Events

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
Event | Colloquium

IN-PROGRESS… | COLLOQUIUM

  1. Research in Art, Science, and Humanities
  2. With Terike Haapoja
18 February 2025 (online + on-site)
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 18 Feb it will be hybrid – both on-site and 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 | Talk, Visit

Hacking Networks

  1. Open Studio and Artist Talk
  2. Helena Nikonole | Winter Studio Residency
2 February 2025
Meet the artist Helena Nikonoloe in her current winder studio residency at Art Laboratory Berlin. In her talk, she will explore how artistic practices can challenge centralized systems of controlIn her talk Helena Nikonole will explore how artistic practices can challenge centralized systems of control through two of her current projects, which she is continuing to develop during her winter studio residency at Art Laboratory Berlin. The first project uncovers hidden structures of power embedded in generative AI systems based on Large Language Models by probing their biases around political ideologies. This investigation reveals how these technologies reflect and amplify societal inequalities. The second project decentralizes communication networks to counteract internet shutdowns and surveillance in high-risk environments. Read more
Event | Residency, Talk, Workshop

Guerilla Wearables | Politics of LLMs

  1. Winter Studio Residency 2025
  2. Helena Nikonole
January - March 2025
Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to announce that Helena Nikonole has joined ALB’s residency program. Nikonole is a new media artist, independent curator, researcher, and educator whose work explores the intersection of art and technology. Her fields of interest include bio-semiotics, hacktivism, and Artificial Intelligence, a subject she has been exploring since 2016, developing critical and artistic approaches to this rapidly evolving field. During her residency, Nikonole will focus on two primary projects: “Guerrilla Wearables” involves the development of political wearables designed to facilitate decentralized communication. By integrating technology into fashion, these tools provide secure, off-grid interactions in environments where internet access is restricted or blocked. With her project “Research on Large Language Models (LLMs) and Political Ideologies” Nikonole will continue her ongoing research into the biases present in AI language models as well as text-to-image and text-to-video transformers, and other AI systems built on these technologies. Read more
Event | Meet up

Get-together with Printed Matter

  2. Books and printed matter for sale, some farewells and updates about the program of 2025 and 2026
15 December 2024, 4 - 9 pm
Join us for a Get-together with warm drinks and snacks with some books and printed matter for sale. Let’s come together before the seasonal break and meet on-site at Art Laboratory Berlin for some farewells and some new announcements for the coming year. In our current challenging times, we consider it very meaningful to meet in person, support one another, and express the value of art and culture production. Come and join us with friends and colleagues – we would appreciate it a lot! Read more
Event | Seminar, Workshop

OUT OF BALANCE

  1. Bio-Art Workshop
  2. With Fara Peluso, Helena Nikonole, Karine Bonneval, Regine Rapp, and Christian de Lutz
24 November - 4 December 2024
The international 10-day BioArt workshop OUT OF BALANCE took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 24 November until 4 December 2024. The Goethe-Institut in Saudi-Arabien and the Alliance française d’Arabie saoudite, together with the French Embassy, had invited Art Laboratory Berlin to develop a program and organise the first BioArt Lab in Riyadh at the Gharem Studio, a perfect ground for studying BioArt in theory and practice. Five seminar units with curator and researcher Christian de Lutz and art historian and curator Regine Rapp offered a theoretical insight into BioArt, DIY Bio Labs, and art science collaborations. Three hands-on workshops shared techniques of various artistic work with biological organisms – palm trees with artist Karine Bonneval and algae with artist and designer Fara Peluso – as well as AI tools about speculative futures with artist Helena Nikonole. Read more
Event | Panel Discussion

ZOOM IN!

  1. Current Collaborations Between Art, Biology, Music, and Anthropology
  2. Panel Discussion | With Isabel Bredenbröker, Adam Pultz, India Mansour, Sybille Neumeyer, Regine Rapp, and Christian de Lutz
@Berlin Science Week, Holzmarkt 25! 8 November 2024, 5:30 - 7:00 pm
Join us for an invited panel discussion at BERLIN SCIENCE WEEK at Holzmarkt 25 (Berlin Mitte): How do bodies sound? How can we visualize strategies for accessing environmental data from closed systems called biospheres? And how can a group of cultural belongings in an ethnological museum collection resonate in unexpected queer kin relations? Art Laboratory Berlin welcomes you to a diverse panel with cutting edge transdisciplinary research projects on current research topics: From postcolonialism over to postanthropocentrism, they nurture their knowledge production by transgressing discipline borders with a radical openness for nonhuman subjectivities. Read more
Event | Reading Club

Inspired by…

  1. Reading Club
  2. With Guest Artists Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz
5 November 2024
Inspired by… is an event series, a hybrid format derived from reading group and artist talk formats. In each session, an invited artist will choose a specific text or excerpt from a book that was inspirational for the artist’s practice and/or a particular project that the artist will introduce. Guest Artists on 1 October 2024 Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz On 5 November 2024, Inspired by… will be an on-site session with Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz during their exhibition Queer Sonic Fingerprint. This edition of Inspired by is an ‘independent event’ at Berlin Science Week 2024 and will take place at Art Laboratory Berlin on site. Read more
Event | Colloquium

IN-PROGRESS… | COLLOQUIUM

  1. Research in Art, Science, and Humanities
  2. With Ionat Zurr
15 October 2024, 8 pm CET (on-site + online)
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 15 Oct it will be hybrid – both on-site and 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 | Walk & Talk

WALK & TALK

  1. Berries, berries, berries and rosehips. FERAL FIELDWORK back at Nasse Dreieck (Autumn Edition) | Artist Talk by Käthe Wenzel
6 October 2024, Walk (1 pm) and Talk (3 pm)
Art Laboratory Berlin welcomes you to a double event – a walk with the interdisciplinary research group FERAL FIELDWORK (1 – 2 pm) and an artist talk with Käthe Wenzel (3 – 4 pm). Both projects have emerged from the MATTER OF FLUX network and festival in 2023.Under the moniker “Feral Fieldwork”, Alice Cannavà, Chiara Garbellotto, and Sina Ribak invite to a walk at Nasses Dreieck communicating the dense botanical, socio-political, and toxic histories of the Stadtbrache, its life forms and their materialised traces, also involving storytelling, multispecies embodiment, and mapping, they will also share methodological reflections on how to work with multiple sensibilities and knowledges. At the last day of her exhibition “Colour Topographies”, Käthe Wenzel will reflect the artistic processes of urban foraging and ink extraction and the possibilities of natural inks and will give a short foray into urban biocolorants, techniques of inkmaking, and material cultures of colour(s). Read more
Event | Reading Club

Inspired by…

  1. Reading Club
  2. With Guest Artist Aslı Dinç
1 October 2024
Inspired by… is an event series, a hybrid format derived from reading group and artist talk formats. In each session, an invited artist will choose a specific text or excerpt from a book that was inspirational for the artist’s practice and/or a particular project that the artist will introduce. Guest Artist Aslı Dinç is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher. Her artistic research and narrative are deeply influenced by sci-fi culture, RPGs, cybernetics, interconnected networks and power. These influences, along with gamer theory, hacker culture, and the deep sea milieu, shape her practice. Read more

Archive

Event | Workshop

DIY Hack the Panke

  1. Panke Life. Microbiodiversity
  2. Sarah Hermanutz | India Mansour | Fara Peluso
26 May 2019

The workshops invites to investigate artistically and scientifically microbial life and ecologies of an urban waterway. The workshop will explore the river Panke and floodplain as microbial habitats, with special emphasis on water, sediment and soil along the riverbanks.

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Event | Workshop

DIY Hack the Panke

  1. (Un)Real Ecologies. Microplastics
  2. Kat Austen and Frithjof Glowinski
13 - 14 April 2019

How do organisms and microorganisms exist with microplastics? We will investigate water samples and will use DIY chemistry methods to separate microplastics from mineral and organic matter, and discover the origins of the plastics they find by creating density columns.

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Event | Performance, Talk

HYDRO_PERFORMANCE NIGHT

  1. PERFORMANCES, TALKS WITH NEW CASSETTES AND VINYLS!
  2. Kat Austen, Robertina Šebjanič and Fara Peluso
16 March 2019

The Matter of the Soul | Symphony by Kat Austen is a performance work that engenders empathy with the consequences of climate change. Aquatocene / The subaquatic quest for serenity by Robertina Šebjanič investigates underwater noise pollution created by humankind in the oceans.

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Event | Workshop

Phytocracy in situ

  1. Prototyping tools for the investigation of plant governance
  2. Špela Petrič
22 September 2018

As part of the inquiries into Vegetal Otherness, Špela Petrič set out to produce her own phytocracy-revealing onto-epistemological tools that are inspired by actual institutions/domains/cultural practices framing plant-people relations…

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Event | Performance, Talk, Workshop

Biosignals

  1. Sound Art, Narrations and Nature-based Data Streams
24- 25 August 2018

BioSignals is a series of site-specific sound art, narrations and nature-based data streams by human and nonhuman cultural producers in connection with the 2019 Pixelache Festival..

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Event | Performance, Talk

NOW. A Kinetic Life

  1. Bidisha Das and Thomas Heidtmann
3 - 5 August 2018

is an interactive installation that spans a visual and acoustic connection between outer space and physical spaces that surround us. It is an orchestra of movement using elements from outer space, nature and human bodies as instrumentations.

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Event | Workshop, Workshop

DIY Hack the Panke

  1. (Un)Real Ecologies. Microplastics | Workshop
  2. Kat Austen and Joana MacLean
6 - 8 July 2018

How do organisms and inhabitants of the Panke live with plastic in their habitat? In the 3-day workshop we search for visible interactions between plastics and biota in and around the Panke. We also use chemical protocol for the analysis of (micro)plastics in water samples.

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Event | Book Release Party

Half Life. Machines/ Organisms

  1. Artistic Positions in the context of Climate Change and Extinction
  2. Book Release Party
6 July 2018

41 artistic positions from 15 countries provide critical and visionary views onto socio-emotional service machines – proxies and social crutches; Ersatz: Machine environments and artificial organisms; Utopia; Mediator machines and trans-species communication…

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Event | Conference

Nonhuman Agents in art, culture and theory

  1. Interdisciplinary Conference
24 - 26 November 2017

The conference takes into account recent philosophical approaches which question anthropocentrism. We will redefine intelligence (human, animal and plant intelligence), agency and sentience. Exhibiting artists as well as scholars from humanities and science will debate together.

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Event | Talk

Nonhuman Agents

  1. ill-at-ease seep
  2. Sarah Hermanutz
28 October 2017

In her lecture the artist Sarah Hermanutz discussed the relationship between humans and wetlands, which is the focus in her long-term artistic research. Wetlands are one of the most biologically diverse and important ecosystems for life on earth, but within the past century..

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Event | Workshop

Nonhuman Agents

  1. Swarm | Cell | City
  2. Heather Barnett + plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers)
23 - 24 September 2017

This workshop is a participatory experiment on art, performance and biology that precedes the exhibition Nonhuman Networks. The project invites the participants to view the city of Berlin by the nonhuman perspectives of the intelligent single-cell organism, the slime mould.

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Event | Walk & Talk

Nonhuman Agents

  1. The forestal psyche
  2. Theresa Schubert
25 - 26 August 2017

This lecture and workshop are based on the artist’s long-term artistic research project on living organisms as an artistic material and medium. For this project, Schubert dedicates herself to the potential of slime moulds, mosses and lichens from the forests around Berlin.

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Event | Performance, Talk, Workshop

Nonhuman Agents

  1. Anatomy of an inter-connected system
  2. Margherita Pevere
15 July 2017

Starting point is the artist’s research at the junction of visual arts, theoretical inquiry and investigation of biological processes, focusing on the discourses regarding human-nature relationship in the frame of today’s environmental crisis and how artistic practices…

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Event | Performance, Talk, Workshop

Nonhuman Agents

  1. Gut Feelings
  2. Alanna Lynch
18 June 2017

Alanna Lynch has been growing the microorganisms that produce kombucha tea. Through the process of fermentation this symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeasts (SCOBY) produces a cellulose material that is slimy and smells strongly while wet and can be dried and used as a textile.

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