EXC 2025/1: Matters of Activity. Image Space Material
A ground-breaking event of the 21st century is and will be the re-invention of the analogue in the digital age. Its core is a new active materiality which is beginning to transform research and everyday life. In the future, techniques will no longer be based on the idea of passive tools and materials that need human- and machine-centred agency to make them move and work. Materials are now increasingly perceived as physical and symbolic agents. This challenges traditional concepts of image, space, and material, which are increasingly seen as interrelated, inseparable carriers and agents of information. The aim of the Cluster “Matters of Activity” is to provide the foundations for a new culture of active materiality, enabling the development of sustainable, energy-saving artefacts and techniques by focusing on their active spaces and symbolic forms. The inseparability of active images, spaces, and materials makes the endeavour inherently interdisciplinary, requiring historical analysis, experimental and design-oriented research, as well as the scrutiny of its practical and theoretical consequences. The humanities, natural sciences, engineering, and design disciplines will be equal partners. The Cluster also envisions a new role for “Gestaltung” in all disciplines as an integral part of materials development, given the increasing abundance of materials and visualisation tools available. Through exemplary research projects, the Cluster will systematically explore design strategies for materials and structures that are capable of adapting to specified challenges, investigate traditional processes (such as filtering, weaving, and cutting), and interrogate the confluence of dynamic visual representations, geometry, and symbolic forms within matter. The Cluster will establish an integrative and flexible infrastructure that builds on the legacies of previous design institutions including the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm and the Black Mountain College by focusing on making, thinking, and experimenting. Combining the legacies of the 200-year history of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the 100-year history of the Bauhaus, the Cluster “Matters of Activity” will be a dynamic interdisciplinary laboratory. Advancing the existing Cluster “Image Knowledge Gestaltung”, where formats for interdisciplinary collaboration have already been established, it will be located in the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques, an interdisciplinary faculty of HU Berlin. The Cluster will also expand academic research and teaching by using the open Humboldt-Labor as a new platform for interacting with the public in the Humboldt Forum. As a thriving creative centre with numerous research facilities, design academies, collections and museums, and an internationally acclaimed start-up and design scene, Berlin is an eminently suitable location for an endeavour of this kind.
Further project members
Participating organisational units of HU Berlin
Participating external organisations
Financer
Duration of project
Start date: 01/2019
End date: 12/2025
Research Areas
Publications
Busch, C., Kassung, C., Sieck, J., eds. 2019. Kultur und Informatik - Virtual History and Augmented Present. Glückstadt: VWH.
Fekonja, L., Wang, Z., Bährend, I., Rosenstock, T., Rosler, J., Wallmeroth, L., Vajkoczy, P., Picht, T. 2019. »Manual for clinical language tractography.« Acta Neurochir (Wien) 161 (6): 1125-1137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-019-03899-0
Margiotoudi, K., Allritz, M., Bohn, M., Pulvermüller, F. 2019. »Sound symbolic congruency detection in humans but not in great apes.« Scientific Reports 9 (1): 12705. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49101-4
Mirbagheri, A., Schneider, H., Zdunczyk, A., Vajkoczy, P., Picht, T. 2019. »NTMS mapping of non-primary motor areas in brain tumour patients and healthy volunteers.« Acta Neurochirurgica 162, 407–416. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-019-04086-x
Nyakatura, J. A., Baumgarten, R., Baum, D., Stark, H., Youlatos, D. 2019. »Muscle internal structure revealed by contrast-enhanced μCT and fibre recognition: The hindlimb extensors of an arboreal and a fossorial squirrel.« Mammalian Biology 99: 71-80. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2019.10.007
Raffa, G., Picht, T., Angileri, F. F., Youssef, M., Conti, A., Esposito, F., Cardali, S. M., Vajkoczy, P., Germano, A. 2019. »Surgery of malignant motor-eloquent gliomas guided by sodium-fluorescein and navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation: a novel technique to increase the maximal safe resection.« J Neurosurg Sci, 63(6):670-8. https://doi.org/10.23736/S0390-5616.19.04710-6
Raffa, G., Picht, T., Scibilia, A., Rosler, J., Rein, J., Conti, A., Ricciardo, G., Cardali, S. M., Vajkoczy, P., Germano, A. 2019. »Surgical treatment of meningiomas located in the rolandic area: the role of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation for preoperative planning, surgical strategy, and prediction of arachnoidal cleavage and motor outcome.« J Neurosurg, 10.3171/2019.3.JNS183411: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3171/2019.3.JNS183411
Roschger, A., Roschger, P., Wagermaier, W., Chen, J., van Tol, A. F., Repp, F., Blouin, S., Berzlanovich, A., Gruber, G. M., Klaushofer, K., Fratzl, P., Weinkamer, R. 2019. »The contribution of the pericanalicular matrix to mineral content in human osteonal bone.« Bone 123: 76-85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bone.2019.03.018
Tomasello, R., Kim, C., Dreyer, F. R., Grisoni, L., Pulvermüller, F. 2019. »Neurophysiological evidence for rapid processing of verbal and gestural information in understanding communicative actions.« Scientific Reports 9 (1): 16285. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-52158-w
Weinkamer, R., Eberl, C., Fratzl, P. 2019. »Mechanoregulation of Bone Remodeling and Healing as Inspiration for Self-Repair in Materials.« Biomimetics 4 (3). https://doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics4030046
Weinkamer, R., Kollmannsberger, P., Fratzl, P. 2019. »Towards a Connectomic Description of the Osteocyte Lacunocanalicular Network in Bone.« Current Osteoporosis Reports 17 (4): 186-194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11914-019-00515-z
