IN-PROGRESS… | COLLOQUIUM

Art Laboratory Berlin is delighted to invite you to take part in our discursive format – a colloquium on research in art, science and humanities, curated by Regine Rapp (in conjunction with our Reading Club, curated by Tuçe Erel).

The Colloquium (on 8 November it will be entirely online) addresses an international interdisciplinary research audience to present and discuss past, present or future projects by artists and scholars, curators or editors from the fields of art, science and the humanities. The topics could refer to an art project, a book, text or chapter, a research or exhibition project, a lab experiment, a lecture series, a conference concept or other.

The presentations and exchange will focus on the work-in-progress. Methodological approaches – theoretical or practical – are also of great interest here. While researching, we often tend to shift between practical inquiry and theoretical research, browsing various disciplines. Following the original meaning of colloquium as “speaking together”, we want to provide a platform for exchange and embrace various kinds of work processes which are often not seen or talked about.

Structure of the sessions: Each session will include two presentations followed by discussions, altogether 90 min. The colloquium welcomes informal conversations amongst the participants.

Speakers on 8 November Session

Saša Spačal | Terra Xenobiotica or How to Become

Saša Spačal is an artist working at the intersection of living systems research, contemporary and sound art. Her artistic research focuses on the development of technological interfaces and relations with organic and mineral soil agents while trying to address the posthuman situation, that involves mechanical, digital and organic logic within contemporary biopolitics and necropolitics. Her work was internationally exhibited, awarded and performed at, to name only a few, Ars Electronica Festival (AT), Transmediale Festival (DE), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (RUS), Onassis Cultural Center Athens (GR), Chronos Art Center (CHN), Kapelica Gallery (SI), Art Laboratory Berlin (DE). In October and November 2022 Spačal will do artistic research at the Rillig Lab, curatorially accompanied by Art Laboratory Berlin. www.agapea.si

In the Colloquium Saša Spačal will talk about her ongoing research project Terra Xenobioticat hat she is currying out during her current residency at Art Laboratory Berlin and at the lab of the Rillig Group | Ecology of Plants, Freie Universität Berlin. Terra Xenobiotica is an exploration into a dark alterity of soil ecology, an umwelt of its own, where mineral and organic agents entangle as strangers, but decompose into oneness of the ground that carries biological life in the Zone.

Joana MacLean | plastisphere

Joana MacLean is a microbiologist interested in future ecologies and areas of research that allow to involve other speculative methodologies. As a PhD student at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, she is currently working on microbial communities in anthropogenic landscapes and plastic polluted grounds. Her current artistic and biological research focuses on Plastic as a neo-geological material and as (micro)biological habitat for bacteria and fungi.

In the Colloquium she will talk about her PhD progress in the plastisphere and the methods she has used to approach the topic. Joana MacLean has spent her past years studying microbial communities in plastic polluted grounds, a process that does not only involve scientific practice but also the nurturing of a topic within her personal space as human, woman and researcher.