Statement
The multiple award winning art and research platform Art Laboratory Berlin (ALB) presents interdisciplinary art projects in an international context. It was founded in 2006 by an international team of art historians and artists – including Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz. Our main goal is the presentation and mediation of contemporary art at the interface of art, science and technology. In recent years, ALB has focused on the field of art, the life sciences and artistic research.
EXHIBIT | Sustainable discursive curatorial practice
It is an important aim of ALB, in the form of a close, long-term collaboration with artists, to follow the creative processes and make this visible in exhibitions, events and conferences. Instead of subordinating the artworks on exhibition to theory, we are interested in an inductive approach – that rather places the individual artistic work at the centre of inquiry.
RESEARCH | Artistic Research & Artist-in-Residence
At all our international conferences, we have successfully brought artists and researchers from the humanities and natural sciences together in an active and sustainable dialogue. In recent years we have been successful in realising research projects between artists and scientists and in developing artist-in-residence programs.
EDUCATE | Individual art education
A model character takes the form of art mediation, which reaches a broad international audience of different ages through different mediation formats. Highly praised in the press are not only our conferences, exhibition talks and our Reading-Lounge, but also children’s workshops and student talks.
PUBLISH | Scholarly publications, catalogues, artist books
We have published and edited several exhibition catalogues and artist books and have written numerous theoretical contributions, such as papers, articles, catalogue chapters, essays.
Discourse | Series and Topics
- Art & Science (2008 – present)
- Time and Technology | Exhibitions, Talks, Conference (2011 – 12)
- Synesthesia. A Multisensory Phenomenon | Exhibitions, Talks, Conference (2012 – 13)
- [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies. Biosphere, Organism, Bacteria, Molecules | Group Exhibitions, Talks, Workshops, Publications (2013 – 15)
- Nonhuman Subjectivities | Group Exhibitions, Talks, Workshops (2016 – 17)
- Nonhuman Agents | Exhibition, Workshops, Conference (2017 – 18)
- Mind the Fungi. Art science research project, with TU Berlin’s Institute of Biotechnology | Exhibitions, Walks, Talks, Workshops, Publication (2018 – 20)
- CAMILLE DIARIES. New Artistic Positions on M/otherhood, Life and Care | Group Exhibition, Conference (2020)
- DIY Hack the Panke. Art science research project | Workshops, Talks, Walks, Performances (2018 – ongoing)
- UNDER THE VIRAL SHADOW. Networks in the Age of Technoscience and Infection | Group Exhibition, Workshops, Talks, Conference (2021)
- Posthumanism, Hydrofeminism
Team
The current team of Art Laboratory Berlin includes:
Regine Rapp
Co-director and curator, art historian
Regine Rapp is an art historian, curator and co-director of Art Laboratory Berlin (ALB). Her research focuses on art in the 20th and 21st century: Installation Art, the Artist Book, and Art & Science Collaborations. As a research associate at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle she taught art history. As co-founder of Art Laboratory Berlin (2006) she researches and publishes on 21st century art at the interface of science and technology and has curated and researched on more than 50 exhibition projects (Time and Technology, Synaesthesia, [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies). In 2011 parallel to the exhibition Sol LeWitt. Artist’s Books, she conceived the international Sol LeWitt Symposium at Art Laboratory Berlin. Along with Christian de Lutz she developed the international conference Synaesthesia Discussing a Phenomenon in the Arts, Humanities and (Neuro) Science (2013). The Nonhuman Subjectivities (2016/17) and Nonhuman Agents (2017/18) series of exhibitions, performances, workshops, and an international conference reflected on Art and Science in the post-anthropocentric era. As a research associate at the Institute of Biotechnology of the TU Berlin, she was connecting Art & Science research in the project Mind the Fungi, whose project publication she co-edited in 2020. Publications (selection): [Makro]biologien & [Mikro]biologien. Art and the Biological Sublime in the 21st Centure (book, ALB, Berlin 2015); “Trans, Post and Beyond. Some Reflections on Machines and the Biological” (Hannover 2018); “Das Konzept ‘Nichtmenschliche Subjektivitäten’. Aktuelle künstlerische Praktiken im Posthumanismus” (Reimer Verlag, 2019); Mind the Fungi, co-edited, TU Berlin University Press, 2020; „Hybrid Art“ (Grätz/ Vogel (ed.): NatureCulture, Göttingen 2022); “Artistic Research and Ecology: Pollution, Plastic, Water” (I Reichle (ed.): Plastic Ocean: Art and Science Responses to Marine Pollution, Berlin, Boston, 2021); “Saša Spačal. Symbiosen und planetarische Verflechtungen” (Kunstforum International, vol. 281, 2022); “Ko-Existenzen. Über menschliche und nicht-menschliche Akteur:innen” (Kunstforum International, vol. 281, 2022).
Contact: rapp(at)artlaboratory-berlin.org
Christian de Lutz
Co-director and curator
Christian de Lutz is a curator and visual artist, originally from New York. As co-founder and co-director of Art Laboratory Berlin he has curated over 40 exhibitions and many talks workshops and seminars, including the series Time and Technology, Synaesthesia, [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies, and Nonhuman Subjectivities. His curatorial work focuses on the interface of art, science and technology in the 21st century, with special attention given to BioArt, DIY Science initiatives and facilitating collaborations between artists and scientists. His interest is in building multidisciplinary networks and unleashing their creative potential. Currently he is involved in collaborative cultural projects connecting Berlin with other cities in Europe and Asia, building international networks for art-science and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) communities. He has published numerous articles and essays in journals and books, including [macro]biologies & [micro]biologies. Art and the Biological Sublime in the 21st Century (co-edited, 2015), which reflects theoretically on Art Laboratory Berlin’s 2013-15 program, and an introductory essay in Half Life. Machines/ Organisms, Artistic Positions in the context of Climate Change and Extinction (2018). In context of the interdisciplinary art & science project Mind the Fungi (2018-20) he was a researcher affiliated with the Institute for Biotechnology, TU Berlin.
Contact: cdelutz(at)artlaboratory-berlin.org
Tuçe Erel
Curator, project collaborator
Tuçe Erel is a Berlin-based curator and art writer. She studied Sociology at METU (2005, Ankara), received her MA from Anatolian University in 2009, and her second MA in Arts Policy and Management (with curating pathway) from Birkbeck College, UK, in 2015. Erel worked for art magazines, as content editor, archivist and gallery assistant, since 2015 as curator internationally. In 2017 February she co-curated Now You are Here with Seval Sener at Arte Sanat (Ankara) and curated Fabric/ate at Schneidertempel (Istanbul). She facilitated artists’ talks, short-term/pop-up exhibitions at >top Transdisciplinary Project Space (Berlin) throughout 2018. In 2019, she curated Hactivate Yourself in 1a Space in Hong Kong. Since January 2017, she is a member of >top Transdisciplinary Project Space, where she hosted the Posthumanism reading group between 2018 and 2020. Her curatorial interests are archiving practices, posthumanism, anthropocene, ecocriticism, and post-digital theories. Since December 2019, she is a team member of Art Laboratory Berlin, collaborating on current and future curatorial projects and concepts.
Contact: erel(at)artlaboratory-berlin.org
Karolina Zyniewicz
Researcher and curatorial assistant
Artist and researcher Karolina Zyniewicz graduated 2009 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lódz, Department of Visual Arts and is currently finishing now her Nature-Culture Transdisciplinary PhD Program at Artes Liberales Faculty, University of Warsaw. Working in a laboratory (mostly at the Institute of Genetics and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw) locates her works in the field of what can be called ‘bio art’. She sees her liminal activity as situated knowledge production. She is mostly focused on life in its broad understanding, its biological and cultural meaning. Her projects have mostly conceptual, critical character. The main point of her PhD research interest are multilevel relations emerging during realization of liminal projects. She tries to put her observations, as an artist/researcher (liminal being), in the context of Science and Technology Studies (STS), Actor-Network Theory by Bruno Latour and feminist humanities. At Art Laboratory Berlin she is currently assisting on the long-term project MATTER OF FLUX (group exhibition, network, festival).
Kristina Stallvik
Researcher
Kristina Stallvik (b. 1999, NYC) is an artist and researcher with a dual BA in environmental and gender studies from Swarthmore College (2021). Working at this multidisciplinary intersection, their practice aims to subvert normative understandings of the “natural” and nonhuman ecosystems. As a culmination of their undergraduate studies, Kristina produced two zines: a comprehensive guide to an alternative environmental studies curriculum and an exploration of the emerging field, queer ecology, through speculative fiction. They have previously performed curatorial research for public arts organization, Creative Time, and collaborated on a workshop series with the contemporary art museum, Kunsthall Trondheim. For the whole year 2023 Kristina is a Chancellor Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation with Art Laboratory Berlin as the host institution. They work alongside ALB to research the collective structures that comprise independent artist book and zine publishing in Berlin.
Nina Szukała
Curatorial Assistant
Researcher and artist Nina Szukała graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, majoring in Intermedia studies. She also completed studies in philosophy (UAM) and postgraduate studies in environmental management. Her scientific and artistic interests mainly focus on bacterial cells in philosophical and ecological contexts. She creates works in sound-bio-art. Microbiological soundscape took part in festivals such as Audio Art in Krakow (2020) and Tetramatica in Lviv (2021). The SWARM project was developed in collaboration with CNRS (Marseille). She is also involved as a social activist. In cooperation with the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw, she is involved in civil monitoring of waste. Waste in the context of philosophy, sociology and translational anthropology is a research field in which she is currently most interested. In her current Master thesis, she researches the relationship between post-natural bacterial cells, metabolic engineering, plastisphere and broadly understood bioplastics in terms of postnature and hybrids. At Art Laboratory Berlin she currently assists in the project MATTER OF FLUX.
Giada Sarmenti
Curatorial Assistant
Giada Sarmenti is an art historian from Italy who has a deep interest in contemporary art. She earned her Master’s in Visual arts from the University of Bologna in 2022. Throughout the research for her master’s thesis about the representation of the Berlin Wall in museums and monuments Giada had the opportunity to discover the importance of the curatorial work. At Art Laboratory Berlin Giada currently assists in ongoing and upcoming curatorial projects.
Tim Deussen | Studio Deussen
Photographer, videographer
After his interdisciplinary studies in film, psychology and philosophy at New York University Tim Deussen founded his own studio in Berlin in 1996. His studio has a strong focus on innovation paired with the sparkling creativity of an independent studio based in the heart of Berlin. This is where he creates on the edge media experiences. They range from classical media like photography or video to new media like AR or VR. With his studio he develops methods and technologies that give artists the opportunity to take advantage of XR-based creation tools. Together with fellow artists, creators, and technologists Studio Deussen explores how the conception, creation and distribution of art can be re-invented in order to make best use of the chances that XR-technology offers to us. For many years Berlin Tim Deussen has produced numerous valuable photographic and video documentation for Art Laboratory Berlin, that now builds the visual ground to ALB’s web archive.
Former team members of Art Laboratory Berlin, see here.
Press
Press Voices on ALB
“[Here], art historian Regine Rapp and New York artist Christian de Lutz have quickly established the nucleus of a German BioArt center.”
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Joachim Müller-Jung)
“Art Laboratory Berlin under the guidance of Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz have since many years presented very exciting projects connecting Science and Arts. They are a rare instance of serious interdisciplinary thinking.“ (Goldberg Stiftung)
“Much like the projects that Art Laboratory Berlin gravitates towards, the space itself defies any and all categorical boundaries traditionally upheld in the art world. ALB […] functions as an exhibition space, research group, and platform for bringing together artists, scientists, and researchers to discuss impending issues of our time related to life, technology, and culture.” (CLOT Magazine)
“Rapp and de Lutz, who have long worked at the intersections of art, technology and the natural sciences to curate ambitious exhibitions, speak of ‘sustainable curating’.” (Berliner Zeitung)
Press Reviews (Download as PDF)
Press Contact
presse(at)artlaboratory-berlin.org
+49 172 176 5559