MATERIAL
DRIVEN DESIGN. Sculpting with Bioplastic Textile Workshop/
Livestream with Fara Peluso 6
May, 2020 6-8 pm CET
Today
Material Research is a central point in the theory and practice
of designing new technologies, in cooperation with art and design.
These fields are currently collaborating, merging their knowledge
and practice to develop a new generation of materials, by focusing
on specific characteristics, to create new environmentally friendly
materials. Another approach, however, has also arisen in the last
years combining making, crafting and personal fabrication of new
materials through a form of Do It Yourself (DIY) biology and craftmaking.
This Mind the Fungi workshop discusses this new material
driven design movement and methodology, learning how to build a
new material by studying and using a living organism like mycelium.
Discovering the features, possibilities and limits of mycelium-based
materials, the participants will work together growing material
and developing new material, building sculptures, assembling DIY
packaging and drawing and cutting patterns on a new material made
of biofilm.
Due to the COVID-19 crisis the initial workshop has been postponed
and will hopefully take place later this year.
On 6 May a livestream talk and workshop with Fara Peluso will take
place and be livestreamed on this page.
Fara Peluso, a Berlin based artist-designer, graduated
in industrial design and graphic design at University of Spienza,
Deptm. for Architecture, Rome. Through speculative research her
work connects the human being with nature, living organisms and
biological processes to form a deeper relationship. Together with
biologists, she has pursued deep research into algae, taking constantly
inspiration from them, experimenting and understanding how to work
with them inside the fields of Art and Design. In collaboration
with BioArt Laboratories in Eindhoven, she developed the prototyping
of a speculative wearable accessory, WeaReactor, which connects
the algae's photosynthesis process with the breath of the wearer
(exhibited at DDW17 in Eindhoven in 2017; at Art Laboratory Berlin
in 2019). Peluso has extended this knowledge over the last 15 months
by working with researchers at the TU Berlin Institute of Biotechnology
on mycelium-based materials as an artist-designer-in-residence in
the project Mind the Fungi.
Mind
the Fungi (2018-20) is
a collaborative project between the Institute of Biotechnology TU
Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin. Biotechnologists and process engineers
are researching local tree fungi and lichens (Prof. Vera Meyer/
Applied Molecular Microbiology; Prof. Peter Neubauer / Bioprocess
Engineering). The focus is on developing new ideas and technologies
for fungal and lichen based materials for the future. Art Laboratory
Berlin bridges the gap between science, art, design and the public
and offers various Citizen Science formats. The Artist- and Design-Residencies
with Fara Peluso and Theresa Schubert bring in art and design as
constructive sources of ideas for this research project.
(More
information)
With
the generous support of the Technische Universität Berlin as
part of the program Citizen Science - Forschen mit der Gesellschaft:
