peluso and Sarah Hermanutz and microbiologist India Mansour will show participants how to investigate the microbial life and ecologies of an urban waterway. The workshop will explore the river and floodplain as microbial habitats, with special emphasis on water, sediment and soil along the riverbanks. The workshop will explore the river and floodplain as microbial habitats, with special emphasis on water, sediment and soil along the riverbanks. Microbial community characteristics, interactions with the environment, and nutrient cycles will be discussed and examples sought out.
(More information)


DIY Hack the Panke is a collective of artists, scientists and curators exploring the rich historical and ecological heritage of the Panke River in Mitte, Wedding and Pankow. Based at Art Laboratory Berlin, we thank Panke e.V. for their cooperation in this workshop and the Fachbereich Kunst und Kultur Bezirksamt Mitte and the Bezirkskulturfonds for their generous support of our 2019 public programme.

Supported by the Fachbereich Kunst und Kultur Bezirksamt Mitte and the Bezirkskulturfonds.

 

13 & 14 April 2019

(UN)REAL ECOLOGIES

Microplastics Workshop with Kat Austen & Frithjof Glowinski

Plastic has pervaded water, soil and our bodies. It is the new icon of our time. During the (Un)Real Ecologies: Microplastics workshop we will explore the presence of microplastics in the Panke River, near Art Laboratory Berlin. How do organisms and microorganisms exist with and construct with these human-made materials? We will investigate water samples, to discover a new understanding of the reality of the Panke's ecosystem, with plastic present and wholly a part of it - a microcosm that allows us to ask: "what is nature?"

In the workshop participants will use DIY chemistry methods to separate microplastics from mineral and organic matter, and discover the origins of the plastics they find by creating density columns. They will also learn about the ecology of the Panke River and the Citizen Science project DIY Hack the Panke.
(More information)

Supported by the Fachbereich Kunst und Kultur Bezirksamt Mitte and the Bezirkskulturfonds.

 

16 March 2019

HYDRO_PERFORMANCE NIGHT. PERFORMANCES, TALKS WITH NEW CASSETTES AND VINYLS!

With Kat Austen, Robertina Šebjanič and Fara Peluso as part of the exhibition Watery Ecologies. Artistic Research.

TALK:

Fara Peluso, one of the artists of the show, will give an insight into her long-term research that focuses on potential uses for algae as an environmental regulator, source for sustainable materials, and aesthetic catalyser of biophilia. She proposes a closer relationship between humans and algae as an answer to our current environmental crisis. Her research and practice combine working with biotechnologists and DIY scientists in speculative and critical design to produce a myriad of innovative design and artistic solutions.

PERFORMANCES:

Kat Austen

The Matter of the Soul | Symphony is a performance work that engenders empathy with a consequence of climate change: process of dispersal and transformation in the Arctic region. The work draws together stories of human migration and melting ice in the Arctic, and changing identity on and offline. The musical compositions for The Matter of the Soul are based around audio field recordings of Arctic waters made using hacked pH and conductivity meters. During this very special performance at Art Laboratory Berlin, Austen will weave together the global and local, accompanying the song of the Arctic along with live improvisation using her hacked instruments, playing the water from her closest river, the Panke in Wedding, Berlin.

Robertina Šebjanič

Aquatocene / The subaquatic quest for serenity investigates the phenomenon of underwater noise pollution created by humankind in the seas and oceans. The sound compositions are a re-mix between the bioacoustics of marine life (shrimps, fish, sea urchins etc.), the aquatic acoustics and the presence of human generated noise in the world’s oceans and seas. The audio compositions of the subaquatic soundscape encourage us to reflect upon the anthropogenic sonic impact on the underwater habitat and marine life.

 

14 & 15 March 2019

THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

This conceptual artistic research workshop by media art curator Natalia Fuchs and media artist Helena Nikonole that spans Artificial Intelligence as a concept, neural networks as a tool, and research-based curatorial solution as an approach. According to Helena Nikonole, an artistic exploration of the potential possibilities (and also potential risks) of technologies like Artificial Intelligence or the Internet of Things is necessary to understand the context of modern technologically and media determined world.

Natalia Fuchs is a media art curator that is dealing with historical contexts when curating exhibitions and art projects. From her point of view, it is crucial to see how new media choice for the artist correlates with topological spaces in the history of art. In other words, referencing notion to an external space is her approach to building media art communities stable and persistent; what is reflected in the “The Work of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” which become global research community platform for the artist, curator and technology specialists.
(More information)

 

13 March 2019

THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Talk: Are Androids the better humans?

Tokyo-based curator and cultural diplomacy researcher Maurice Jones examines how different attitudes towards AI, robotics, and transhumanism are explored and represented through Japanese society's affinity towards technology, automisation, etc. The talk is free and open to the public.

 

28 February 2019

MIND THE FUNGI

UPDATE AND PRESENTATIONS

Mind the Fungi is a two-year collaborative project between the Institute of Biotechnology, Technische Universität Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin.
There will be short presentations of some of the project partners about the process so far: collecting, cultivating and identifying the fungi, as well as a discussion of upcoming events:
- Regine Rapp | Art Laboratory Berlin
- Prof. Dr. Vera Meyer / Institute of Biotechnology - Applied and Molecular Microbiology, TU Berlin
- Bertram Schmidt | Institute of Biotechnology - Applied and Molecular Microbiology, TU Berlin
(More information)

Cooperation partner: TU Berlin

 

2018

 

 

  17 November 2018

MIND THE FUNGI

WALK & TALK #2

Tegeler Forst | 17 November 2018
Forest excursion + Lab visit to the Dept. of Applied and Molecular Microbiology | TU Berlin

Artist Theresa Schubert will offer diverse perspectives on the forest and its cultural meaning including a performance. Furthermore, together with biotechnologists from the Institute of Biotechnology | TU Berlin she will guide us through forests of Berlin and Brandenburg in search of tree mushrooms and lichens. Samples taken will form part of a two-year research project combining cutting edge biological research, citizen science and artistic research.

Biotechnologists from TU Berlin will show participants how to collect samples of fungi and lichens and preserve them for further study and cultivation. At a follow-up lab at Applied and Molecular Microbiology | TU Berlin, participants will be shown how to inoculate Petri dishes with samples for cultivation.

(More information)


 

 

27/ 29 October 2018

MIND THE FUNGI

WALK & TALK #1

1) Briesetal | 27 October, 2018
(Day Excursion)
2) Lab excursion, TU Berlin | 29 October, 2018 (Evening)


Art Laboratory Berlin invites you to the first public event of Mind the Fungi, a two-year collaborative project between the Technische Universität Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin. Artist Theresa Schubert will offer diverse perspectives on the forest and its cultural meaning including a performance. Furthermore, together with biotechnologists from the Institute of Biotechnology | TU Berlin she will guide us through forests of Berlin and Brandenburg in search of tree mushrooms and lichens. Samples taken will form part of a two-year research project combining cutting edge biological research, citizen science and artistic research.

(More information)

22 September 2018 | Workshop


Špela Petrič
Phytocracy in situ:
Prototyping tools for the investigation of plant governance

In connection with the exhibition Strange Encounters with Vegetal Others

How did wheat manage to domesticate the human? From Pollan's perspective-bending "Botany of Desire" to the environmental humanities' "vegetal politics", the entanglements between plants and people are ubiquitous, mundane and often hiding in plain sight. As part of the inquiries into Vegetal Otherness, Špela Petrič set out to produce her own phytocracy-revealing onto-epistemological tools that are inspired by actual institutions/domains/cultural practices framing plant-people relations, but also playfully oblivious to their axioms and boundaries.

The open session invites participants to reflect on plant governance as governance of plants by joining in a fast and funny tool prototyping session to investigate the river Panke in the vicinity of Art Laboratory Berlin. The exercise connects to a wider questioning of artistic methodologies, mediations, narratives, with which we try to convey experiences with the vegetal that often escape words.

The workshop is based on Deep Phytocracy: Feral Songs, the work-in-progress Petri
č has been developing at Nida Art Colony, Lithuania and Osmoza, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

With the generous support of the Slovene Cultural Center Berlin


24-25 August, 2018 | Seminar and performances

BioSignals

BioSignals is a series of site-specific sound art, narrations and nature-based data streams by human and nonhuman cultural producers during Summer-Autumn 2018, culminating with a contribution to the next Pixelache Festival in Helsinki in Spring 2019. The artistic content of the project will focus on creative and actual interpretations of biosemiotics, energy as media and communication. Featured artists included Sarah Hermanutz and Nenad Popov who performed their audiovisual work Live Decomposition as well as Pedro Soler and contributions by Andrew Gryf Paterson, Antye Greie-Ripatti, Juan Duarte, Krisjanis Rijnieks, Krista Dintere, Laura Beloff, Lilli Tölp and Mikko Lipiäinen.
(More information)



3-5 August, 2018 | Presentation and performance

NOW. A Kinetic Life

Bidisha Das and Thomas Heidtmann


NOW – A Kinetic Life is an interactive installation that spans a visual and acoustic connection between outer space and physical spaces that surround us. It is an orchestra of movement using elements from outer space, nature and human bodies as instrumentations. It is an expression of the ever-changing moment we are living in: NOW.The installation brings in sounds from all these spaces in real-time to a modular synthesizer, the heart of the proposed installation, that Das has created exclusively for the project. The synthesizer is accompanied by CubeSat-like objects that are part of Heidtmann’s "Place in Orbit" project, wearable gloves and plants with sensors.
(More information)



7/8 July, 2018 | Workshop

(Un)Real Ecologies - Microplastics

Kat Austen & Nana MacLean


Plastic has pervaded water, soil and our bodies. It is the new icon of our time. During the (Un)Real Ecologies: Microplastics workshop we will explore the presence of microplastics in the Panke River, near Art Laboratory Berlin. How do organisms and microorganisms exist with and construct with these human-made materials? We will interrogate the water samples, to discover a new understanding of the reality of the Panke's ecosystem, with plastic present and wholly a part of it - a microcosm that allows us to ask: "what is nature?"
(More information)




6 July, 2018 | Book Release Party

Half Life. Machines/ Organisms,
Artistic Positions in the context of Climate Change and Extinction.

Käthe Wenzel/Manfred Blohm (eds.) Fabrico Verlag Hannover, 2018.


Machine-Organisms, organic machines: The dissolution of boundaries between bodies and technology is becoming part of everyday life with feeling prosthesis, neuro implants and neuroenhancement - posthumanism. Even the extinction of the species supposedly be solved by synthetic and mechanical Ersatz-species. What are the artistic perspectives on these developments? What kind of threats and promises are being negotiated here?

41 artistic positions from 15 countries provide critical and visionary views onto socio-emotional service machines - prxies and social crutches; Ersatz: Machine environments and artificial organisms; Utopia: Prosthesis, Utopian Instruments and substitute bodies; Connection: Mediator machines and trans-species communication; Autonomous and obsolete machines, past cultures of machines.

With
A
gnes Meyer-Brandis, Alex May, Alexander Schellbach, Andras Böröcz, Anna Dumitriu, Christa Sommerer, Claudia Schmitz, Courtney Johnson, Emma Critchley, Giuliana Cunéaz, Guy Ben-Ary, Hannes Waldschütz, Ionat Zurr, Jeongmoon Choi, Ji Hyun Park, Jinyoung Lee, John Roach, Käthe Wenzel, Kerstin Ergenzinger, Laurent Mignonneau, Lisa Glauer, Lorenzo Oggiano, Lukas Truniger, Malte Bartsch, Marie-Eve Levasseur, Michael Schulze, Nicola L. Hein, Oron Catts, Pey-Ying Lin, PSJM, Robbin A. Silverberg, Robertina Šebjanic, Saša Spacal, Špela Petric, Susanna Hertrich, Susanna Schoenberg, Suzanne Anker, Tobias Grewenig, VALIE EXPORT, Verena Friedrich, Via Lewandowsky, 431art...and essays by KätheWenzel/ Manfred Blohm, Regine Rapp/ Christian De Lutz, Lisa Glauer/ Helge Oder.





 

 

 

23 February, 2018 from 7-11PM Documentation | Publication | Party

NONHUMAN AGENTS - in retrospect


Art Laboratory Berlin cordially invites you to revisit our 2017 programme Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory. We will present photo, video and text documentation of our 2017 series of workshops, talks and exhibition, as well as the three-day conference in November 2017.




2017
  24-26 November, 2017 |Interdisciplinary Conference

Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory


As a theoretical addition to our ongoing series Nonhuman Agents (June - December 2017) Art Laboratory Berlin - along with our partners, The Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam - has brought together international artists, scholars, and scientists from different disciplines to discuss artistic, philosophical, ethical and scientific approaches to nonhuman agency. Previous positions from our Nonhuman Subjectivities series (2016-17) were also be included.
(More information)



 

 

 

28 October, 2017, 7PM | Lecture

Sarah Hermanutz: ill-at-ease seep

In her lecture the artist Sarah Hermanutz will discuss the relationship between humans and wetlands, which is the focus in her long-term artistic research. Wetlands are one of the most biologically diverse and important ecosystems for life on earth, but within the past century mankind has destroyed over 50% of them. The artist will explore our historical and contemporary relationship with these environments, including the tropes and prejudices that have marginalised them and justified their continued draining and destruction. Engagement with the uncomfortable sensory and aesthetic experience of wetlands is proposed as essential to reintegrating humans within these ecological communities.
(More information)


23/24 September, 2017 | 2-day-Workshop

Heather Barnett + plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers): Swarm | Cell | City

This 2-day workshop is a participatory experiment on art, performance and biology that precedes the exhibition Nonhuman Networks. The project invites the participants to view the city of Berlin by the nonhuman perspectives of the intelligent single-cell organism, the slime mould, Physarum polycephalum and GPS tracking.

The aim of Swarm | Cell | City is to create the conditions for critical and creative learning to take place, without trying to control the outcomes. The origins of the creative exploration will derive from self-organising principles in natural phenomena, for example using stigmergic processes. Using the historical and contemporary topography of Berlin as inspiration, we propose a series of experiments and activities, which explore collective communication, cooperation and urban navigation at different scales.
(More information)


 

14 September, 2017, 7-11 PM
15-17 September, 2017, 1-4PM

Presentation of Nonhuman Agents

Results from the first three workshops of the Nonhuman Agents series, as well as our upcoming Autumn programme will be presented at Art Laboratory Berlin during the Berlin Art Week (in cooperation with the Berlin Network of Independent Project Spaces and Initiatives and the generous support of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe)
(More information)



25/26 August, 2017| Lecture & Workshop

Theresa Schubert: The forestal psyche


The lecture and workshop are based on the artist's long-term artistic research project on living organisms as an artistic material and medium. For this project, Schubert dedicates herself to the potential of slime moulds, mosses and lichens from the forests around Berlin. Slime moulds are the largest known single-celled organisms and live from decaying matter on the forest floor. Certain mosses and lichens are natural remedies as well as indicators of good air quality. Apart from a scientific approach, forests have always been places of myths, legends and fantasies. How can you combine imagination and biotechnology in an artistic project? Can one "demystify" hard science by interpreting it creatively?
(More information)


15 July, 2017 | Lecture & Performative Workshop

Margherita Pevere: Anatomy of an inter-connected system

Starting point of this seminar is the artist’s research at the junction of visual arts, theoretical inquiry and investigation of biological processes. The seminar will focus on the discourses regarding human-nature relationship in the frame of today’s environmental crisis and how artistic practices involving living organisms and technology can innovatively contribute to the debate. How can artists problematise the complex interconnection between humans and the biosphere in a hyper-technological era? With what kind of aesthetic and ethical implications? The project aims at engaging the audience in a performative discussion with a visual outcome.
(More information)



18 June, 2017 | Performative Lecture & Workshop

Alanna Lynch | Gut feelings

As part of her ongoing research Alanna Lynch has been growing the microorganisms that produce kombucha tea. Through the process of fermentation this symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeasts (SCOBY) produces a cellulose material that is slimy and smells strongly while wet and can be dried and used as a textile. However, Lynch's interest in working with this life form goes beyond the material properties. Throughout this research Lynch has been actively consuming the microorganisms by drinking the tea. Given that about half of the cells in the human body are bacterial cells and acknowledging the microbiome-gut-brain axis whereby bacteria in the gut have been shown to effect the mind, how people think, feel and even behave, bacteria can be seen as radical in the potential it has to challenge categories such as subject/object, mind/body and human/non-human.
(More information)


12-13 May, 2017 | Concerts & Lectures

CellF

CellF, a neural synthesizer, will perform with Schneider TM (12 May) and Stine Janvin (13 May) as part of Technosphärenklänge #3 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin.

The third edition of the Technosphärenklänge series, produced by the HKW in collaboration with CTM Festival, will present musical projects operating at the border of art and science. Three projects – the world’s first neural synthesizer that performs with human musicians; water droplets levitated and shaped by sound waves; and the interconnection of spatial sound and high-energy lasers – make current notions of materiality tangible and fundamentally re-think the relationship between nature, technology and human consciousness. All three projects require intensive research and constant collaboration between the artists, natural scientists and technologists. The following day, lectures and talks hosted together with Art Laboratory Berlin will explain the research and science behind the performances, and discuss the works’ social implications.
(More information)



5 May, 2017 | Artist Talk

Guy Ben-Ary


Guy Ben-Ary is an artist and a researcher at Symbiotica (University of Western Australia, Perth) an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and hands-on engagement with the life sciences. Recognised internationally as a major artist and innovator working across science and media arts, Guy specialises in biotechnological artwork, which aims to enrich our understanding of what it means to be alive. Guy's work focuses on tissue engineering, microscopy and biological imaging. His research explores a number of fundamental themes that underpin the intersection of art and science; namely life and death, cybernetics, and artificial life. Much of Ben-Ary's work is inspired by science and nature. His artworks utilise motion and growth and biological data to investigate technological aspects of today's culture and the re-use of biological materials and technologies.
(More information)



 
 

20 April, 2017 | Bio & Beer - Aquaponics system under artificial light

Biotinkering Berlin

Biotinkering wants to explore the possibilities given by aquaponics systems under artificial light. Hence we will set up a small aquaponics system under growth lamps. Organised by Alessandro Volpato.
(More information)


 

24 February, 2017 | Art Laboratory Berlin programme as part of the framework of the transmediale/CTM festivals

Mycelium Network Society

Art Laboratory Berlin will be taking part in the discussions at the opening event of the Mycelium Network Society (part transmediale ever elusive).

Location: silent green Kulturquartier
Gerichtstraße 35
13347 Berlin

 

17-19 February, 2017| DIYBio faire Organized by Biotinkering Berlin

DIYBio NOW

The three-day bio-fair brings together the players in the Berlin biohacking scene for a series of hands-on workshops, talks and a special exhibition featuring unique DIY laboratory equipment. The bio-fair focuses on the elusiveness of nature, trying to rebuild the lost connection between humans and the oldest organisms on Earth: bacteria, algae and fungi.

The fairs opens on Friday at 7 PM with a series of presentations by Berlin-based biohackers. The program continues on Saturday 12-8PM and Sunday 12-6PM with workshops and talks on topics ranging from 'bioluminescent bacteria' to 'tempeh fermentation' to 'spectrometry' by Jessica Bernds, Rüdiger Trojok and Alessandro Volpato and an exhibition of artworks by Lusi Ajonjoli & Hong Yu, Mirela Alistar, Graziele Lautenschlaeger, Fara Peluso and Margherita Pevere.


29 January, 2017 | SciArt Café

SciArt Café with BIOMOD and iGEM Team Berlin


The iGEM Berlin team (http://igem.berlin/) presents their fifth SciArt Café. Under the main theme of "Synthetic Biology - a toolkit for solving humanity's problems" we will hear scientists and artists working with bioscience and afterwards discuss topics of synthetic biology.
1. Nikolaj Koch - Introduction into SynBio, iGEM Berlin 15-17, Using Synthetic Biology to clean our water from microplastics
2. Svenja Nierwetberg - Searching for parasites - Using synthetic biology for diagnostics (iGEM Charité)
3. Prof. Vera Meyer - Fungal Bioart : Combining scientific and artistic approaches in microbiology
4. plus additional talks on biology and the arts
(More information)


Bio & Beers | with Biotinkering e.V.

Do It Yourself Biology is a social movement where individuals, with or without knowlege and training in biology, organize themselves and study biology. Activities range from understanding basic biology topics to building a DIY laboratory and then proceed to do research similarly to institutions. This may be done as hobby, as open-science innovation, or for starting a business.

In Berlin there is a pool of DIY bio projects going on, though up to now an adequate space for these projects to happen has been missing. So the local community is organized in smaller groups, one of which is Biotinkering Berlin.

Biotinkering berlin e.V. is an association that promotes education, science and research. It meets 2 to 4 times a months at Art Laboratory Berlin, opening itself to bioart discussion and ideas.

The Bio & Beers format is for everyone: we start with a 20 minutes presentation, followed by discussions while having beers.
A project of Dr. Mirela Alister, Rüdiger Trojok, Alessandro Volpato and Biotinkering e.V.

Previous Biotinkering e.V. events


2016

 

 

18 September, 2016 | Seminar

Living Systems: Aquatic Systems

With Robertina Šebjanič, Kat Austen, Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz in the framework of the exhibition Aural Aquatic Presence.

The current exhibition project artistically explores the interplay and intercommunication between animal and machine while focusing on the aquatic environment. Within this framework we want to invite you to our seminar which will theoretically explore these and other aspects about artistic and scientific methodologies on interspecies empathy and human-nonhuman companionship.
(More information and video documentation of the seminar.)

 


25 August, 2016 | Bio & Beers

Bio & Beers with Biotinkering Berlin e.V.

A project of Dr. Mirela Alister, Rüdiger Trojok, Alessandro Volpato and Biotinkering e.V.
We kick off the use of new space with a series of weekly Thursday meetings.
The Bio & Beers format is for everyone: we start with a 20 minutes presentation, followed by discussions while having beers. This week's topic is: Digital biology in every home: what would you do with a personal lab?

Autumn 2016 program of Biotinkering Berlin e.V.at Art Laboratory Berlin

 

2 July - 4 September, 2016 | Exhibition & Talks

NatureCultures


Brandon Ballengée | Katya Gardea Browne | Pinar Yoldas

Curated by Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz
At the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Auguststr. 75, 10117 Berlin

Opening: 1 July, 2016 at 7PM.
Artists talk 3 July, 2016 at 2PM

Curators' tour: 24 July, 2016 at 2 PM
Closing reception and curators' tour: 4 September, 2016 at 2PM

The exhibition NatureCultures explores the interwoven fabric of both the human and nonhuman in the 21st century. The exhibition title refers to a term coined by the American scholar Donna Haraway, which seeks to overcome the unproductive dichotomy of nature and culture. The side effects of human technology intrude into every environment, altering the balance, and even the make up of what we once called nature. While ecological disaster repeatedly threatens, there is a surprising resiliency in the myriad of life forms on this planet. The exhibition presents three artists who explore a realm between science and artistic research as well as between natural and cultural forms of inquiry.
(More Information)



 

17 July, 2016 | Interdisciplinary Dialog

Art Laboratory Berlin: DIALOG

For the closing event of the exhibition On Animals. Cognition, Senses, Play we are pleased to invite you to an interdisciplinary dialog. There will be fascinating contributions from diverse disciplines – from art history, philosophy and ecology.


Antonia Ulrich, philosopher and cultural theorist
Rollentausch. „Planet of the Apes“ (1968)

Antonia Ulrich does research in the field of philosophical aesthetics, political, media- and gender- specific conditions of philosophy and art as well as Cultural Animal Studies. In this context, she published and taught e.g. on artistic imitation and monkeys respectively apes in art history and in film. Ulrich co-curated the exhibition “Becoming-animal, becoming-human” in the NGBK Berlin (2009) and co-edited two issues of the interdisciplinary journal “Tierstudien”: „Metamorphosen“ (4/2013) and „Tiere und Tod“ (5/2014) (together with Jessica Ullrich). Also relevant to the topic of her presentation at Art Laboratory Berlin is her article “Äffen und NachschAffen”, in: „kunsttexte.de“ (2/2005); http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/kunsttexte/download/kume/ulrich-affe.pdf .

Marie Neuwald, Spokesperson for the Protection of Wolves, Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union, NABU
Über die gegenwärtige Situation von Wölfen in Deutschland

Since 2000 there have once again been wolves in Germany. After the discovery of a pack living in Saxony caused much attention, people's relationship with these new neighbours has normalised. Meanwhile about 40 wolf families live in German wilderness areas. The question of whether wolves can survive in Germany is not a question of biology or ecology, but a question of the prejudices, worries and fears of some people. For this reason NABU has been running the Willkommen Wolf project since 2005.

 

27-29 May, 2016 | Exhibition and Artists Talk

Rachel Mayeri | Maja Smrekar:
Nonhuman Subjectivities:
On Animals. Cognition, Senses, Play


Opening: 27 May, 2016, 8PM
Artists talk: 29 May, 2016, 3PM
Dialog and Finissage: 17 July, 2016, 3PM
Exhibition runs: 28 May– 17 July, 2016
(
More information)


22 May, 2016 | Talk

Lea Kannar-Lichtenberger:
There be Dragons. Human Impact on the environmentally sensitive Galapagos and Lord Howe Islands


Moderated by Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin)
At SPEKTRUM | art science community, Bürknerstraße 12, 12047 Berlin


More Information:
http://spektrumberlin.de/events/detail/there-be-dragons-talk-and-qa-with-lea-kannar-lichtenberger-155.html

 

26 February-23 April, 2016 | Exhibition and Talks

Nonhuman Subjectivities: The Other Selves.
On the Phenomenon of the Microbiome


François-Joseph Lapointe  
Saša Spačal with Mirjan Švagelj and Anil Podgornik   
Tarsh Bates   
Joana Ricou


Opening of the exhibition: 26 February, 2016, 8PM
Artists' Talk: 28 February, 2016, 3PM
Berlin Science Hack Day Stammtisch: 23 March, 7PM
Scientist and artist talk with PD Dr. Annette Moter and Tarsh Bates: 23 April, 2016, 6PM

Finissage with talk by Felix Navarrete: 30 April, 2016, 3-6PM
At 3PM Felix Navarrete (MA Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, London) will give a talk on the nonhuman, bioart and an "immunological ethics" in reference to the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza:

"Bioart makes salient the problematization of the relation between readily recognizable "human" elements and the non-human constitutive operations that traverse them. Included in this exploration lies the crucial, open question of if and how we can construct an ethics commensurable to the reformulations of agency, identity, collectivity, and even of freedom, that such works of art force via their inhuman vantage points. We turn to the 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza's thoroughly materialist and naturalist conceptual framework as a resource to sketch out an immunological ethics that can more adequately think through the ethical subjectivity of 3rd person reflexive pronouns." (Felix Navarrete)

Following the talk there will be an informal reception. Artist Tarsh Bates and curators Christian de Lutz & Regine Rapp will be present.

Exhibition runs: 27 February – 30 April, 2016, Fri-Sun 2-6PM and by appointment.
(29 April open until 9PM
)
(More information)

 

3-5 February, 2016 | Performance & Artist Talk

François-Joseph Lapointe: 1000 Handshakes

The performance 1000 Handshakes was realized during the opening night of transmediale/conversation piece
at the
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, John-Foster-Dulles Allee 10, 10557 Berlin.

5 February, 2016 5-6.30 PM Talk: 1000 Handshakes – Towards an Aesthetics of the Microbiome
at transmediale/conversation piece,
(House of World Cultures, John-Foster-Dulles Allee 10, 10557 Berlin)
François-Joseph Lapoint with Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin)

As part of the opening of the 2016 transmediale festival of art & digital culture at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Art Laboratory Berlin will present the performance 1000 Handshakes by François-Joseph Lapointe, curated by Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz.
(more information)


Podcast of the talk

 

 

 

31 January, 2016 | Science Café

SciArt Café with Berlin iGEM team

In the run up to our next series Nonhuman Subjectivities, opening 26 February 2016 with the exhibition The Other Selves. On the Phenomenon of the Microbiome, we are glad to announce a series of events together with the Vorspiel programme of the transmediale and CTM.

The iGEM Berlin team (http://igem.berlin/) presents their fourth SciArt Café. Under the main theme of "Programming Life - Good Code/ Bad Code?" we will hear scientists and artists working with bioscience and afterwards discuss topics of synthetic biology. Join us on the 31th of January from 3.00 - 6.00 pm at Art Laboratory Berlin. After four warm up talks at ArtLaboratory Berlin, we will start the discussion over food and drinks.

In this science café we want to address the images and techniques in art and science that apply to the living organism at its source: the organism as bacteria, as gene, as a storage, as connecting element, as an imaginative. Which problems, challenges and questions drive the artists and scientists that are dealing with life in its smallest and most complex form?

Biotechnology aims at prolonging life and minimizing disease. At the same time they have to comply with strong security regulations
. The assumption that biology equals technology, which in consequence leads to an engineer-like approach towards life, is opposed to living organisms being complex and contingent “systems”. Biotechnology not longer describes its objects. Under the lead of the industry it is more and more split into specialized fields such as microbiology, genetics and synthetic biology. This development is strongly connected with new hopes and imagination, figuring a new knowledge and science of life, that might lead to both a longer and healthier life and a new industrial revolution.

Four short presentations engage with different perspectives ranging from synthetic biology, speculative science and art.
(More information)


30 January, 2016 | Reading & Presentation

Reading and presentation by Rüdiger Trojok

from his forthcoming book Biohacking - Gentechnologie für alle, Franzis Publishing House (in German) http://www.amazon.de/Biohacking-Gentechnologie-Alle-R%C3%BCdiger-Trojok/dp/3645604200

In the last several years a global movement of citizen scientists has developed with modern biology as a particular focus: their work has become known as biohacking. This book serves all those interested in this topic as well as beginners by offering a basic understanding of the world from a molecular biological perspective: Starting with the beginnings of life, the course of evolution is explained in broad terms, according to present knowledge. Theroretical knowledge is applied through practical examples: life can be programmed. Using advanced software, Synthetic Biology rewrites the digital code of life.

Subsequently a public debate has opened on how to deal meaningfully with this knowledge and the resulting technical possibilities. The modern understanding of life and deeper possibilities of intervention will, in principle, change the relationship between man and nature. Laboratories will soon be miniaturised computer chips, which can be used locally anywhere. Genetic databases will then represent the most important resource - but what are the limits of this global synthetic biology? Citizen scientists now pose the question of who can use the genarally available knowledge of modern biological sciences, and for what purposes.
Reading and presentation in German
(More information)


24 January, 2016 | Workshop

Nenad Popov Art Science Swap: Two Heads Are Better than One

…The states of mind involved in that sort of science and that sort of art are fundamentally the same. Both are seeking universal, objective truth. - David Deutsch

As a scientist you always think you know what you’re doing, so you tend to distrust the artist who says, “It’s great,” or “It’s no good,” and then is not able to explain to you why, as Jerry did with those drawings I took him. But here I was, sunk: I could do it too - Richard Feynman

Participants of the workshop are divided in the pairs of one artist and one scientist. Each pair will receive a problem to think about, each using their own method. That is the easy part. Then they are asked to switch roles - artists are supposed to think about the problem as scientists and scientists as artists. They monitor each others progress continuously and help each other. Then the process is repeated. Over a few iterations, both should have a glimpse into the methods of both art and science.

(More information)


 

23 January, 2016 | Performance-lecture

Sarah Hermanutz: Mind Blind: Therapeutic Interventions for Human/Nonhuman Communications

In her performance-lecture Sarah Hermanutz draws upon methods and aesthetics of academic lectures and psychological testing/treatment to engage with the gaps and pains of cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer. What does it mean to be a ‘mind-blind’ human, and how does this impact one's ability to function in a ‘normal’ social environment? Can we engage via creative analogy with this conceptual framework to better understand the difficulties faced by humans to interact with the non-human community? What new insights can an artistic exploration of autism research and ‘Mind Blindness’ provide for our understandings of (mis)communicate across difference?

(More information)

 

2015
 

29 November, | Finissage

Susanna Hertrich: PROSTHESES. Transhuman Life Forms

Exhibition runs: 26 September – 29 November, 2015, Fri- Sun 2-6PM and by appointment
Open 27 November 2-9PM

Finissage: 29 November from 3PM



 

13 November, 2015 | Panel Discussion

Discussing Body Enhancement. About Prostheses, Extensions and Cyborgs

Panel Discussion with
Susanna Hertrich | artist
Enno Park | author, co-founder of Cyborgs e.V.
Regine Rapp| curator, Art Laboratory Berlin

Seminar in English with limited seating.
Registration required:
registration@artlaboratory-berlin.org

The works by Susanna Hertrich, currently on exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin, are part of her long-term research project Bodies & Technology. In this project, she reflects on the phenomenon of prostheses as an extension of the human in the 21st century. In the context of the latest technologies as well as current developments in the field of neuroscience and biology Hertrich proposes new transhuman sensory enhancements. The exhibition also presents Neil Harbisson, who has overcome colour blindness by means of an 'Eyeborg', which translates colour into sound. Harbisson is the world's first officially recognized Cyborg.
(More information about the exhibition)

 

4 October, 2015 | Workshop

Childrens' Workshop

Sun, 4 October, 2015, 2-4 PM (8–12 Jahre)
Please register at: anmeldungen@kinderkulturmonat.de

PROSTHESES
Art Laboratory Berlin will show children (between 8 and 12) the fascinating objects and images of the artist Susanna Hertrich. What are Protheses? How can we extend our bodies? How do we really want to appear? Today people can seemingly change their bodies almost at will through new technologies. We want to discover together what is really possible and how the maschine-person of the future might live.

No fee for children and adults. (Donations apreciated!)

 

29 August– 20 September, 2015 | Exhibition, Artist Talk and Finissage

Theresa Schubert: Growing Geometries - Evolving Forms

More information about the exhibition


 

26-28 June, 2015 | Research Project

Plan Bienen: A project by Tessa Zettel and Sumugan Sivanesan

Plan Bienen is an ongoing research project developed by Sydney-based artists Tessa Zettel and Sumugan Sivanesan during their residency at ZK/U - Centre for Art and Urbanistics in Berlin in 2014.

(More Information)


25 April, 2015 | Artist Talk & Noise Music Concert

Joseph Nechvatal

An artist talk with noise music concert of his piece 3 pOstmOrtems in connection with the exhibition
bOdy pandemOnium. Immersion into Noise.

Exhibition runs: 25 April – 21 June 2015


1 March, 2015 | Curators' talk

Curator's talk with Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz

Curator's talk with Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz in connection with the exhibition [micro]biologies II: πρωτεο / proteo and the [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies series.




 

30 January, 2015 | Opening

Opening of the [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies Library

Parallel to the exhibition [micro]biologies II: πρωτεο / proteo we will present the [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies library, where one can study source material and documentation connected to all four exhibitions and the many events of the series.

11 January, 2015 | Science Café

Science Café with the Berlin iGEM team

The iGEM Berlin team (http://igem.berlin/) will recap their project "Remote-controlled E. coli bacteria/ Magnetic Bacteria", which they presented during the finals of the 2014 international genetically engineered machines competition (iGEM) in Boston. Art Laboratory Berlin and iGem Berlin invite you to discuss ideas, projects and implications of current trends in the life sciences in an open cafe environment.

Part of the 2015 Vorspiel programme of the transmediale and CTM

 

2014

 

 

30 November, 2014| Workshop

Anna Dumitriu: [micro]biologies I: the bacterial sublime

On this practical and discussion-based workshop participants will begin to learn how to work safely with bacteria as an artistic medium using commonly available supplies. They will start to develop a 'bacteriocentric' view of the world, understand the textile techniques used in the exhibition, discuss new advances in clinical microbiology, and learn more about the artworks in Dumitriu's solo retrospective "[micro]biologies 1: the bacterial sublime", including "The Romantic Disease" project which investigates tuberculosis. The workshop will also look at issues of public engagement in science, ethics, and the nature of collaborative art/science practice.
http://annadumitriu.tumblr.com/BioartWorkshops

More information


5-7 September, 2014 | Workshop

Synthetic biology workshop with the artist collective C-LAB

Art Laboratory Berlin, in cooperation with Desiree Förster and Daniela Silvestrin, invite you to a workshop on Synthetic Biology and art by the artist collective C-LAB (UK).

C-LAB is a London based collective founded by Laura Cinti and Howard Boland which critically deals with the contemporary overlapping of art, science and technology. The focus of Cinti and Boland's work is the investigation and exploration of the meaning and characteristics of all that relates to organic and synthetic life. Their concern here is to create a platform for both artistic and scientific reflection and discussion. In their current experimental art projects C-LAB have developed several genetic constructs that lead to novel behavior in E. coli bacteria; the artists explore the possibilities offered of synthetic biology and genetic engineering techniques in an art context (e.g. in artworks such kate, katEred, Stressostat and Banana Bacteria).

More information

 

20 July, 2014 3PM | Artist Talk

Artist talk with Maja Smrekar

Artist talk with Maja Smrekar, followed by finissage.






19 July, 2014 | Workshop

Children's Workshop

Children's Workshop with Desiree Förster in conjunction with the exhibition [macro]biologies II: organisms (in German) Ages 8- 12, free (with registration at k.hergouth@artlaboratory-berlin.org).

The workshop will enable children between ages 8 and 12 the possibility to interact creatively with art and nature. We will look at works by the artists in the exhibition as well as well known images (from biology, fairy tales, etc) and redevelop common questions about feelings, experiences and stories that fit. Afterwards there will be the opportunity to be creatively active and to develop an individual collage, drawing or painting, or develop an expression in text form. The collages will be shown during the finnisage of the exhibition on the following day and can be taken home afterwards.


6 July, 2014 | Tour

T
our of the exhibition [macro]biologies II. Organisms with the curators and ALB staff

Visitors can experience the exhibitions through the perspective of the curators, Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz, as well as gain special insight from other members of the ALB staff, who took part in the preparation and installation of the exhibition.

 

27 June, 2014 | Talk

Integrating Nature's elegant solutions into the design process

Talk with Dr. Prateep Beed, Co-Founder Biomimicry Germany e.V. (in English)

Biomimicry is a creative method for sustainable innovation and product design in today's world. The key concept of biomimicry is that Nature - during her 3.8 billion years of existence and constant evolution - has solved most of our problems in very elegant and clean ways: Nature masters energy production, water supply / cleaning, food production, transportation, and cooperation - things we are struggling with. Biomimicry Germany e.V. is a team of multi-disciplinary experts using Biomimicry as a creativity and innovation tool. As such it creates novel solutions that are sustainable, more efficient and cost-effective thereby spearheading an entirely new direction. It focuses on design principles that have been tested by Nature for billions of years and proven to be successful. During the Talk Dr. Prateep Beed will try to inspire you to look at nature with a different eye - as a rich solution space for elegant designs with local adaptation combined with efficient strategies for sustainable innovations.
http://www.biomimicrygermany.de/
(More Information)

 

1 June, 2014 | Artists Talk

[macro]biologies II: organisms

The second exhibition of the series [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies, [macro]biologies II: organisms will highlight the works of artists dealing with multi-celled organisms. Noteworthy is both the relationship of these organisms to us, as well as their roles as independent actors. The exhibition focuses on the works of three remarkable, internationally recognized artists whose work deals with multicellular organisms: Suzanne Anker (US), Brandon Ballengée (US) and Maja Smrekar (SI).

The American artist and theoretician Suzanne Anker has been one of the key figures working at the border between art and biology for several decades. Her work combines inquiry into science and the newest technologies with a keen aesthetic sense.
More information:
http://www.suzanneanker.com/

The American artist Brandon Ballengée pursues a sustainable form of artistic research in his metier as a visual artist in the field of bioart and as a biologist in the field of herpetology.
More information: http://brandonballengee.com

Maja Smrekar is an emerging young artist from Ljubljana, Slovenia, connecting the intersections of humanities and natural sciences with her main interest in the concept of life.
More information: http://majasmrekar.org/crustacea-deleatur

 

4 May, 2014 | Curator's Talk and Tour through the exhibition

[macro]biologies I: the biosphere

For [macro]biologies I: the biosphere we have chosen four important international artists (Katya Gardea Browne, The Center for PostNatural History, Mathias Kessler, Alexandra Regan Toland) dealing with the structures and systems of our world. The exhibition focuses on the ecosystem and the biosphere with billions of life forms that interrelate with other systems (i.a. geologie and climate).

During the Talk the curators Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz will present 4 artistic positions and give an insight into the year's programme
[macro]biologies & [micro]biologies at Art Laboratory Berlin, as well stress the role of bio art today:
We see the varied and complex approaches of bio artists working in the 21st century to be playing a unique set of roles in dealing with a series of crises that are already beginning to emerge. Beyond the artist's traditional role as aesthete and communicator of ideas, many of today's bio-artists have taken up the role of bio-ethicist, in a manner that is both unique, and to our mind more effective than the traditional positions of philosophers, humanities scholars or politicians in this role. We also propose that artists can play an active role in defining new aims, guidelines and types of research. This may seem radical, but follows upon the influence of designers, musician and other creatives in defining software development. This also offers an opportunity to heal the two century long rift between the arts and sciences, not by bringing the sciences down to the level of social intercourse (e.g. entertainment, amusement, Wunderkammer) but by offering society the opportunity to become involved in science (e.g. through engagement in citizen science at various levels). One important goal is a general democratization of the technologies that shape our lives.


30 March, 2014 | Artist Talk

Artist Talk with Katya Gardea Browne

Art Laboratory Berlin cordially invites you to an Artist Talk with Katya Gardea Browne on 30 March, 2014 at 3 PM within the framework of the exhibition [macro]biologies I: the biosphere.

This show is part of a series of exhibitions - [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies - dedicated to artistic reflection on current drastic changes to how we connect, relate and interrelate to the worlds around us. The exhibition focuses on the ecosystem and the biosphere with billions of life forms that interrelate with other systems (i.a. geologie and climate).

The recent works of Mexico City based artist, photographer and filmmaker Katya Gardea Browne have stressed the cultural and environmental tensions between urban and rural in and around the megacity Mexico D.F.

For the exhibition she has produced three video works about different aspects of threatened ecosystems. Xochimilco (2014, 7:45 min.) is a meditative journey through the waterways of the district of the same name in the Mexico capital. The peaceful rhythm enables one to reflect upon the drastic changes in a megacity which originally was made up of flourishing wetlands. The video Panoramas (2014, 8:03 min.) can be seen as a homage to the Mexican landscape, both urban and rural. The video Maîs (2014, 16:14 min.) deals with the cultivation and use of maize in Mexico. The video provides an insight into the unique maize cultivation of so-called "milpas" (corn fields with mixed cultivation) and refers to the fundamental importance of maize in Mexico.

In the Artist Talk Katya Gardea Browne will speak about her personal interest in the topic of the biosphere as well as the process of artistic production & research.

www.katyagardea.com/

 

24 - 26 January, 2014 | DIY Bio Lounge

24 January, 2014, 8 PM: Art & Science Dialog with Theresa Schubert and Andy Adamatzky
In a dialogue between artist and scientist, Theresa Schubert and Andrew Adamatzky discuss working with the single cell organism Physarum polycephalum. As a living curiosum, this type of slime mould serves as a model for network optimisation. It can be interpreted as an 'agent' who distributively solves geometric problems. Presenting artworks and results of experiments, the talk challenges common understandings of intelligence and creativity, and emphasises a post-human view on the world and its creatures.

Theresa Schubert (DE) is a post-media artist, works as an artistic researcher and is a PhD candidate at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. (http://www.theresaschubert.org/)
Andrew Adamatzky (UK) is Professor in Unconventional Computing in the Department of Computer Science, Director of the Unconventional Computing Centre, and a member of Bristol Robotics Lab at the University of the West of England.
(http://uncomp.uwe.ac.uk/adamatzky/)

 

25 January, 2014
2-6 PM DIY Bio Lounge; bio-hackathon
7 PM Presentation by Rüdiger Trojok
6 PM - open end: DIY Bio Lounge, drop in & drop out; open bio lab; molecular cocktails; Bioluminescence installation by Sarah Chareza and Jessica Bernds

A full day programme of events introduced and led by biologist Rüdiger Trojok, combining science art, and open source science technology. This event is part of a larger project to create an open bio lab project in Berlin (see http://www.openbioprojects.net/ for more information.)

In the evening there will be a Molecular cocktail bar, serving sparkling wine with aperol bubbles, as well as 'smoking' cocktails.


26 January, 2014
2-6 PM DIY Bio Lounge, open bio lab
3 PM: BioStrike: Open Antibiotics Discovery a presentation by Denisa Kera (hackteria.org and National University of Singapore)


25-26 January, 2014
Bioluminescence an installation by Sarah Chareza and Jessica Bernds
Accompanying Art Laboratory's programme of events (DIY Bio Lounge), this installation displays the bioluminescent bacteria (Aliivibrio fischeri). These bacteria are widespread in all oceans, and prefer to live in symbiosis with marine organisms (e.g. herring or squid). Bioluminescence, chemical reactions within the bacterial cells, make these cells visible in the dark. In contrast to phosphorescence, which is observed in decomposing organic material and can only be made visible through the absorption of outside light, bioluminescence only occurs in living organisms.

In the installation, these harmless bacteria have been cultivated on a nutrient medium. The artists aim to represent the aesthetics of decay, the daily occurrence when a large number of unused food wastes away, and thereby make a statement about the "the Food Question" and its relation to the global food shortage.

More information

DIY Bio Lounge is a project in cooperation with openbioprojects.net and the Vorspiel 2014 programme of transmediale and CTM.

 

2013

 

 

25-27 October, 2013 | Viewing and Artist Talk

Nasim Manouchehrabadi: The Power of Form, the Form of Power

Summer 2009, Berlin. Actually, we had no doubt that he would be voted out. But then the results were announced and Ahmadinejad was re-elected president. It was a case of large scale election fraud, and while we were here, torn between anger and disbelief, Tehran experienced the largest mass protests since the fall of the Shah's regime. Suddenly there was a spirit of optimism; for the first time, the population reacted openly against the regime of the mullahs and exposed the rulers' illegitimacy before the whole world. However, the system reacted harshly, and mercilessly put down the uprising, causing many deaths and injuries.

This is how the Tehran-born and Berlin-based artist and designer Nasim Manouchehrabadi described the events following the Iranian presidential elections in 2009. These are the major impetus for the development of her work "The Power of Form, the Form of Power" which will be on view at Art Laboratory Berlin from 25-27 October, 2013.

-Curated by Olga Shmakova

More information

 

3 October, 2013 | Artist Talk

Artist Talk with Pinar Yoldas

Pinar Yoldas is a cross-disciplinary artist and researcher with a background in architecture, interface design, computing and neuroscience. Her work investigates social and cultural systems in regards to biological and ecological systems. She is the 2013/14 resident at the Vilém Flusser Residency Programme for Artistic Research, run by transmediale and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).

http://www.transmediale.de/content/project-description-an-ecosystem-of-excess
http://pinaryoldas.info/speculativeBiologies/


in cooperation with transmediale

More information

 

28 September, 2013 | Workshop

Speculative Biology Workshop: The Design of Biological Systems and Neo-organs


“...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” (Charles Darwin)

As artist Pinar Yoldas writes: "Our capitalistic biomass manufactures mountains of e-waste, beaches of tar, rivers of zinc, oceans of plastic. We are an army of plastic surgeons giving the planet a new face. A face that opens its eyes to new life forms, new beginnings, new extremities. What kind of fish will swim in the plastic ocean? Who will be sunbathing on the beaches of tar? What plants will thrive in a forest of concrete and steel? Which insects will lay eggs on the valleys of asphalt? What birds will fly in the hazy mornings of a smog stained sky?"

In her workshop the artist will give a quick overview into general biological systems such as the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system, the reproductive system etc., and how these systems (or more specifically organs) might evolve under the influence of global environmental transformations.

Somewhere between bio-mimicry and critical design, the workshop will give you the time and assets to design your own lungs, grow that extra organ you always wished for or think about that ultimate meat supplier with zero methane impact you have been craving for.

Participants will then discuss and design speculative models for life forms for a post-human era.

http://katausten.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/information-overload-the-scape-coat-solution/
More information


24 August, 2013 | Art and Science talk

Artist talk with C-LAB and Rüdiger Trojok

Art Laboratory Berlin would like to invite you to an artist talk with the artist collective C-LAB (UK) and the biohacker Rüdiger Trojok (Berlin) presented by Desiree Förster and Daniela Silvestrin on 24 August from 3 PM.

C-LAB is a London based artist collective, founded by the two artists and scientists Laura Cinti and Howard Boland, that is dealing critically with contemporary intersections and cross-fertilisation of art, science, and technology. The work of Cinti and Boland focuses on the examination and exploration of the implications, properties and peculiarities of all which is or regards organic and synthetic life. This being their incentive, they want to create a platform that is open for both artistic and scientific reflection and discourse.

More information


5/6 July, 2013 | Conference

Synaesthesia. Discussing a Phenomenon in the Arts, Humanities and (Neuro-)Science

As a theoretical addition to our ongoing exhibition series SYNAESTHESIA (October 2012 - July 2013/ http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/home_eng.htm), Art Laboratory Berlin will hold an international interdisciplinary conference to further explore and theoretically question the field of multisensory perception.

The term "synaesthesia", from the Greek "aisthesis" ("Sensation", "sensory impression") and "syn" ("together") means the experience of two or more sensory impressions at the same time. Currently there is a strikingly strong interest in the coupling of the senses in science, humanities and in contemporary art. This should come as no surprise: Our daily life in recent years has been subject to ever more multimedia and multisensory experiences. Comparing the latest technologies in the field of communication we come upon the radical technological development during the last 25 years: music video (text, music, colour), computer (as "total" sensory object) and also newest multiple forms of mobile phones (not only used for calls, but as a photo camera, music player or text machine, etc.).

It is the aim of Art Laboratory Berlin to grasp the specific impulses of our current complex, synchronous and technologised society on the phenomenon of synaesthesia, with its distinctive form of sensory fluctuation. For the upcoming conference, we are interested in discussing issues from diverse scholarly fields - humanities, arts as well as natural and social sciences - regarding both historical positions and contemporary inquiries. We will reflect topics such as: synaesthesia and the neurological discourse (memory and cognition; sensory perception); synaesthesia - between perception and subjectivity; synaesthesia and language; synaesthetic modalities (grapheme synaesthesia; synaesthesia of smell, taste, touch, sound and vision); synaesthesia in art and cultural history (in visual art, literature and film); synaesthesia and the digital world (synaesthesia in the 21st century).

The Synaesthesia-Conference is open to the public and free of charge - donations are very welcome.

Conference Concept: Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz, Art Laboratory Berlin
Realisation of Conference: The Art Laboratory Berlin Team: Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz, Olga
Shmakova, Chiara Cartuccia, Chiara Massari, Anastasia Shavlokhova, Ashley Chang

More Information


22-24 March, 2013 | Opening and Performances

Synaesthesia / 3: History of the Senses

Simon Davenport & Carl Rowe // Banquet for Ultra Bankruptcy

The British artist Simon Davenport and Carl Rowe currently work on a number of artistic projects that combine the performative with artistic research on a cultural history of the senses. Simon Davenport sees synaesthesia as a means to unsettle and disorient. In earlier performative works, for example, he combined heavy drum beats with the spraying of steam and the recitation of poetry. Carl Rowe's art projects, on the other hand, combine socio-political commentary and humour with culinary methodology. An important art historical reference point for him is Filippo Marinetti's Manifesto La Cucina Futurista (1930).The manifesto promoted the renewal of the Italian food system with the aim of the strengthening, revitalization and spiritualisation of modern society. It simultaneously included colours, shapes, textures, smells, sounds and noises.

 

10 March, 2013 | Artist Talk

Artist talk with Madi Boyd

in connection with the exhibition
Synaesthesia / 2: Space and Perception

Madi Boyd
Carrie C Firman

Opening: 25.1.2013, 8 PM
Exhibition runs: 26.01. - 10.03.2013
Open: Fri-Sun, 2-6 PM and by appointment.

Inquiries into the nature of Space and Perception are the basis of Art Laboratory Berlin's second exhibition in the Synaesthesia series. Synaesthesia, the experience of two or more sensory impressionsat the same time, is both an artistic paradigm and neurological phenomenon. Two installations by Madi Boyd and Carrie C Firman explore the connection between perception and experience of mind and body from a synaesthetic point of view.

 

 

Art Laboratory Berlin Awarded Prize for Project Spaces

We are pleased to announce that Art Laboratory Berlin is one of the winners of the first Prize for Art Project Spaces and Initiatives in the Field of Visual Arts awarded by the Berlin Senate Office of Cultural Affairs.

The award honours the commitment and work of those operating project spaces and initiatives. "The award serves" according to the Senate Office of Cultural Affairs, "to support them, to secure the existing diversity and to make the activities of art project spaces and initiatives in Berlin more visible."

The prize ceremony takes place on 27 February, 2013 under the auspices of State Secretary André Schmitz

A complete statement from Art Laboratory Berlin on the award can be found at:
http://www.artlaboratory-berlin.org/assets/pdf/ALB_statement_for_prize_DE_ENG.pdf


art-in-berlin Berliner Projekträume und –initiativen

Kunst Magazin - Berliner Kulturverwaltung zeichnet Projekträume aus von Julia Schmitz

Berliner Morgenpost - Eine Klassenfahrt mit Baby und Urkunden Von Gabriela Walde

Zitty - Das erste Mal: Der Berliner Preis für Projekträume wird vergeben

Taz - Attraktiv und den Preis wert Von Marcus Woeller

Neues deutschland - Echte Berliner Spezialität. Selbstorganisierte Kunstinitiativen kämpfen ums Überleben
Von Tom Mustroph

Tagesspiegel - Küsschen, Kaffee, Kohle von Claudia Wahjudi


2012

 

   

7 December, 2012 | Conference

Art Laboratory Berlin at MutaMorphosis

Art Laboratory Berlin will present the series Time & Technology at the international conference MutaMorphosis in Prague from December 6-8, 2012.

Time and Technology | Panel led by Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz

Gretta Louw | Controlling_Connectivity
Daniel Belasco Rogers & Sophia New | Narrating Our Lines
Ellen Sebring, MIT| Atmosphere: Disorientation in Visual Narrative as a Time Traveler’s Tool
Dr. Yasuhiro Sakamoto | Sound Sculptures as Embodiment of Cross-modal Gesamtgestalt

More information at http://mutamorphosis.org/2012/
http://mutamorphosis.org/2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/PROGRAMME_MutaMorphosis_final.pdf

(More Information)

 

28 October, 2012 | Artist talk and workshop with Barbara Ryan

Part of the exhibition Synaesthesia / 1: The Orange Smell of November

The artist Barbara Ryan’s perceptions of the world are underpinned by her polymodal synaesthesia which in turn forms the foundation of her artistic work. She experiences her synaesthesia »as something that is in her parallel conscious – as opposed to something that is in the subconscious – creating a duality of vision«. Her installation That can’t be September – it smells like the August of 1985! combines in a unique way the artist’s intimate personal interconnecting relationship between scent, colour, time and space, played out within the city of Berlin, where she lived in the 1990s.

The installation is a coded re-creation of her sense of space and time as imbued with colour and odour. Using text, photography and self-manufactured fragrances she re-maps the city according to the systematic guidelines of her own synaesthesia. The viewer is then invited to explore and decode the artist's unique phenomenological structures.
(More informaton on the exhibition)

 

29 June, 2012 | Screening and Presentation.

kate hers Transmigration in Artistic Practice

Transmigration in Artistic Practice is a screening and artist presentation of two projects by the Korean-American artist kate hers, whose works in performance, video and other media deal with issues of language and identity.

(More information)


10 May, 2012 | Performance

Palindrones: Musical Transpositions for the Reversing Machine

Performance by Sam Belinfante & Simon Lewandowski.

Works by Cage and others adapted for the output of the Reversing Machine plus new sound works by Sam Belinfante & Simon Lewandowski. In conjunction with the exhibition Fantastic Time Machines and our current series Time & Technology Belinfante & Lewandowski will perform a series of sound works and actions using the Reversing Machine mechanism and attached devices. (Information on the exhibition Fantastic Time Machines)

 

12 May, 2012 | Workshop

Experiments with the Reversing Machine

Workshop with the artists Sam Belinfante & Simon Lewandowski

"Subjective Time: Dreams, Drones, Flickers and Alpha Rhythms"

Talks, presentations and experiments with the Reversing Machine. The artists will offer the public a more intimate experience with their installation, including as series of additional actions and interactions, explanation as an queries into the nature of time and perception.
(Information on the exhibition Fantastic Time Machines)

Registration per email. info@artlaboratory-berlin.org

6 May, 2012 | Online performance

Is the Desert Still the Desert in a Digital World?

Gretta Louw, whose performance and exhibition Controlling Connectivity started off the current Time & Technology series will set up a live video link up between Art Laboratory Berlin and the Warnayaka Arts centre in Lajamanu, Australia, located in the remote central Australian desert.

Since March Louw has been taking part in a residency in Lajamanu teaching photography, video and new media to indigenous arts workers, as well as introducing them to online communication platforms. The culmination of this first program of new media training will be a real time link-up between Lajamanu and Berlin.

A live audience in Berlin will view a simultaneous performance streamed out of Lajamanu, captured by a number of webcams and presented as two large-format projections. The event will incorporate an eclectic and innovative mix of traditional dance and storytelling, as well as live VJing of documentation organised by Louw. The event will also provide and encourage the possibility of interaction and exchange between participants in both Berlin and Lajamanu.
(more information)



30 March, 2012 | Artist Talk and Art Laboratory Berlin's 5th Birthday!

Fantastic Time Machines

We are pleased to invite you to an artist talk with Shlomit Lehavi on Friday , March 30, 2012 at 8 pm at Art Laboratory Berlin (Prinzenallee 34, Berlin-Wedding).

The Israeli born and New York based artist Shlomit Lehavi will present her video installation Time Sifter as a part of the exhibition Fantastic Time Machines. Shlomit Lehavi works primarily with new media and multi-channel video. Time Sifter explores collective memory, collective forgetting and time based media as a contemporary time machine. By means of touching the changing projections in her work the visitor is allowed a fascinating form of participation and interaction.

The same evening we are celebrating the 5th anniversary of Art Laboratory Berlin.---
We will be happy if you can join us!

 

 

24 February, 2012 | Tour through the exhibition with the artists

plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers): Navigating the Everyday

Opening: 27 January 2012, 8PM
Exhibition runs from 28 January - 11 March, 2012
Opening Hours: Fr - Su, 2-6PM
Open also on 24 February from 2-10 PM

 

14 January, 2012 | Tour of the exhibition and Artists' Talk

Current Art Practices on Time and Technology

3.30PM: Tour of the exhibition Controlling_Connectivity with Gretta Louw and Regine Rapp (curator)
4PM: Artists' talk Current Artistic Practices on Time and Technology with Gretta Louw, plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers) and Igor Štromajer; moderation: Christian de Lutz (curator).

Screen shot: Controlling_Connectivity Remote Digital Performance: Berlin - New York, Gretta Louw in collaboration with Douglas Paulson, 2011


In connection with the exhibition Controlling_Connectivity by Gretta Louw and the series Time and Technology Art Laboratory Berlin is presenting an artists' talk on the theme current art practices on time and technology featuring Gretta Louw and plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers) as well as the internet artist Igor Štromajer (www.intima.org). The talk will be introduced and moderated by Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz.
(
More information)


2011

 

 

25 November 2011-14 January 2012 | Performance and exhibition

Gretta Louw: Controlling_Connectivity


Online performance: 2-12 November, 2011

http://controllingconnectivity.tumblr.com/


Opening: 25 November, 2011, 8PM
Exhibition: 26 November, 2011 - 15 January, 2012
(winter break: 19 December, 2011 - 5 January, 2012)
Fri - Sun 2-6PM and by appointment

14 January, 2012 3.30PM: Tour of the exhibition and Artists' talk with Gretta Louw
+ plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers) and Igor Štromajer; moderation: Christian de Lutz (curator).

(more information)

Link to the exhibition

With the generous support of:


 

30 September, 2011 | Book Release Party

VISIONS NYC by Bärbel Möllmann

In context of the ongoing show VISIONS NYC – afterthoughts, Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to invite you to the

Artist Book Presentation & Book Release Party
on Friday, 30 September 2011, 8pm

In the project VISIONS NYC the Berlin-based artist and photographer Bärbel Möllmann has gathered a series of amazing portraits and interviews with New Yorkers from Summer 2001, recording their individual plans, goals and dreams, and from Summer 2002 recording their reactions to the events of the previous year.

Bärbel Möllmann: VISIONS NYC.
Portraits and Interviews from New York
. Berlin 2011
272 pages, 136 color photographs
30 x 25 cm (closed), 30 x 50 cm (open)
Hardcover, 4-color images
Essay: Regine Rapp (German and English)
48 interviews (each 4 – 15 min.), 4 CDs
Collectors edition, signed by the artist, Edition: 25 exemplars
150,00 Euro

With a purchase of the book on 30 September, 2011 the buyer will also receive and original print from the photo book (30 x 50 cm)
(More information about the exhibition VISIONS NYC - afterthoughts here)


1 May 2011 | Round Table Discussion

My Dreams Have Destroyed My Life. Some Thoughts on Pain

Artists in Dialog: Al Fadhil & Aissa Deebi

A Round Table Discussion Al Tahrir: The Day After, 1 May, 2011, 3PM

Since January of this year a wave of protests, originating first in Tunisia, and then in Egypt, have spread across the Arab world. Demonstrators have demanded democracy and the freedom of expression. How will the ongoing changes affect the lives artists and cultural production? What has been the role of politics in the arts in the Middle East and how might this change? Supposedly new technological media such as social networking platforms have played an important role in this year's 'Arab Spring'. Is this really true, and if so what potential does technology have to foster change as well as aid in inter-cultural communication?

On May 1, 2011 at 3PM, in conjunction with the ongoing exhibition My Dreams Have Destroyed My Life. Some Thoughts on Pain there will be a round table discussion on the cultural and political changes taking place in the Middle East in the wake of the current wave of protests. The artists Aissa Deebi, who teaches at the American University in Cairo, and Al Fadhil will be joined by Munira Khayyat (Anthropologist), Heiko Wimmen (Political Scientist) and Christian de Lutz (who will be the moderator)
(
More information and video of the event)


19/20 February 2011| Symposium

Sol Lewitt Symposium

An occasion in which all the artist books of Sol LeWitt are gathered into one exhibition invites further study. As we have done in previous exhibitions Art Laboratory Berlin would like to bring together artistic practice and scholarly debate, in this case in the form of a symposium. The complex nature of Sol LeWitt's artists' books specifically calls for examination by a variety of disciplines.

Beginning with a survey of the concept and the conceptual in LeWitt's work, continuing with a reflection on the medium of the book and the problem of authorship, the initial contributions will sketch LeWitt's art from art historical and literary perspectives. Additionally, contributions from the philosophy of art, musicology and mathematics will reflect on space and time, the question of a possible terminology and the phenomenon of serial geometric forms. Similarly, LeWitt's aesthetic production and his relationship to graphic design will be discussed. Finally, contributions from an artistic perspective as well as those of friends and collectors will illuminate practical and theoretical aspects of LeWitt's artistic work.
(More information on the symposium
)

 

2010

 

 

 

30 October - 28 November, 2010 | Exhibition and Special Event

Stardust Boogie Woogie

Tania Antoshina, Mo Foster, Marcela Iriarte, Christian de Lutz, Jane Mulfinger, Bob & Roberta Smith, Jessica Voorsanger
Curated by Francesca Piovano

Exhibition runs 30 October - 28 November 2010, Fri- Sun 2-6PM and by appointment

Finissage with a reading by Mo Foster: 26 November 2010 8PM


Special event: 30 November 2010, 7PM, A reading by Mo Foster at the East of Eden International Bookstore, Schreinerstr. 10, 10247 Berlin-Friedrichshain - www.east-of-eden.de



4 September, 2010 | Workshop

Artists in Dialog: Alex Toland und Myriel Milicevic - Wunschgarten: Wild Urban Offshoots

Alex Toland and Myriel Milicevic both work on the border between art and life and environmental sciences. Toland considers the project 'habitat hacking' and Milicevic describes the project as 'reconstructing cross-species life worlds'. Together they have chosen the immediate area around Art Laboratory Berlin (the Soldiner Kiez) as a place to investigate interactions between the local human population and urban flora and fauna. The exhibition space will function as a laboratory for mapping, sketching, modelling and prototyping. Wunschgarten is a series of dialogues: between the artists and the local community, between city dwellers and nature, between urban planning and urban wilderness.

As cities creep further into wild landscapes, the wild moves into cities. Urban habitats are places where plants and animals take up residence alongside people. Too often though, space for nature is sealed off by concrete constructions, resulting in a marked divide between the space occupied by humans and the rest of the biotic community. The Wunschgarten is an exploration of the city's wild features and creatures, and a vision of utopian measures that reach beyond existing mitigation schemes and municipal green-space planning. The city becomes a garden of unexpected edible opportunities and ideas to incubate and explode.

The artists encourage local inhabitants (and other visitors) to take part in the project. From the gallery space the participants can depart on a series of walks, contribute their own ideas and sketches, and in turn use the Wunschgarten as a springboard for further investigations or offshoots such as urban gardening projects, recordings of urban fauna, or evolutionary architecture and experiments in wild urban societies.

To explore these possibilities in a more concentrated setting, there will be a workshop on September 4 led by the artists to discuss and investigate, create and formulate, construct and co-inhabit the Wunschgarten and its wild urban offshoots.


1 July, 2010 | Talk and Film Screening

Evolution Haute Couture

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to present a collection of documentary films about artworks recently created using the latest twenty-first century technologies: artificial life, robotics, bio and genetic engineering. The screening has been organized by the curator and artist Dmitry Bulatov in conjunction with the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Kaliningrad branch, Russia).

The films document artworks whose medium is living or lifelike matter, and the properties of living organisms and technologically reproduced artefacts are combined to produce the method. Art created under these new conditions of post-biology - that is, under conditions of artificially generated life - cannot avoid making this artificiality its explicit theme. We are thus again confronted with the question of the relationship between art and life in a completely new context defined by biological and abiological creations, works, and beings.

This collection is the first comprehensive overview of the current stage of contemporary techno-biological art. It provides a panorama of artistic strategies for granting and withdrawing the gift of authenticity. The analysis of these strategies opens up new possibilities for creative production and cultural commentary. In 2009 the Evolution Haute Couture project won the National Innovation Prize (Moscow, Russia), awarded annually for achievements in contemporary visual arts.

The film screening also coincides with the first volume of the anthology Evolution Haute Couture: Art and Science in the Post-Biological Age. Edited by Dmitry Bulatov. Book plus two DVD-ROMs collection (45 video documentaries), KB NCCA, Kaliningrad, 2009. (ISBN: 978-5-94620-054-7). This publication is supported by The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, The Ford Foundation (The Moscow Office, Russia), The Dynasty Foundation (Moscow). Web site: www.videodoc.ncca-kaliningrad.ru/eng/
(More information)


13/14 March, 2010 | Presentation

Presentation of the poster and storybook for "Princess I will follow you..."

By Birgit Szepanski
-part of the Printemps des Poètes Berlin 2010
&
Artist book presentation:
"Prinzenallee - ein Stück ohne Dialoge"

A Book Project by Birgit Szepanski and Regine Rapp

Princess - I will follow you... is a poster intervention along Prinzenallee in Berlin- Wedding. With photographic motifs and text fragments (in English, German and Turkish) a visual path is laid along the street. This public text and image story plays with motifs, word and sound play, visual features and the name of the street:

Princess I will follow you....
(http://printempsdespoetes-berlin.blogspot.com)

In 2008 Birgit Szepanski created a complex site specific installation at Art Laboratory Berlin, which referred to the street Prinzenallee in Berlin-Wedding as part of the exhibition series Art and Text. Over a number of weeks the artist recorded traces of the street in her films, photographs and texts. In decidedly minimal formal language she was able to unfurl the street into the exhibition space by means of language, image and sound. In this newly released publication this is further expressed in the form of an artist book

(more information)



3 February, 2010 | Performative Presentation

Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša: NAME Readymade

The event will present the act of “Name changing” perpetrated by three Slovenian artists who in 2007 officially, with all the required papers and stamps, changed their names to the then prime minister of Slovenia , Janez Janša (2004-08). All Janez Jansas’ works, their private and public affairs, in a word their whole life, has been conducted under this name ever since.

Janez Janša will take you through a series of artistic, political, administrative and mediatic actions performed by himself together with Janez Janša and Janez Janša, with a particular focus on their latest personal exhibition entitled NAME Readymade. Works exhibited in this show (valid ID cards, passports, credit and bank cards, driving licences, birth and marriage certificates, and so on) were generated by reality itself.
(more information)

Press: article in art-in-berlin


2009


 

28 November, 2009 | Workshop

"Copyright and related topics for artists. Musicians, Filmmakers and other Creative Producers"

With the lawyer Andreas Lichtenhahn (in German).

Free, registration necessary:
info@artlaboratory-berlin.org



2 November, 2009 | Film Screening

Strange Culture

(D: Lynn Hershman Leeson, 2007), followed by a Round Table. The case of Steve Kurtz will be discussed from legal, cultural-political and curatorial perspectives: Eberhard Schultz (lawyer), Mark C. Donfried (Institute for Cultural Diplomacy) and Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin); Moderated by Regine Rapp (Art Laboratory Berlin).
Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Platz 2, 10785 Berlin
Tickets: 6,50 Euro/ 5,00 Euro reduced (Students)

http://www.strangeculture.net/


4 October, 2009 | Artist talk

Seized

Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) & Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA).

In connection with the exhibition SEIZED prof. Steve Kurtz gave a presentation on the theme of 'diciplinarity and its effects on art' at Art Laboratory Berlin, followed by a Q&A session.
(additional information and podcast)




30 August, 2009 | Artists in Dialog

Alex Toland: Personal Dispersal Mechanisms, an Interactive Urban Exploration

Natural distribution mechanisms of plant species are often severely obstructed in the city. Tree sponsorship is a popular and effective way of re-greening city parks and streets. Individual sponsors become personally linked to individual trees while beautifying the neighborhood and creating new habitats for birds, mammals and insects.

Artist Alex Toland takes this idea a step further by creating species partnerships for a day and encouraging personal interspecies relationships as a potential distribution mechanism. As part of the series Artists in Dialog at ART LABORATORY BERLIN the artist will realize a collaborative walk and installation project by leading a group of Berlin residents through part of the green corridor along the Panke and make personal introductions between individual people and plants.
(more information)




22 July, 2009 | Video Screening

Strike Anywhere

Screening of a new video by Benj Gerdes and Jennifer Hayashida
(2009, 32 minutes, English without subtitles)

Wednesday, 22 July 2009 at 9 pm
Introduction by Christian de Lutz, Art Laboratory Berlin
Followed by a discussion with the artists

artillerie and Art Laboratory Berlin are pleased to present Strike Anywhere for the first time
to a Berlin audience, following screenings at the Luleå Art Biennial in Sweden and the
Kran>>Film Space in Brussels. The latest collaborative work by the experimental
filmmaker Benj Gerdes and the poet Jennifer Hayashida, Strike Anywhere is a video
essay that takes as its point of departure Swedish “Match King” Ivar Kreuger, whose
privatization of financial crisis management strategies bears a direct relation to late-
twentieth century policies implemented by the IMF and WTO.

Between 1917 and 1932, Kreuger capitalised on shifts in global financial markets to
control over 200 companies and establish matchstick monopolies in at least 34 countries.
At the height of his success, Ivar Kreuger was worth approximately 30 million Swedish
kronor (the equivalent of 100 billion USD today) and had matchstick monopolies in at least
34 countries. The project is both a prehistory of neoliberal economics and an allegory
about social relations and desire in the wake of global capitalist expansion and excess.

(more)



29 May, 2009 | Film Premiere

German Premiere: On Media Reality a film by Vladimir Turner about Ztohoven

As part of the exhibition Art and Law II - Ztohoven. Media Reality
(more information)









24 April, 2009 | Artists in Dialog

Presentation by Paola Yacoub

Paola Yacoub will present a running thread through various works, mainly photographs and montages, produced in different geographical areas ranging from Southern Lebanon to Berlin via Sweden and China.

The common point is skepticism as it was introduced in visual arts in the U.S.A. at the beginning of the 20th century.

(more)

This presentation from Paola Yacoub is the first of Art Laboratory Berlin's new series of artists talks, presentations, performances and events Artists in Dialog



2008

  24 October, 2008 | Curatorial Workshop

Curators from East and Central Europe II: Elena Sorokina

Subjective Events, Sometimes Recorded
Curatorial workshop with Elena Sorokina, October 24, 2008, 6pm








12 July, 2008 | Summer Celebration

Summer Celebration at Art Laboratory Berlin

8pm video compilation from Jakup Nepraš
from 10 pm DJ Nata

We would like to celebrate one and half years of successful exhibitions with you. You are cordially invited to our Summer Celebration. The latest video works from Jakup Nepraš, who took part the recent exhibition Cosmopolitics, will be shown. Later in the evening you can dance to music by DJ Nata. There will be a buffet and drinks.




30 May - 14 June, 2008 | Art and Science II

Marcus Ahlers: Transposed Nodes

Opening: 30 May 2008, 8PM
30.05.2008 - 29.06.2008
Artist's talk: 14.06.2008, 17h

Children's workshop - SOLAR-Oven Creativity and SolarEnergy (In German): 21.06.2008
9AM - 3PM, Register until 13.06.2008. more information here (in German)

Tour of the exhibition: 29.06.2008, 3PM
(more)





28 March - 27 April, 2008 | Art and Science I

Dmitrij Bulatov: Senses Alert


Opening: 28 March, 2008, 8PM
29.03.2008 - 05.04.2008
Artist's talk and workshop: 29.03.2008, 5PM
Tour of the exhibition: 27.04.2008, 3PM

(more)






27 January - 2 March, 2008 | Workshop

Cosmopolitics: New Media Art from the Czech Republic

Curators from East and Central Europe I
Denisa Kera and Pavel Sedlak.

Workshop with Denisa Kera (curator): Curating New Media: 27.01.2008 5 PM
Artists Talk: 1.02.2008 8PM
Tour of the exhibition: 2.03.2008 3PM

(more..)




2007

 

9-11 November, 2007 | Art and Text

Corinna Koch Songs

November 9 and 10, 11am -8 pm at Art Laboratory Berlin,
Final Performance November 11 , 8PM at Brunnenstrasse 39, Studio, 2nd courtyard (2.HH)

songs is a performance that deals with the occasion of a jam session on multiple and expanding levels.

It starts off with a number of people, who will be invited to come to the gallery in order to tell the story of a song. The recordings of those stories will be transcribed the same day.
(more...)



 

19-20 June, 2007 | Art and Music

Krieg der Sprachen

In cooperation with kunstraum_sumpfhahn_raumkunst

Both events start at 7.45 pm.
  
       
19 June: Robin Hayward (violin/ bindelwald) and Olaf Bugiel (vocals/ electric guitar)

20 June: Oliver Schneller (percussion) and Workz (electronic, DJ)
(more information)




23 February, 2007 | Film screening

Pre-opening:
Bildungscamper. Der Blick des Patriarchen

A documentary film
by Nicola Hochkeppel
2004, 62 min                          
(more information)
sponsored by: