Mind the Fungi - Walk and Talk #1

27 October, 2018. The first public event of 'Mind the Fungi', a two-year collaborative project between the Technische Universität Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin exploring the potential of sustainable biomaterials from fungi. Artist Theresa Schubert led the event offering diverse perspectives on the forest and its cultural meaning including a performance. Then, together with biotechnologists from the Institute for Biotechnology | TU Berlin she guided us through forests of the Briesetal, Brandenburg in search of tree mushrooms and lichens. Then on 29 October Bertram Schmidt and Carsten Pohl of the Dept of Applied and Molecular Microbiology, showed participants how to preserve the samples for further study. Participants inoculated Petri dishes with samples for cultivation.    Samples taken will form part of a two-year research project combining cutting edge biological research, citizen science and artistic research.

Briesetal, Brandenburg

Theresa Schubert addressing participants, Briesetal, Brandenburg

'Zunderschwamm' (Fomes fomentarius)

Collecting samples, Briesetal, Brandenburg

At the laboratory of the TU Berlin Dept of Applied and Molecular Microbiology, near Humboldthain

Carsten Pohl and Bertram Schmidt

Looking at Petri dishes previously inoculated with mycelium

Looking at sample biomaterials from mycelium produced by the company Ecovative

Looking at sample biomaterials from mycelium, produced by the company Ecovative

Organising the samples

Preparing the samples for inoculation onto Petri dishes

 

Mind the Fungi is a research project of Art Laboratory Berlin and Prof. Vera Meyer and Prof. Peter Neubauer of the Institute for Biotechnology, Technische Universität Berlin.

Workshop with Špela Petrič: Phytocracy in situ: Prototyping tools for the investigation of plant governance

In connection with the exhibition Strange Encounters with Vegetal Others

How did wheat manage to domesticate the human? From Pollan's perspective-bending "Botany of Desire" to the environmental humanities' "vegetal politics", the entanglements between plants and people are ubiquitous, mundane and often hiding in plain sight. 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, but also playfully oblivious to their axioms and boundaries.

Photo by Miha Tursič

Photo by Miha Tursič

Photo by Miha Tursič

The open session invites participants to reflect on plant governance as governance of plants by joining in a fast and funny tool prototyping session to investigate the river Panke in the vicinity of Art Laboratory Berlin. The exercise connects to a wider questioning of artistic methodologies, mediations, narratives, with which we try to convey experiences with the vegetal that often escape words.

Photo by Miha Tursič

Photos by Art Laboratory Berlin unless otherwise noted

The workshop is based on Deep Phytocracy: Feral Songs, the work-in-progress Petrič has been developing at Nida Art Colony, Lithuania and Osmoza, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

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

Opening: Strange Encounters with Vegetal Others Špela Petrič

Slovenian artist Špela Petrič approaches art production with a background in Hybrid Arts as well as a PhD in Biochemistry. These dual epistemological approaches inform her work with the Plant Kingdom as part of a multi-species collaboration exploring the ontologies, methodologies, ethics and practices of care involved in our relationship to the vegetal. Her first solo show in Berlin will give an insight into her multi-species endeavour.

Plants Sex Consultancy - Špela Petrič, Pei Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis and Jasmina Weiss

Plant Sex Consultancy - Photo by Miha Tursič

Strange Encounters: Metaühysics. Algae and Carcinoma. Photo by Miha Tursič

Photo by Miha Tursič

Photo by Miha Tursič

Photo by Miha Tursič

Background: Skotopoeisis - Špela Petrič, Photo by Miha Tursič

Photos by Art Laboratory Berlin unless otherwise noted.

More information on the exhibition: http://www.artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-exh-archive.htm

Preparing for 'Strange Encounters with Vegetal Others'

Slovenian artist Špela Petrič approaches art production with a background in Hybrid Arts as well as a PhD in Biochemistry. These dual epistemological approaches inform her work with the Plant Kingdom as part of a multi-species collaboration exploring the ontologies, methodologies, ethics and practices of care involved in our relationship to the vegetal. Her first solo show in Berlin will give an insight into her multi-species endeavour.

The green kingdom, upon which we depend for our very survival, functions on a radically different biological basis from us: seemingly inert, literally vegetative and endowed with unexplored forms of intelligence. Yet science reveals an intricate world of mysterious chemical conversations, interspecies networks and non-centralised operations alien from our own existence. Through her work Petrič proposes novel modes of human-plant communication, intercognition and exchange. 

Strange Encounters with Vegetal Others
Špela Petrič

Opening: 21 September 2018
Workshop (registration necessary: register@artlaboratory-berlin.org ): 22 September 2018, 1-6PM
Exhibition runs 22 September - 18 November 2018
Fri- Sun, 2-6 pm and by appointment

NOW. A Kinetic Life

Bidisha Das and Thomas Heidtmann

Friday, 3 August 2018, 8PM
Performance, 9pm

Sat, 4 August 2018
Open: 2 – 6pm

Sun, 5 August, 2018
Open: 2 – 6pm
Artists Talk with Bidisha Das & Thomas Heidtmann, 3pm

NOW – A Kinetic Life 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. It is an expression of the ever-changing moment we are living in: NOW.The installation brings in sounds from all these spaces in real-time to a modular synthesizer, the heart of the proposed installation, that Das has created exclusively for the project. The synthesizer is accompanied by CubeSat-like objects that are part of Heidtmann’s "Place in Orbit" project, wearable gloves and plants with sensors.

The experience is like having multiple ears aimed at different directions and in various locations at the same time. The real-time data from the spaces and the output result are unique each time it is performed: Natural sounds and sounds from the universe, all merging together – life, that is thriving everywhere and binding us together to live in the moment, NOW.

Thomas Heidtmann a Berlin-based media artist, studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. He is co-founder of Lacuna Lab e.V. as well as the founder of the Space Art Hackathon SPARTH and the Space Art Community SPARTHabitat. In his internationally presented works Heidtmann examines forms and expressions of exploration, collaboration, and communication. He is fascinated by space technologies, mirrors, and questions of visibility and observation.

Bidisha Das is an artist and explorer with an interest in Art and Science. Fascinated both in nature and technology, her medium of communication varies from sound to film, forest to the sky above, human beings to animal world and the like. Das graduated from Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore. Her work has explored sound-art practices at the Indian Sonic Research Organization, Bangalore and she has performed at the HKW in Berlin. She has also been a team participant at Caltech-NASA to initiate a manned asteroid mission and has spent months in Indian forests and Peruvian Amazon doing conservation works.

NOW. A Kinetic Life is made possible through the bangaloREsidency-Expanded programme by the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore in collaboration with Lacuna Lab e.V.