CHRYSALIS Symposium.

What if listening could transform how we understand ecological relations? How do sound and vibration intervene in living systems? And how might neural feedback reshape the relationship between bodies and computational environments? Emerging from Art Laboratory Berlin’s CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS programme (2025–2026), the 1-day symposium (on-site with livestream) builds on four artist-scientist collaborations exploring microbial ecologies and environmental change, alongside neuroscience and the computational mediation of perception.

Art Laboratory Berlin will bring together international contributions from artistic research, philosophy, sound studies, media theory, computational studies, environmental humanities, urban and multispecies anthropology, as well as freshwater and soil ecology. Across these perspectives, the symposium asks how experimental practices make otherwise imperceptible processes available to experience – and how the instruments through which we observe and listen also shape what can become known. At stake are the relations between perception and intervention and the responsibilities of working with living systems. Finally, the symposium will debate current research connected to cooperative relationships between humans, more-than-humans, technologies, and their environments.

Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz

SPEAKERS

KEYNOTE: Dr Marietta Radomska, Philosopher, Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities, Linköping University, SE.
PANEL SPEAKERS: Dr Elisabeth Luggauer, Urban and Environmental Anthropologist, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Elise Malsch-Fröhlich, Environmental Scientist, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin; Helena Nikonole, Artist and Researcher, Berlin; Julius Holtz, Sound artist and composer, Berlin; Dr Marcus Maeder, Artist and Scientist, Professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, CH; Dr Margherita Pevere, Artist and Researcher, Berlin; Dr Matthias Rillig, Professor for the Ecology of Plants, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin; Dr Salomé Voegelin, Professor of Sound, University of the Arts London, UK, and Bern Academy of the Arts, CH; Dr Shintaro Miyazaki, Juniorprofessor for Digital Media and Computation, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

PROGRAM

Link for Livestream HERE.

10:00 CET
Doors open / Registration

11:00 – 12:30 CET
Introduction

Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz (Co-Directors of Art Laboratory Berlin)

Keynote

Dr Marietta Radomska (Philosopher, Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities, Linköping University, SE) | Transforming Matters, Mattering Transformations: On Non/Living Ecologies and Contemporary Art

Moderated by Regine Rapp (Art Historian, Curator, Art Laboratory Berlin)

12:30 – 14:00 CET
Panel 1 // More-than-Human Ecologies: Fieldwork and Artistic Experimentation

Dr Margherita Pevere (Artist and Researcher, Berlin) | Ode

Elise Malsch-Fröhlich (Environmental Scientist, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin) | Small Water Bodies, Complex Systems: Hydrology, Microbial Communities and Water Quality in Urban Ponds

Dr Elisabeth Luggauer (Urban and Environmental Anthropologist, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) | A Tiny Forest as a Laboratory for Speculation? – Multispecies Ethnographic Experimentation in Urban Ecologies

Moderated by Lena Fließbach (Curator and Researcher, Art Laboratory Berlin)

Lunch break

15:15 – 16:30 CET
Panel 2 // Becoming Common: Bodies in the Loop

Julius Holtz (Sound Artist and Composer, Berlin) | Common Ground 

Dr Shintaro Miyazaki (Juniorprofessor for Digital Media and Computation, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) | Endosymbiotic Computation: Becoming Common

Moderated by Dr Adam Pultz (Artist and Sound Researcher, Berlin)

Coffee Break

17:00 – 18:45 CET
Panel 3 // Beyond the Audible: Soil, Sound, and Environmental Change

Helena Nikonole (Artist and Researcher, Berlin) | SonoMetagenomics

Dr Matthias Rillig (Professor for the Ecology of Plants, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin) | Global Change Factors

Dr Marcus Maeder (Artist and Scientist, Professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, CH) | Change Factors

Dr Salomé Voegelin (Professor of Sound, University of the Arts London, UK and Bern Academy of the Arts, CH) | Uncurating Sound – Thinking from Indivisibility

Moderated by Christian de Lutz (Curator and Researcher, Art Laboratory Berlin)

18:45 – 19:15 CET
Final Discussion

Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin)






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Abstracts + Biographies coming soon!

Information on the CHRYSALIS Research Project HERE.

Information on the CHRYSALIS Exhibition HERE.