MACHT NATUR
MACHT NATUR
August 13 - September 12
Exhibition Opening: August 13, 2020, 6:30 pm
STATE Studio, Hauptstraße 3, 10827 Berlin
https://www.farming-the-uncanny-valley.net
https://macht-natur.de
Berlin, 22. July 2020
Photo Credit: Samuel Henne
Technological progress has a major impact on our relationship with nature. Boundaries between man, nature and technology are becoming blurry. Raspberry flavor made from bacteria, car tires made from dandelion or antibiotics made of ladybugs: This and much more is framed by the term of bioeconomy. Challenges such as climate change, species extinction and the provision of resources for a growing world population require new solutions and approaches for a sustainable, bio-based economy.
How do we as individuals and as a society deal with the above? How much do we force nature and how much power does nature have over us? What are the boundaries of our lives tomorrow?
These questions call for science, research and society to discuss possible answers, hopes and fears. How can we know what we want, if we don’t know what could be possible?
The focus lies on the feeling of uneasiness, triggered by the development of biotechnology: The uncanny we are confronted with. That recurring moment of indecisiveness, when we cannot simply decide whether something is good or bad or in between.
MACHT NATUR is an exhibition that sees itself as a living laboratory and invites you to join in with all your senses. On a journey through known and unknown territory, visitors can explore the topics of insects, plants, soil and air. Passing by hydroculture plants and a greenhouse, through mosquito nets and wafts of mist, possible futures of man, nature and technology are being renegotiated.
On almost 300 square meters, walk-in installations let visitors experience sceneries from workshop locations. Movieclips, everyday examples and images of the future grant playful access to different perspectives.
The exhibition MACHT NATUR presents results from nine workshops that took place in 2019, in the context of the three-year research project ”Farming the Uncanny Valley”. These workshops have specifically been designed for urban and rural locations to let us uncover the contradictions between our conceptions and actual approaches to nature. Examples from current research were translated into sceneries that make future life with bioeconomy more tangible and open for discussion.
The exhibition showcases how participants approached those sceneries and developed their own views on them. Through these internal conversations, they open up space for discussion to shape standpoints on innovations, possibilities and risks of bioeconomy.
The exhibition is complemented by guided tours, workshops and expert discussions.
The central results of the research project “Farming the Uncanny Valley” will be accessible online and published in the form of a book.
The exhibition will be presented in the context of the “Wissenschaftsjahr Bioökonomie” and has been initiated by Wissenschaft im Dialog (WID) and the German Ministry of Education and Research (BmBF).
Program:
Exhibition Opening: Thursday, 13 August, 2020, 6:30 pm
Digital Opening 13, August, 2020 2pm - 3pm
Curious Minds - ArtScience Monthly - MACHT NATUR: Tuesday, 18 August, 7 pm via Zoom
Wissenschaft Kontrovers with Wissenschaft im Dialog Discussion Round:
with Marc Schetelig, Professor for Insectbiotechnolgy
More speakers to be announced
Moderation: Hanno Burmester
31 August, 7 pm
Between Us and Nature – A Reading Club #32 Begegnung mit Landschaft 22 August | 17:00- 19:00
Finissage: Thursday, September 10, 2020, 6:30 pm
Wednesday 26 August & Thursday 3 September
MACHT NATUR: Guided Tours (English)
Sunday August 16, 2 pm and Wednesday August 19, 6 pm,
Sunday September 6, 6 pm and Wednesday September 9, 2 pm
MACHT NATUR: Interactive Exhibition tour
Thursday 20. and 27. August, 6:30 - 8 pm and Saturday, 5 September, 3:30 - 5 pm
https://state-studio.com/program/machtnatur
Opening hours:
The exhibition can be visited from Tuesday - Friday 12 - 7pm and Saturday - Sunday 12 - 5 pm
Opening hours: The exhibition can be visited from Tuesday - Friday 12 - 7pm and Saturday- Sunday 12 - 5 pm Please register in advance via machtnatur@state-studio.com if you would like a press tour or would like to visit with a larger group (4 persons or more).
We are glad to put you in touch with our scientists and experts for interviews. Filming and photo permission at STATE Studio in Berlin-Schöneberg is available upon request.
Team:
University of the Arts: Jannis Hülsen und Stefan Schwabe
The research project has been instigated by Prof. Joachim Sauter from the New Media and Design department.
Assistant: Sandra Stiehler
Fraunhofer UMSICHT: Sabrina Schreiner, Julia Krayer
STATE Studio: Dr. Christian Rauch, Johanna Teresa Wallenborn, Christina Hooge, Anna-Zoë Schmidt, Dori Sasvari
YOUSE: Dr. Angelika Trübswetter, Jantje Mainzer, Elise Werner Artists Clemens Winkler and Lukas Stopczynski, film director Chris Miera and composer Helmut Zapf are also participating in the exhibition.
Press and Communication:
STATE Studio
Anna-Zoë Schmidt
+49 1786830773
press@state-studio.com
Background:
Farming the Uncanny Valley
"Farming the Uncanny Valley" is a three-year interdisciplinary research project testing new formats of communication and involvement in bioeconomy. Scientists and designers have developed experience-based workshop formats to initiate, evaluate and establish a participatory dialogue with society.
Two-day workshops on insects, landscapes, plants, soil and air with individually designed experiential spaces served as thematic access points to initiate new learning processes and to develop emotions and approaches to be discussed.
In addition to science communication, the project focuses on enabling the public to participate in a dialogue about bioeconomy. The research results of the project will be presented in the exhibition MACHT NATUR and published in print.
The project is initiated by the Berlin University of the Arts and is developed in cooperation with Fraunhofer UMSICHT, YOU.SE and STATE Studio.
Project partner
Universität der Künste (Project Lead)
Berlin University of the Arts is one of the largest and most diversified universities of the arts in the world. The teaching offered mostly in traditional formats in the four colleges of Fine Arts, Architecture, Media and Design, Music and Performing Arts as well as at the Central Institute for Continued Education/ Berlin Career College encompasses the full spectrum of the arts and related academic studies in more than 70 courses. The “New Media Studio”, headed by Prof. Joachim Sauter, is part of the courses Visual Communication as well as Art and Media. The class examines the potential of new technologies and questions their impact on our culture.
Schwabe & Hülsen ( Project Lead and Coordination)
Stefan Schwabe and Jannis Hülsen work as project coordinators and researchers at the Berlin University of the Arts. Their research is located at the intersection of basic research, education and design. They develop communication and participation formats for new technologies as well as sceneries that make the future tangible. A central aspect of their approach is a material-based practice, which essentially includes direct experience to facilitate interdisciplinary communication, stimulate innovation and explore possible effects of technologies that do not yet exist. They exhibited their work in the Victoria & Albert Museum/ London, in the Design Museum/ London, in the National Museum/ Stockholm as well as in the Science Gallery/ Dublin and worked for customers such as Messe Frankfurt, Droog, Art+Com, the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry and the Fraunhofer Center for Responsible Research and Innovation. Both were guest professors at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art in Halle in the winter semester 2016/17.
YOUSE
The SME YOUSE assists companies and research projects with the user-oriented development of products and services. The consistent inclusion of the target user groups and stakeholders in all fields allows us to transfer users' knowledge and feedback to developers and manufacturers of innovative solutions. YOUSE methods are based on many years of experience in Innovation Management, Human Machine Interaction and User Experience research, as well as extensive contact with users and stakeholders. The company was founded in Berlin in 2010 and has grown to about 20 employees since. YOUSE supports a variety of research and industrial projects in the fields of AAL, industry4.0, robotics, nutrition, health and care. Moreover, the portfolio of YOUSE includes ideas and knowledge from workshops, field tests, requirements analysis and assistance in the development of standards and certifications for UX.
Fraunhofer UMSICHT
Fraunhofer UMSICHT was founded in June 1990 with the ideal support of the city of Oberhausen and the local industry as a non-profit technical-scientific institution. Fraunhofer UMSICHT is innovator for sustainable energy and raw materials management by providing and transferring scientific results in companies, society and politics. The committed UMSICHT team researches and develops sustainable products, processes and services together with partners. Participation as a strong transformative force with great potential for new research fields is a great opportunity for Fraunhofer UMSICHT in the further development of science in the sense of responsible research and innovation.
https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de
STATE
STATE is a Berlin-based gallery, festival and creative incubator founded in 2014 by physicist Dr. Christian Rauch with the mission to build programs at the intersection of science, art and innovation in order to help co-create ideas for a sustainable future. In cooperation with partners such as the Fraunhofer Association, United Nations, XPRIZE and Berlin University of the Arts, STATE is dedicated to fostering creativity without borders and creating a vibrant forum for public discourse of current developments in science and technology. Founded in 2018, STATE Studio is an art science gallery and exhibition laboratory in Berlin. In partnership with research institutions and technology companies, it implements prototypically innovative art projects with the aim of testing the expanded context of current developments in science and technology in exhibitions and cultural programs. STATE Studio is an initiative of STATE Experience Science GmbH in cooperation with Wissenschaft im Dialog, the umbrella organization for science communication in Germany.