Wunschgarten: Wild Urban Offshoots. Workshop 4.09.2010

Photos by Olga Shmakova. Copyright 2010

Artists in Dialog. Wunschgarten: Wild Urban Offshoots

Alex Toland

Myriel Milicevic

Photos 5 and 8 by Art Laboratory Berlin

All other photos by Olga Shmakova. Copyright 2010

Artists in Dialog: Alex Toland und Myriel Milicevic - Wunschgarten: Wild Urban Offshoots

Opening 27 August 2010, 8PM

28 August 2010 - 26 September 2010,
Fri-Sun 2-6PM and by appointment

Workshop 4 September 2010, 2-6PM
(registration necessary - info@artlaboratory-berlin. org)

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Wunschgarten: Wild Urban Offshoots by the artists Alex Toland and Myriel Milicevic - the second exhibition in our ongoing series Artists in Dialog. Each exhibition in Artists in Dialog takes the form of a discourse between two artists, whose work has a common point of contact (e.g. aesthetics, theme or process). Alex Toland and Myriel Milicevic both work on the border between art and life and environmental sciences. Toland considers the project 'habitat hacking' and Milicevic describes the project as 'reconstructing cross-species life worlds'. Together they have chosen the immediate area around Art Laboratory Berlin (the Soldiner Kiez) as a place to investigate interactions between the local human population and urban flora and fauna. The exhibition space will function as a laboratory for mapping, sketching, modelling and prototyping.

Wunschgarten is a series of dialogues: betweenthe artists and the local community, between city dwellers and nature, between urban planning and urban wilderness. As cities creep further into wild landscapes, the wild moves into cities. Urban habitats are places where plants and animals take up residence alongside people. Too often though, space for nature is sealed off by concrete constructions, resulting in a marked divide between the space occupied by humans and the rest of the biotic community. The Wunschgarten is an exploration of the city's wild features and creatures, and a vision of utopian measures that reach beyond existing mitigation schemes and municipal green-space planning. The city becomes a garden of unexpected edible opportunities and ideas to incubate and explode. The first offshoots of the Wunschgarten are found poking out of sidewalks and courtyards in Berlin's Soldiner Kiez, where the artists have redrawn the natural and urban landscape as a map that connects the area's human, animal, and plant populations. A common ground for interspecies exchange is found along the Panke and its lush riverbanks that spill out into the surrounding neighbourhood. (more information)

Evolution Haute Couture
Talk und film screening mit Dmitry Bulatov
01 Juli 2010, 19h


Garnet Hertz (USA) "Cockroach-Controlled Mobile Robot", 2006

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to present a collection of documentary films about artworks recently created using the latest twenty-first century technologies: artificial life, robotics, bio and genetic engineering. The screening has been organized by the curator and artist Dmitry Bulatov in conjunction with the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Kaliningrad branch, Russia).

The films document artworks whose medium is living or lifelike matter, and the properties of living organisms and technologically reproduced artefacts are combined to produce the method. Art created under these new conditions of post-biology - that is, under conditions of artificially generated life - cannot avoid making this artificiality its explicit theme. We are thus again confronted with the question of the relationship between art and life in a completely new context defined by biological and abiological creations, works, and beings.

This collection is the first comprehensive overview of the current stage of contemporary techno-biological art. It provides a panorama of artistic strategies for granting and withdrawing the gift of authenticity. The analysis of these strategies opens up new possibilities for creative production and cultural commentary. In 2009 the Evolution Haute Couture project won the National Innovation Prize (Moscow, Russia), awarded annually for achievements in contemporary visual arts.

The film screening also coincides with the first volume of the anthology Evolution Haute Couture: Art and Science in the Post-Biological Age. Edited by Dmitry Bulatov. Book plus two DVD-ROMs collection (45 video documentaries), KB NCCA, Kaliningrad, 2009. (ISBN: 978-5-94620-054-7). This publication is supported by The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, The Ford Foundation (The Moscow Office, Russia), The Dynasty Foundation (Moscow). Web site: www.videodoc.ncca-kaliningrad.ru/eng/

SCREENING PROGRAM

Bill Vorn, Emma Howes, Jonathan Villeneuve (Canada) "Grace State Machines" (7'40")
The Tissue Culture & Art Project (TC&A): Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (Australia) "NoArk" (7'51")
Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha (The Netherlands) "Morphology / Face-Shift" (10'45")
Ken Rinaldo (USA) "The Autotelematic Spider Bots" (10'56")
Stelarc (Australia) "Extra Ear: Ear On Arm" (5'12")
Joe Davis (USA) "Making Fire" (10'25")
Marcel-li Antunez Roca (Spain) "Epizoo" (3'21")
Erwin Driessens and Maria Verstappen (The Netherlands) "Tickle Salon" (8'16")
Julie Freeman (United Kingdom) "The Lake" (5'00")
Laura Beloff (Finland) "The Fruit Fly Farm" (8'42)
Marta de Menezes (Portugal) "DECON" (9'00")
Paula Gaetano Adi (Argentina) "Alexitimia - an autonomous robotic agent" (7'08")
Paul Granjon (France) "Sexed Robots" (4'18")
SymbioticA Group (Australia) and The Potter Lab (USA) "MEART - The Semi Living Artist" (7'28")
Floris Kaayk (The Netherlands) "Metalosis Maligna" (7'26")

The screening will follow a short introduction by Dmitry Bulatov, and afterwards there will be a panel discussion with Dmitry Bulatov, Elena Ryabkova (Museum of the World Ocean, Kaliningrad, Russia), and Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin).

More information:
http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/home_eng.htm
http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-events-archive.htm

This project is presented in cooperation with the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Kaliningrad branch, Russia).

Artists Talk by Heidi Hove and Jens Axel Beck

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to invite you to an artist talk with Heidi Hove and Jens Axel Beck in conjunction with our current exhibition Artists in Dialog: 2^-1/4-n/2 x 2^1/4-n/2 . The artists will talk about the project as well as other works they have done before.

"We have been invited to take part in Artists in Dialog, a new concept for an exhibition series initiated by Art Laboratory Berlin. Our contribution is a project, which can partly be described as an exhibition, and as an office/workshop. Within these settings, we have set up a system of rules for ourselves for engaging with the surroundings of Art Laboratory Berlin in Wedding, the exhibition space in itself and our individual practices.

"We have chosen to work with the A4 paper as a material and with a certain limited amount of office working tools, thereby creating a range of elements and projects to be displayed in the gallery.

"Working ad hoc and dealing with the unexpected limitations of the working tools in the office, we have started working on various projects that take their starting points in themes that we usually work with in our individual practices, but also where we think we can meet or clash - such as memory, history, traces, tags and surfaces as well as the standard vs. the individual." (Heidi Hove & Jens Axel Beck, Berlin, Mai 2010)

Both Heidi Hove and Jens Axel Beck are interdisciplinary artists, whose practice includes sculptural objects and installations as well as architectural, spatial and social interventions. A point of convergence in their work is a focus on daily life and the public and private spaces that we daily travel through. Their work examines how we navigate and organise ourselves in the world. Through simple and diverse manipulations, the daily and the recognisable are brought out of their regular condition. Thus common and ordinary objects are manipulated, copied and placed in new connections for the purpose of changing the meaning or perception of how we look and deal with these in our daily lives. In addition, humour plays an important role in their work, and it is often used to start a dialogue with the viewer.

Artists in Dialog

2^-1/4-n/2 x 2^1/4-n/2
Heidi Hove & Jens Axel Beck
29 May - 27 June, 2010
Artist talk 12 June, 2010

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to invite you to the exhibition 2^-1/4-n/2 x 2^1/4-n/2 by the Danish conceptual artists Heidi Hove and Jens Axel Beck – the first exhibition in our new series Artists in Dialog.

(more information)

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to invite you to the exhibition 2^-1/4-n/2 x 2^1/4-n/2 by the Danish conceptual artists Heidi Hove and Jens Axel Beck – the first exhibition in our new series Artists in Dialog.

Each exhibition in Artists in Dialog will take the form of a discursive examination between two artists, whose work has a common point of contact (e.g. in aesthetics, theme or process). The exhibition will be based around each artist interacting with the other's artistic position. It is our intention that their artworks come together not through a series of traditional curatorial (and hierarchical) decisions, but that the artists, working together, find a specific form of display for their own and each other's works. Thus, this form of exhibition as dialog will present an additional phenomenon: both artists will take part intensively in the curatorial aspect of the project, breaking down traditional barriers between artistic and curatorial production.

The exhibition title 2^-1/4-n/2 x 2^1/4-n/2 is the formula for calculating the dimensions of the paper sizes in the ISO A series. At Art Laboratory Berlin the A4 will be the basic element for building up the exhibition. Literally speaking, the exhibition space will take form as a laboratory and office setting, where the artists will gather material and information from the Internet. Different materials will be printed out and copied on A4 paper. Both artists will go through each other's pile of papers and choose material for presentation. Their working progress will begin in the week before the opening (28 May) and continue in the days thereafter.
(more information)

Exhibition views from
OFF FENCE. Art on the Californian-Mexican Border
http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-exh-17.htm


works by Michelle Chong, Luis G. Hernandez and Ed Gomez.
(All photos in this post by Tim Deussen/ fotoscout.de)


Find Yourself Here, by Michelle Chong
(also at http://michellechong.com/findyourselfhere/)


Americanista, by Ed Gomez


Los, by Luis G. Hernendez


Caution: the Freeway Interventions by Camilo Ontiveros


Caution: the Freeway Interventions by Camilo Ontiveros


TRANS-poster by Michelle Chong


Tijuana Girl Crossing by Katya Gardea Browne


Tijuana Girl Crossing by Katya Gardea Browne


(All photos in this post by Tim Deussen/ fotoscout.de)

Artist talk with Michelle Chong from 25 April, 2010
now on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWqSeej-JYc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mlnwv9IpgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjgjNikCs-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSuwPotn-kU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0xdVvU542Y

Talk by Michelle Chong, 25 April, 2009


OFF FENCE. Art on the Californian-Mexican Border is an artistic platform with five positions, exploring the cultural overflow, overlap and tensions in the border region of Southern California and Northwest Mexico.

The artists from Los Angeles and Mexico City each deal with the theme of the border and its effects on Mexican and Mexican-American identity in uniquely different ways. Michelle Chong and Luis G. Hernandez produce prints and net.art works which investgate ethnic identity from a linguistic perspective. The video and photography work of Ed Gomez and Camilo Ontiveros artistically reflect the political and economic impact of cultural disruption and division. The video work of Katya Gardea Browne processes physical and geographic structures and reflects the formal aspects of borders as such. (more Information...)

Exhibition view (left, Trans-poster 2010, Michelle Chong, right, Caution: the Freeway Interventions, 2005, Camilo Ontiveros)


Exhibition view (left, Americanista, Ed Gomez, 2008, right Los, 2009 Luis G. Hernandez)


Caution: the Freeway Interventions, Camilo Ontiveros, 2005


Caution: the Freeway Interventions, Camilo Ontiveros, 2005


Exhibition view (Tijuana Girl Crossing, 2008, Katya Gardea Brown)


Exhibition view (Tijuana Girl Crossing, 2008, Katya Gardea Brown)


Exhibition view (Find Yourself Here, 2009, Michelle Chong)

OFF FENCE. Art at the Californian-Mexican Border
Vernissage 23 April 2009


Michelle Chong and Regine Rapp ( From Here to There, 2010, by Luis G. Hernandez in background)










(background Tijuana Girl Crossing by Katya Gardea Browne, right, TRANS Poster, Michelle Chong)

OFF FENCE. Art on the Californian-Mexican Border
Michelle Chong, Katya Gardea Browne, Ed Gomez, Luis G. Hernandez, Camilo Ontiveros.

Opening: Friday, 23 April, 2010, 8 PM
Artist Talk with Michelle Chong: Sunday, 25 April, 2010, 4PM

The exhibition runs 24 April - 22 May, 2010
Open: Fri - Sun, 2-6PM


left Camilo Ontiveros, CAUTION: the freeway interventions (2005); right Katya Gardea Browne, Tijuana Girl Crossing (2009)

Art Laboratory Berlin is pleased to announce OFF FENCE. Art on the Californian-Mexican Border, an exhibition project produced in cooperation with the Los Angeles based curating team SHORT HOUSE. OFF FENCE is an artistic platform for exploring the cultural overflow, overlap and tensions in the border region of Southern California and Northwest Mexico. The exhibition uses the city of Los Angeles, the largest urban center of this region as a starting point for working on themes of migration, ethnicity and cross-cultural influences between Mexico and Southern California. A major topic in the exhibition is the Mexico-US border itself. The artists in OFF FENCE have each taken individual approaches to both the border and its implications for Mexican and Mexican-American identity. Michelle Chong and Luis G. Hernandez's works explore ethnic identity from a linguistic viewpoint. The work of Ed Gomez and Camilo Ontiveros deals with the political and economic effects of cultural rupture. The work of Katya Gardea Browne, an artist from Mexico City, explores the personal, physical and geographic structures that dominate the border region. (more information) In Cooperation with SHORT HOUSE, Los Angeles, http://shorthouse.info/