HACKERS, MAKERS, THINKERS

Video Recordings of Introduction and Panels – see below!

Following two years of social distancing and isolation Art Laboratory Berlin will devote 2022 exploring what social possibilities can be thawed and revived. The project series Hackers, Makers, Thinkers proposes that Doing it With Others (DIWO) can be a way of rebuilding and re-energizing damaged social relations. After a period when most of us have been reliant on corporate technologies, Open (source) knowledge will form a basis for making and thinking. Above all we are interested in an open culture based on reciprocity, cooperation and exchange on a global level. Combining Berlin based artists and venues with guest artists from Latin America and Southeast Asia this project proposes art making as a tool for social empowerment and knowledge acquisition, collaboration, and working together. In context of the group exhibition Hackers, Makers, Thinkers Art Laboratory Berlin in collaboration with the Weizenbaum Institute (UdK Berlin) and The Einstein Center Digital Future (TU Berlin) welcomes you to an interdisciplinary international conference.

The hybrid conference offers a complex layer of insights into the various practices with presentations by the exhibited artists and guest speakers from the artistic and curatorial practice, design, biology and anthropology. Diverse contributions critically elaborate on various artistic approaches towards (agri)culture, farming and social fermentation. A special emphasis will also have a viral discourse in connection with food and performance. The discussion will then evolve around the phenomenon of symbiosis, discussing cyanobacteria and bio-politics, including various approaches of hacking. Speakers additionally reflect critically on culture-political, post-colonial and sound-related phenomena related to khipu, human-computing, open AI as well as sound art and noise.

SHORT PROGRAM

Fri, 27 May 2022 @ Berlin University of the Arts, Designtransfer
10:30 am – 18:30 CET | on-site with livestream

Various Panel Discussions (moderated by ALB / UdK Berlin)
With garden-hangouts and UdK-TUB student exhibition
(Register here for the on-site visit of the first conference day/ no registration necessary for livestream)
 

Sat, 28 May 2022 @ Art Laboratory Berlin
10:30 am – 18:30 CET | on-site only

10:30 am – 13:00 CET: Curatorial Talks at the exhibition Hackers, Makers, Thinkers followed by three simultaneous Walk & Talks with conference speakers and team as a continuation of the panel discussions from the previous day
(3 separate registrations!)
14:30 – 18:30 CET: Workshop Soya C(o)u(l)ture/ Ecoprints on BioLeather with artist Irene Agrivina (Separate registration)

DETAILED PROGRAM

CONFERENCE DAY 1 

Friday, 27 May 2022 @ designtransfer, Berlin University of the Arts, Einsteinufer 43, 10587 Berlin | on-site with livestream

(Register here for the on-site visit of the first conference day/ no registration necessary for livestream)

10:30 CET
Doors Open / Registration   

11:00 CET
Conference Introduction 

Statement | Michelle Christensen, Florian Conradi, UdK Berlin – TU Berlin
Introduction into Hackers, Makers, Thinkers | Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz, Art Laboratory Berlin

11:30 – 13:00 CET

Panel A | Hacking Food Narratives 

#hacking(agri)culture #viral #socialfermentation #foodperformance
Moderated by Regine Rapp, Art Laboratory Berlin

RBSC Rice Brewing Sisters Club (Artists, Seoul) | Seokkeodungdung: Doing “Social Fermentation”
Pei-Ying Lin (Artist, Designer, Eindhoven) | Virophilia
Oron Catts (Artist, Curator, SymbioticA, Perth) | Nature free (Agri)culture – Hacking and Contesting Future Food Systems      

———— Lunch Break ————

14:00 – 16:00 CET

Panel B | Symbiotic Elements 

#symbiosis #cyanobacteria #biopolitics #hackinggaia
Moderated by Tuçe Erel, Art Laboratory Berlin 

Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou (Anthropologist, Architect, joining virtually) | An Ethics of Entangled Models
Cammack Lindsey (Artist, Berlin) | Holobiont: Relics from the Revolution
Irene Agrivina (Artist, Yogyakarta) | Entangled Beauty. A Perfect Marriage 
Shujie Wu (Biologist, Plant Pathologist, FU Berlin) | Diversity of Far-red Cyanobacteria in Extreme Environments  

Tour through Student Exhibition
    

———— Coffee Break  ————

16:30 – 18:30 CET

Panel C | Sonic Cyborgs

#khipu #humancomputing #OpenAI #DIYBio #SoundArt #Noise
Moderated by Michelle Christensen, UdK Berlin – TU Berlin 

Constanza Piña Pardo (Artist, Mexico-City) | The Khipu Project 
Nayeli Vega (Artist, Designer, Berlin/ Mexico-City) | Codes in Knots 
Interspecifics/ Leslie García, Paloma López (Artists, Researchers, Mexico D.F.) | Codex Virtualis (joining virtually)
Maro Pebo (Researcher, Artist) | On Symbiosis 

PLENUM Discussion (to be continued @ ALB on the second conference day)

Next to panels we can enjoy other activities on the first conference day @ UdK Berlin: Open Doors @ Berlin Open Lab; UdK/ TUB Student exhibition; Hangout in the Garden Lounge   

CONFERENCE DAY 2 

Saturday, 28 May 2022 @ Art Laboratory Berlin, Prinzenallee 34, 13359 Berlin (on-site only)

10:30 – 13:30 CET 

Curatorial Talks & Conference Panel Walks @ ALB 

(3 separate registrations, see below)

On the second conference day we will continue our conversations and discussions in the exhibition in front of the art works and later while walking together. First the curatorial team with Regine Rapp, Tuçe Erel, Tengal Drilon and Christian de Lutz welcomes the participants on-site at the exhibition Hackers, Makers, Thinkers at Art Laboratory Berlin and introduces the exhibited art works and curatorial concept. Later on we invite conference participants to take part in three simultaneous Walk & Talks with the conference speakers and the curatorial and conference team. These Walking Conversations are intended to deepen the discussions that started on the first conference day and to promote an exchange in motion in smaller groups. Based on Art Laboratory Berlin’s experiences of the positive impact and creative impulses of Walk & Talks, the three Walking Conversations will stimulate mind and body and offer an extended collective ‘metabolism of knowledge’ beyond a classical conference format. 

Panel Walk 1: Hacking Food Narratives 

We will walk with RBSC (Rice Brewing Sisters Club), Pei-Ying Lin, Oron Catts and the conference team through Art Laboratory Berlin’s neighbourhood to continue our discussions about hacking (agri)culture, social fermentation and viruses. We will end our Walking Conversation in an Urban Community Garden nearby and explore some fermenting actions.
(Register here for Curatorial Talk & Panel Walk 1)

Panel Walk 2: Symbiotic Elements

Together with Cammack Lindsey, Irene Agrivina, Shujie Wu and the conference team we will explore green zones of Art Laboratory Berlin’s neighbourhood. While walking the group wants to pick up the discussion of the previous conference day about symbiosis, cyanobacteria and biopolitics from both an artistic and scientific approach.
(Register here for Curatorial Talk & Panel Walk 2) 

Panel Walk 3: Sonic Cyborgs

Together with Constanza Piña Pardo, Nayeli Vega, Maro Pebo (Interspecifics) and the conference team we will walk along the River Panke near Art Laboratory Berlin to continue our conversations on khipu and prehispanic knowledge as well as Open AI. We will also talk about the workshops given by Interspecifics (7/8 May) and Constanza Piña Pardo (25 May). 
(Register here for Curatorial Talk & Panel Walk 3)        

———— Lunch Break ————

14:30 – 18:30 CET | Workshop 
Irene Agrivina: Soya C(o)u(l)ture/ Ecoprints on Bioleather @ ALB 

The Indonesian collective XXlab is an exclusively female staff composed of designers, artists and programmers, including Irene Agrivina. With SOYA C(O)U(L)TURE the collective wants to combat water pollution and poverty in Indonesia by taking advantage of an innovative process, which takes the toxic residues and polluted water that are by-products of Indonesia’s intensive soy production and utilizes them as inputs for manufacturing edible cellulose as well as bio-fuel and biologically tanned leather. In do-it-yourself fashion, anyone can get busy in their kitchen at home. Irene will talk about the process, show samples and then lead the participants in making your very own eco-prints using easily available materials such as flowers and leaves. Participants will get the opportunity to print on SOYA C(O)U(L)TURE, bio leather derived from the by-product of soy production. This is a BYOF workshop: Bring your own flowers.
(Register here for the workshop)

During the second conference day our exhibition spaces will be open to visit the group show Hackers, Makers, Thinkers from 10:30 am until 6 pm. Welcome!