Exhibitions

VICIOUS CYCLE

Artistic Research on Climate Crisis
Cammack Lindsey | Gülşah Mursaloğlu | Sybille Neumeyer

3 March - 30 April 2023

In March 2022 scientific research revealed that microplastic pollution is now present in the human body. It moves around in the blood, lands in organs and passes to infants via breast milk. The exhibition title Vicious Cycle is based on this closed cycle of human disturbance of the environment and its return to the human and nonhuman body. In the exhibition the artists’ investigative and research-oriented works explore the problem of microplastics in soil, the impact of climate change and the effects of excessive agricultural activity on the water, soil, animals and wildlife. Cammack Lindsey’s Wem gehört die Welt? is a site-specific sound installation based on the artist’s ongoing research on Müggelsee Berlin that features Microcystis aeruginosa and Müggelsee water samples in amorph containers in a network inspired by colony formations of most commonly toxin producing cyanobacterium Microcystis. Gülşah Mursaloğlu’s work Devouring the Earth, in Perishable Quantities aims to underscore the entanglement within the acts of eating/ consuming/ devouring that is often promoted as choice-based as well as the points and practices of continuity between human and other agencies. souvenirs entomologiques #1: odonata/ weathering data is a single-channel speculative video essay and installation by Sybille Neumeyer, that explores the entanglements of humans, weather and insects in a data-driven world in times of climate crisis. Read more

MATTER OF FLUX

Artistic Research
WhiteFeather Hunter | Lyndsey Walsh | Shu Lea Cheang with Ewen Chardronnet

26 May - 9 July 2023

The exhibited artworks critically reflect about nature, matter and health of female and nonbinary bodies through artistic and scientific research – exploring the use of menstrual serum for tissue culture, proposing new modes of care within the context of female and nonbinary health and discussing both traditional forms and new possibilities of reproduction. In context of the group exhibition, Art Laboratory Berlin will also realise a festival of the same title in June 2023 that seeks to initiate a wider network of and for female and nonbinary artists, scholars and cultural players in art, science and technology. Read more

Radyo Somatodelia

Experiments in Sonic Animism
Tad Ermitaño

26 August - 9 October 2022

The word “psychedelic,” coined by the psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond, comes from the words “psyche” meaning “mind” and “delos” meaning “to manifest or reveal”. “Somatodelia”, the term suggested by Tad Ermitaño, complements the psychedelic as the project of recalling the physical roots of consciousness and perception. Somatodelia grounds itself as the metaphysics distinct from the ghost of dualism conjured by Plato and Descartes. It, instead, reveals the physical roots of our mental being. Radyo (Tagalog of “radio”) Somatodelia: Experiments in Sonic Animism brings the act of looking and listening into contact with the outward surfaces and the interior voluminosity of things. Science has led humans through chaos with limited perceptibility, visited by flashes of observations and hunches. The patchy first-person viewpoint has been recasted as omniscient, with all the twists beneath the moment of Discovery surgically removed from the story. The data and facts are thus enveloped in the pristine wholeness, available for the contemplation of an all-seeing Intelligence that is the exclusive property of humans. Read more

HACKERS, MAKERS, THINKERS

Collective Experiments in Social Fermenting
Irene Agrivina | Interspecifics | Pei-Ying Lin | Cammack Lindsey | Constanza Piña Pardo | Rice Brewing Sisters Club

21 May - 10 July 2022

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. Read more

Archive

Nonhuman Subjectivities

Aural Aquatic Presence
Robertina Šebjanič

3 September - 9 October 2016

The exhibition offers a dialogue of agency and sentience in one of the ‘simplest’ of multicellular creatures: the jellyfish related to a human made machine. Another project discusses sound in marine systems, as well as the effects of human intervention on aural aquatic systems.

Nature Cultures

at the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung
Brandon Ballengée | Katya Gardea Browne | Pinar Yoldas

2 July - 11 September 2016

The exhibition explores the interwoven fabric of both the human and nonhuman in the 21st century. The side effects of human technology intrude into every environment, altering the balance, and even the make up of what we once called nature. While ecological disaster…

Nonhuman Subjectivities

On Animals. Cognition, Senses, Play
Rachel Mayeri | Maja Smrekar

28 May - 17 July 2016

The art projects discuss primates and the wolf-dog-human continuum: The instinct and the senses of the nonhuman are placed at the centre of artistic research, while aiming to translate the nonhuman cognitive ability by means of the performance, film and art science collaboration.

Nonhuman Subjectivities

The Other Selves. On the Phenomenon of the Microbiome
François-Joseph Lapointe | Saša Spačal with Mirjan Švagelj & Anil Podgornik | Tarsh Bates | Joana Ricou

27 February - 30 April 2016

Various artistic projects discuss the complex microbial environment found on and within the human body as performance, living installation or image. The phenomenon of the microbiome brings forth many complex questions about human identity and our relation to our multiple selves.

PROSTHESES

Transhuman Life Forms
Susanna Hertrich

26 September - 29 November 2015

The works of Susanna Hertrich reflect the phenomenon of prostheses as an extension of the human in the 21st century. In the context of the latest technologies and current developments in the field of neuroscience and biology, they presents new transhuman sensory extensions

Growing Geometries

Evolving Forms
Theresa Schubert

29 August - 20 September 2015

The artist Theresa Schubert conducts research at the intersection of art, biology, and technology. Her artistic practice combines various media such as audiovisual installations, photography or work on paper which deals with the phenomena of nature not only as a source of inspiration, but as a material and critical process…

bOdy pandemOnium

Immersion into Noise
Joseph Nechvatal

25 April - 21 June 2015

Joseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual artist working in digital art. He is one of the most important pioneers of new media art, but at the same time makes use of ‘old media’ (painting and drawing) created through a use of custom artificial life software and computer robotics.

[micro]biologies II

πρωτεο / proteo
Joanna Hoffmann

24 January - 29 March 2015

Joanna Hoffmann’s transdisciplinary works combine art, microbiology, physics and technology. Her use of multimedia installations, 3d stereoscopy, experimental video animation and other media explore the visualization of sub-atomic and molecular as well as cosmic space.

[micro]biologies I

the bacterial sublime
Anna Dumitriu

27 September - 30 November 2014

Anna Dumitriu is well known for creating The VRSA Dress & and The MRSA Quilt which were made from so-called ‘superbugs’. To create those works she grew bacteria onto textiles and used natural and clinical antibiotics to create patterns (sterilised prior to exhibition).

[macro]biologies II

organisms
Suzanne Anker | Brandon Ballengée | Maja Smrekar

31 May - 20 July 2014

This exhibition highlights the works of artists dealing with multi-celled organisms. Noteworthy is both the relationship of these organisms to us, and their roles as independent actors. The exhibition focuses on the works of three remarkable, internationally recognized artists

[macro]biologies I

the biosphere
Katya Gardea Browne | The Center for PostNatural History | Mathias Kessler | Alexandra Regan Toland

8 March - 4 May 2014

For [macro]biologies I: the biosphere we have chosen four important international artists dealing with the structures and systems of our world. The exhibition focuses on the ecosystem and the biosphere with billions of life forms that interrelate with other systems.

Synaesthesia / 4

Translating, Correcting, Archiving
Eva-Maria Bolz | Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen | Andy Holtin

1 June - 21 July 2013

Synaesthesia / 4: Translating, Correcting, Archiving presents works by Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen (DK), Eva-Maria Bolz (D) and Andy Holtin (USA). The exhibition devotes itself to selected artistic strategies for decoding the phenomenon of synaesthesia.

Synaesthesia / 3

History of the Senses
Carl Rowe & Simon Davenport | Sergio Maltagliati & Pietro Grossi

23 March - 12 May 2013

History of the Senses deals with the phenomenon of synaesthesia from the point of view of art and media history. The two artistic positions refer back to different movements from the 20th Century giving the four-part exhibition series on synaesthesia a historical component

Synaesthesia / 2

Space and Perception
Madi Boyd | Carrie C Firman

26 January - 10 March 2013

Inquiries into the nature of Space and Perception are the basis of Art Laboratory Berlin’s second exhibition in the Synaesthesia series. Synaesthesia, the experience of two or more sensory impressionsat the same time, is both an artistic paradigm and neurological phenomenon.

Synaesthesia / 1

The Orange Smell of November
Barbara Ryan | Annette Stahmer

27 October - 16 December 2012

Barbara Ryan’s perceptions of the world are underpinned by her polymodal synaesthesia which in turn forms the foundation of her artistic work. The work of Annette Stahmer revolves around language, the relationship between voice and writing, palimpsests and synaesthesia.