Thank You 2017! Welcome 2018!

Dear friends, colleagues and visitors, After a full and successful year of performances, talks, workshops and our recent international conference, we thank you for your interest and active exchange (both in person and virtually) with Art Laboratory Berlin.2017 started with a guest programme  at the year's beginning with SciArt Café  produced by BIOMOD and iGEM Team Berlin to the DIYBio NOW festival organised by Alessandro Volpato and BiotinkeringBerlin e.V. and the Mycelium Network Society with Shu Lea Cheang at transmediale. From February to April we exhibited the show  Nonhuman Subjectivities: Under-Mine with amazing new works by Alinta Krauth. In May we had the honour of working with Guy Ben-Ary in setting up two perfomances of the world's first Neural Synthesizer  cellF at HKW (as part of Technosphärenklänge, curated by CTM.)

In June our intense six month project, Nonhuman Agents in Arts and Culture, began with Gut Feelings , a performative lecture and workshop by Alanna Lynch, followed over the summer by Anatomy of an inter-connected system ,  by Margherita Pevere and  The forestal psyche   by Theresa Schubert.  In September we celebrated our second time as winners of the Prize for Berlin Project Spaces and Initiatives with a presentation of our summer programme, followed later in the month by  Swarm | Cell | City , a two-day workshop with Heather Barnett and plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers). On 29 September we opened the exhibition Nonhuman Networks  with splendid works by Heather Barnett and by Saša Spacal, Mirjan Švagelj & Anil Podgornik to a huge enthusiastic crowd. In October we presented Sarah Hermanutz's  lecture  ill-at-ease seep . Finally during the last week of Nonhuman Networks  we held a three-day international interdisciplinary conference Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory  with thirty speakers from the arts, sciences and humanities. We are still positively overwhelmed by the amazing talks, full engagement of the audience and the intense resonance this event created internationally.


We wish you all Happy Holidays and all the best for 2018!


As we have new amazing projects ahead at Art Laboratory Berlin, we kindly ask you to consider helping us. Please support our non-profit organisation Art Laboratory Berlin e.V. with a donation! Even small amounts can help us to realise new projects. If desired, we can issue a donation receipt (tax deductible in Germany).
Art Laboratory Berlin e.V.
Berliner Volksbank
IBAN:DE20100900002078156000
BIC:BEVODEBB

Thank you and kind regards,  Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz

Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory - Day 3 (26 November)

As a theoretical addition to our ongoing series Nonhuman Agents (June - December 2017) Art Laboratory Berlin - along with our partners, The Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam - will bring together international artists, scholars, and scientists from different disciplines to discuss artistic, philosophical, ethical and scientific approaches to nonhuman agency. Previous positions from our Nonhuman Subjectivities series (2016-17) will also be included.

The conference will start with a reflection on post-anthropocentrism by redefining intelligence (human, animal and plant intelligence), agency and sentience. An in-depth consideration will include the role of fungi: mycelium, the Internet of trees and yeasts. Microbial agency will be explored via the phenomenon of quorum sensing and biofilms, proposing a micro-subjectivity. There will be contributions on the microbiome and holobiome, taking into consideration the human as nonhuman. We want to open up a discussion to endosymbiosis and sympoiesis, reflecting symbiotic relationships, horizontal gene transfer and the role of Lynn Margulis in 21st century Biology and Science and Technology Studies. Finally, the conference will discuss nonhuman perspectives under threat and proposes an ethology for the techno-scientific era.
(More information)


Sunday, 26 November, 2017

11:00
Nonhuman Perspectives Under Threat
#6th species extinction #human destruction of environment #anthropocene
Moderator: Pablo Rojas

Mary Maggic (Artist, Vienna)
From Molecular Colonization to Molecular Collaborations


David Sepkoski (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)
Are We Experiencing a 'Sixth Extinction' and Does it Matter?




12.30 Break

13.00
Beyond the Animal as Machine. Ethology in the Age of Technoscience
#animal-machine interfaces #ethology #Uexküll
Moderator: Christian de Lutz

Birgit Schneider (Media Ecology, Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam)
Through the Eye of an Animal. Uexküll’s Perceptual Worlds in 360°?

Robertina Šebjanic (Artist, Ljubljana)
Sounds of Troubled Worlds = Songs for Serenity



Vivian Xu (Artist, Designer, Shanghai)
The Silkworm Project




15:00 Final Discussion - END 



 

Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory - Day 2 (25 November)

As a theoretical addition to our ongoing series Nonhuman Agents (June - December 2017) Art Laboratory Berlin - along with our partners, The Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam - will bring together international artists, scholars, and scientists from different disciplines to discuss artistic, philosophical, ethical and scientific approaches to nonhuman agency. Previous positions from our Nonhuman Subjectivities series (2016-17) will also be included.

The conference will start with a reflection on post-anthropocentrism by redefining intelligence (human, animal and plant intelligence), agency and sentience. An in-depth consideration will include the role of fungi: mycelium, the Internet of trees and yeasts. Microbial agency will be explored via the phenomenon of quorum sensing and biofilms, proposing a micro-subjectivity. There will be contributions on the microbiome and holobiome, taking into consideration the human as nonhuman. We want to open up a discussion to endosymbiosis and sympoiesis, reflecting symbiotic relationships, horizontal gene transfer and the role of Lynn Margulis in 21st century Biology and Science and Technology Studies. Finally, the conference will discuss nonhuman perspectives under threat and proposes an ethology for the techno-scientific era.
(More information)

Saturday, 25 November, 2017

10:30
Microbial Agency. Proposing Micro-Subjectivity
#bacteria #quorum sensing #microbiology and philosophy
Moderator: Pablo Rojas

Ingeborg Reichle (Media Theory, University of Applied Arts Vienna)
Biome and Biomatter

Regine Hengge (Institute of Biology, Dep. of Microbiology, Humboldt University Berlin)
Biofilms - invisible cities of microbes from the Petri dish to the human body



Anna Dumitriu (Artist, Brighton)
Make Do and Mend




12:30 Lunch break

13:30
Human as Nonhuman. Microbiome and holobiome
#human microbiome #holobiont #redefining ourselves
Moderator: Marta de Menezes

François Joseph Lapointe (Artist and microbiologist, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Montreal)
Performative Microbiome Experiments



Tarsh Bates (Artist, SymbioticA, University of Western Australia, Perth)
On Being a Microbioartist: Making Art in a Microbiology Lab



Regine Rapp (Art Theory, Curatorial Research, Art Laboratory Berlin)
Nonhuman Subjectivities. Artistic Strategies towards a Multispecies Performativity

15:30 Break

16:00
Endosymbiosis and Sympoiesis
#Lynn Margulies #symbiotic relationships #horizontal gene transfer #autopoiesis and sympoiesis
Moderator: Desiree Förster

Rachel Mayeri (Artist, Media Studies, Harvey Mudd College, Los Angeles)
Orfeo Nel Canale Alimentare

Heather Barnett (Artist, Researcher, Central St. Martins, London)
Many-Headed: Co-creation across Scales and Species


Daniel Renato Lammel (Institute of Biology, Free University Berlin)
Endosymbiosis and "Love Stories" between Plants and Microorganisms

 
Laura Benítez Valero (Institute of Philosophy, Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Biosophy and Mutagenesis. Towards an Alien Sym_poiesis

18:15 Break

18:30-19:45
Nonhuman Agents. A report
Alanna Lynch, Margherita Pevere, Theresa Schubert, Sarah Hermanutz, Heather Barnett and
plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers)
Moderator: Florence Razoux

Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory - Day 1 (24 November)

As a theoretical addition to our ongoing series Nonhuman Agents (June - December 2017) Art Laboratory Berlin - along with our partners, The Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam - will bring together international artists, scholars, and scientists from different disciplines to discuss artistic, philosophical, ethical and scientific approaches to nonhuman agency. Previous positions from our Nonhuman Subjectivities series (2016-17) will also be included.

The conference will start with a reflection on post-anthropocentrism by redefining intelligence (human, animal and plant intelligence), agency and sentience. An in-depth consideration will include the role of fungi: mycelium, the Internet of trees and yeasts. Microbial agency will be explored via the phenomenon of quorum sensing and biofilms, proposing a micro-subjectivity. There will be contributions on the microbiome and holobiome, taking into consideration the human as nonhuman. We want to open up a discussion to endosymbiosis and sympoiesis, reflecting symbiotic relationships, horizontal gene transfer and the role of Lynn Margulis in 21st century Biology and Science and Technology Studies. Finally, the conference will discuss nonhuman perspectives under threat and proposes an ethology for the techno-scientific era.
(More information)

Day 1: Friday, 24 November, 2017

10:00
Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin)
Welcome and Introduction

 

10:30

Other Subjectivities. Redefining Intelligence, Agency and Sentience
#post anthropocentrism #animal intelligence #definition of sentience
Moderator: Regine Rapp


Rahma Khazam (Philosophy, Art Theory, Paris)
When the sardine can looks back...



Desiree Förster (Media Ecology, Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam)Environments of Shared Concern
 

Maja Smrekar (Artist, Ljubljana)
The Wolf-human-dog Continuum

12:30 Lunch break

13:30
Fungal Perspectives. From the Viewpoint of a Mushroom
#mycelium #Internet of trees # wood wide web #yeasts
Moderator: Eliot Morrison

Saša Spacal (Artist, Ljubljana)
Mycohuman Relationships. Fungi as Interspecies Connectors, Companion Species and Human Symbionts
Mirjan Švagelj (Microbiologist, Aceis Bio, Ljubljana)
Mushrooms as Teachers. Mushrooms in Human Societies

Vera Meyer (Applied and Molecular Microbiology, Institute of Biotechnology, Technical University Berlin)
Fungal Biotechnology – What We Do with Fungi (and What Fungi Do With Us)

 

15:30 Break

16:00
Plant Intelligence
#plants #botany #redefining intelligence
Moderator: Desiree Förster

Špela Petric (Scientist & artist, Amsterdam/ Ljubljana)
The Vegetal, Intimately

Joana Bergmann (Institute of Biology, Free University Berlin)
Hand in Hand. Root Morphological Traits and Their Mediation by Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi

17:30 Break

18:00
Keynote

Monika Bakke (Institute of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan)
The Force of Radical Openness: Multispecies Alliances Beyond the Biological
Moderator: Christian de Lutz

Photos by Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Cooperation Partners:

  Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam

With the generous support of:

Sarah Hermanutz | ill-at-ease seep

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 mankind has destroyed over 50% of them. The artist's work and research explore our historical and contemporary relationship with these environments, including the tropes and prejudices that have marginalised them and justified their continued draining and destruction. Engagement with the uncomfortable sensory and aesthetic experience of wetlands is proposed as essential to reintegrating humans within these ecological communities.

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

The western world associates wetlands with disease and decay, both physical and moral. Examples from art, literature, and popular culture show fear and horror of these liminal zones, and link them with corporeal "otherness" that is also mapped onto queerness, disability, alien/foreignness, and the 'monstrous-feminine'. These unruly bodies are suppressed and repressed both physically and culturally, for the sake of troubling and purist notions of cleanliness, health, stability, and optimised economically productive systems. Large-scale drainage projects have been considered great feats of human engineering, converting marginal 'wastelands' into clearly defined zones of water and land, useful for anthropocentric agricultural and urban utilization.

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

Photo: Tim Deussen/ Studio Deussen

The audience was asked to reconsider the urban ecology of Berlin, as a city built on top of river floodplains and former wetlands. The sights, sounds, textures, tastes and smells of this ecology have been formally exiled to the margins of Berlin, but they continue to seep through. This lecture is an invitation to materially and sensorially engage with wetlands, and their potential to unsettle our defensive boundaries between water/land, self/other, living/nonliving, and human/nonhuman.

Photo courtesy Sarah Hermanutz

Photo courtesy Sarah Hermanutz

Photo courtesy Sarah Hermanutz

Photo courtesy Sarah Hermanutz

Sarah Hermanutz is a visual artist working at the intersections of performance, technology, and ecology. Her sculptures, installations, and performance experiments are preoccupied with wetlands, amphibious creatures, and the mysteries of social cognition. She frequently collaborates with dancers, musicians, and audiences to explore the complex and often unspoken social assumptions between the minds and bodies of audiences, performers, and 'props' (both human and nonhuman). Her artistic research takes place in Berlin at Lacuna Lab, an art and technology collective she co-founded in 2015, and in the media arts department of Bauhaus University Weimar. Her performances and projects have been presented across Europe, the USA, and Canada.
http://sarahhermanutz.com/