Events

Event | Workshop

CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS

  1. Pond Codex: Of Life and Death in Berlin's Small Water Bodies
  2. Workshop with Margherita Pevere and Germán Joosten
Sun, 10 May 2026, 11:00 - 18:00
a lake or pond surrounded by trees flasks and graduated cylinder son a table people sitting in the background
Margherita Pevere and Germán Joosten invite the audience to join the life cycle of Berlin’s ponds and small lakes. Acting as biodiversity hotspots and regulators of temperature, these small water bodies play a key role in urban ecology. Among their dwellers is Daphnia – commonly known as water flea – a small invertebrate which feeds on phytoplankton (microscopic algae), thus keeping phenomena like algae blooms in check. Its life cycle is fascinating: it reproduces mostly through cloning itself, but when things get rough, it can adapt to the environment, switch to sexual reproduction, and produce eggs that remain dormant in the sediment until better conditions arise. Daphnia can reveal much about the health, history, and possible futures of the small urban water bodies. Through hands-on sessions and speculative storytelling, workshop participants will assume a pond’s more-than-human perspective and explore Berlin as seen by its small aquatic inhabitants. Read more
Event | Meet up, Talk

ART SCIENCE MEET UP

  1. Research Exchange and Get-Together
  2. With Fara Peluso, Jemma Woolmore, and Matthias Rillig
Wed, 29 April 2026
Art Laboratory Berlin and the Rillig Lab host an Art Science Meet Up in Berlin, bringing together artists and scientists interested in interdisciplinary research. The first session, open to the public, features presentations on current projects: Fara Peluso explores DIY bioplastics and community gardening to rethink human–ecological relations; Jemma Woolmore investigates chemical pollution through collaborative and embodied artistic methods; and Matthias Rillig presents research on how ecosystems respond to combined environmental pressures such as climate change, pollution, and land use. The second session invites participating artists and scientists to collaboratively design experimental approaches, discussing methods, concepts, and formats for joint research, followed by group exchange and collective reflection. Read more
Event | Colloquium

IN-PROGRESS… | COLLOQUIUM

  1. Research in Art, Science, and Humanities
  2. With Karolina Żyniewicz and Regine Hengge
Tue, 17 March 2026 (online only)
close up of a sculpture, circles with metal mesh, yellowish cat to the photograph Trees photographed from below with a green-yellow cast to the photograph
The Colloquium (on 17 March online only) 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. Read more
Event | Video documentation

Art Laboratory Berlin 2025

  1. Video Documentation
A Year in Review 2025
A huge thank you to the ALB team, to all the artists, researchers, and contributors, to our open-minded and wonderful public, and to our cooperation partners and colleagues for sharing this year with us. Our ‘YEAR IN REVIEW 2025’ video offers a glimpse of the encounters, experiments, conversations, and collaborations that shaped our year. And heartfelt thanks to the participants of our 2025 programme and to the institutions that supported it! Read more
Event | Workshop

CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS

  1. Ideologies in the Machine: Political Bias in Large Language Models
  2. Workshop with Helena Nikonole
Fri, 12 December 2025
animal created by AI
This hands-on workshop with artist and researcher Helena Nikonole, pursuing a PhD at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte) on Large Language Models and Political Ideologies, explores how contemporary AI systems encode and reproduce ideological narratives. The event takes place in the framework of the project CHRYSALIS. Artists in Labs, organised by Art Laboratory Berlin in cooperation with Berlin Open Lab and other cooperation partners, with the generous support of the Lotto Stiftung Berlin. The workshop will take place in the Einstein Center for Digital Future in Berlin Mitte. Focusing on Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, as well as derivative systems like text-to-image generators, participants will investigate how AI reproduces political bias and ideological framing through language and visual representation. Through experiments with politically charged prompts, participants will analyze how these models interpret ideology, shape discourse, and amplify systemic bias. Read more
Event | Talk

CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS

  1. Artist Scientist Dialogue
  2. With Julius Holtz and Julia von Thienen
Fri, 28 November 2025, 7 pm
Join us for the first of several upcoming ARTIST SCIENTIST DIALOGUES that will take place in the context of the current research project CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS at Art Laboratory Berlin. Composer and sound researcher Julius Holtz, one of the CHRYSALIS artists in residence, will speak in dialogue with Prof. Dr. Julia von Thienen from the German University of Digital Science. Julia von Thienen is a researcher, educator, and innovator at the intersection of digital engineering and collaborative creativity. Julia’s research in the field of Sonic Thinking and Neuro Design at the Hasso Plattner Institute inspired Julius Holtz’ current artistic investigations into the relationship of sound and Brain Computer Interfaces. In addition, Julius will discuss his artistic research into the interaction among participants, sound environments, the formation of (self-)consciousness, and the creation of spaces that invite active listening. Through technical, biological, and conceptual insights into the design of his Brain Computer Interface enhanced listening sessions, Julius will demonstrate how he translates mind activity into sound compositions via real-time data sonification. Read more
Event | Panel Discussion

CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS

  1. Panel Discussion | With Helena Nikonole, Álvaro Rodríguez, Julius Holtz, Ludmila Litvin, Margherita Pevere, Germán Joosten, Regine Rapp, and Christian de Lutz
@ BSW Holzmarkt 25, 8 November 2025, 13-14:30
Join the presentation of our current research project CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS at the Berlin Science Week 2025 on 8 November 2025. We will give an insight into Berlin-based artists researching in Berlin science labs – with topics on neuroscience, artificial intelligence, biodiversity, and ecology! During 2025 and 2026, Art Laboratory Berlin is unfolding the new innovative project CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS with an interdisciplinary exchange between art and science in Berlin science laboratories. Building on Berlin’s unique status as a global centre for arts and sciences, we aim to create new synergies based on topics of current research. In collaboration with a consortium of scientists from all three Berlin universities, the Charité, and the University of the Arts Berlin, Art Laboratory Berlin is initiating artist-in-lab residencies for four internationally recognized, Berlin-based artists – Helena Nikonole, Julius Holtz, Sybille Neumeyer, and Margherita Pevere. We expect strong outcomes in transdisciplinary knowledge transfer, artistic research, art science communication, and some new artworks highlighting 21st-century innovations. In this year’s BSW panel discussion we present three artists of the project CHRYSALIS together with their scientific partners of the respective Berlin science laboratories. Read more
Event | Festival

BODIES OF WATER

  1. Learning from the River Panke through Art, Science, and Storytelling
  2. Workshops, Walks, Talks, Reading Sessions, Panel Discussions, Performances
21 - 22 June 2025
Art Laboratory Berlin welcomes you to the two-day festival BODIES OF WATER exploring themes around urban waterways, in context of the ongoing series ON WATER | PARCOURS by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA). With the art science collective DIY Hack the Panke and scientists from the fields of eco hydrology and medicine, we will explore what forms an urban river takes and what lives in and around the Panke river. There will be workshops, walks, talks, reading sessions, panel discussions, and performances for participants of all ages. Let’s embark on a multi sensorial and transdisciplinary journey along one of Berlin’s fastest flowing bodies of water! Join us on 21 and 22 June to explore our connectedness to water, urban waterways, and the river Panke through learning, crafting, sensing, walking, and listening. Read more
Event | Colloquium

IN-PROGRESS… | COLLOQUIUM

  1. Research in Art, Science, and Humanities
  2. With Robertina Šebjanič and Marco Barotti
8 April 2025, online only
close up of a sculpture, circles with metal mesh, yellowish cat to the photograph Trees photographed from below with a green-yellow cast to the photograph
The Colloquium (on 8 April it will be 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. Read more
Event | Workshop

Politics of AI

  1. Artistic Research
  2. With Helena Nikonole
29 March 2025
WORKSHOP FULLY BOOKED /// The hands-on workshop Politics of AI with artist and researcher Helena Nikonole explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, as well as text-to-image AI systems, reproduce biases and embed political ideologies. Participants will experiment with AI-generated responses to politically charged prompts, analyze biases in text-based AI outputs, and examine how these biases extend into AI-generated imagery. Through practical exercises, we will critically assess how AI models shape narratives, reinforce stereotypes, and amplify bias through a feedback loop. Helena Nikonole will share her insights and artistic methodology, demonstrating how artistic research can serve as a critical tool for exposing and subverting AI biases. Read more

Archive

Event | Talk

Swarms, Robots and Postnature

  2. Artist Talk | So Kanno
6 May 2021

The exhibition project presents research based artistic positions on swarm behaviour, questioning the traditional concept of “nature” and explores the interface of the biological and the machine. As part of our online program the exhibiting artist So Kanno gives an insight in his artistic research and practice.

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Event | Talk

VIRAL CLOUD | Berlin Tokyo

  1. Hybrid Arts and DIY Bio Cultures
  2. Hideo Iwasaki and Matthias Rillig
21 February 2021

Since spring 2020 ALB and BioClub Tokyo have been arranging online meetings between hybrid artists and associates in our respective cities. In our Meeting #13 two scientists talk about art and science collaborations.

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Sublime
Event | Performance

Mind Blind Pathetic Sublime

  1. Online Performance Lecture
  2. Sarah Hermanutz
16 February 2021

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.

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Event | Talk

VIRAL CLOUD | Berlin Tokyo

  1. Hybrid Arts and DIY Bio Cultures
  2. Fara Peluso and Sachiko Hirosue
17 January 2021

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. In our 12th meeting we feature presentations by designer and bioartist Fara Peluso and Bioengineer Sachiko Hirosue

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Event | Talk

VIRAL CLOUD | Berlin Tokyo

  1. Hybrid Arts and DIY Bio Cultures
  2. Heather Barnett
22 December 2020

Since spring 2020 ALB and BioClub Tokyo have been arranging online meetings between hybrid artists and associates in our respective cities and beyond. Meeting #11 features Heather Barnett on her art and science practice, recent collaborations in Japan, and new projects.

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Event | Talk

VIRAL CLOUD | Berlin Tokyo

  1. Hybrid Arts and DIY Bio Cultures
  2. Walter Waldman
25 November 2020

Since spring 2020 ALB and BioClub Tokyo have been arranging online meetings between hybrid artists and associates in our respective cities and beyond. Meeting #11 features Walter Waldman presenting his research on microplastics and ideas for cooperation across disciplines.

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Event | Talkshow

Feminist SF

  1. Visions of M/otherhood & Reproduction
  2. Isabel de Sena
August - October 2020

This event series as a live Talk Show format 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.

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Event | Conference

THE CAMILLE DIARIES Symposium

  1. Current Artistic Positions on M/otherhood, Life and Care
26 September 2020

The symposium discusses current conditions of our world (environmental changes, gender aspects, biopolitics), an ‘aesthetics of care’ as the basis for inter-species coexistence. The conference brings the exhibiting artists together with researchers from the humanities and natural sciences.

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Event | Talk

A Future for Food

  1. Discussion and Livestream
  2. Amy Youngs | Ken Rinaldo | Anna Paltseva | Daniel Lammel | Regine Rapp | Christian de Lutz
4 June 2020

Can we break away from agricultural practices which are intimately connected to desertification, water and soil pollution, antibiotic resistance, climate change and social and economic inequalities? This discussion considers a sustainable, multispecies perspective to farming.

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Event | Talk, Workshop

Mind the Fungi

  1. Material Driven Design | Workshop
  2. Fara Peluso
6 May 2020

Based on material driven design methodologies Fara Peluso in this workshop explores possibilities and limits of mycelium-based materials. The participants discuss and work together on growing material, building sculptures, and drawing and cutting patterns on a new material made of biofilm.

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Event | Course, Workshop

DIY Hack the Panke

  1. Microplastics and Coexistence | Online Workshop Discussion
  2. Kat Austen and Joana MacLean
22 April 2020

Central to the discussion is the coexistence of microplastics in the environment. Approaching the plastisphere as artists, chemists and biologists, trees and bacteria, humans and particles, we will negotiate together a plan of coexistence with microplastics on this planet.

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Event | Talk, Visit

Mind the Fungi

  1. Open Lab Night | Bioprocess Engineering
21 January 2020

Scientists will 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.

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Event | Performance

The Lumenses Project

  1. Florence Razoux
5 January 2020

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.

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Event | Course, Performance, Talk, Workshop

DIY Hack the Panke

  1. Science by Doing
  2. With students from the Gustav-Freytag Schule
February - December 2019

The project offered the pupils of the Gustav-Freytag-Schule a wide range of events about the river Panke. Through workshops and visits the art science collective DIY Hack the Panke made it possible for students to artistically explore biology, chemistry, design and ecology.

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Event | Talk

Symbiosis in intra-flux of the Anthropocene

  1. Project Presentation
  2. Saša Spačal
29 November 2019

For the month of November 2019 bio media artist Saša Spačal undertook artistic research at the Rillig Group, Ecology of Plants, Institute of Biology, FU Berlin, addressing pressing societal and environmental issues such as climate crisis and plastic pollution.

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