Category Archives: News

Object of the Month: A marble bust becomes a miniature – a 3D project to mark the 200th birthday of physicist Robert Gustav Kirchhoff

22. March 2024 HZK

Object of the Month 04/2024

A bust of the physicist Robert Gustav Kirchhoff (1824-1887), created in 1888 by the Berlin sculptor Carl Begas, is kept in the stacks of the Kustodie. Until 1929, it stood in the row of other marble busts of honoured professors of the university in the old Aula.
To mark the 200th anniversary of Kirchhoff’s birth, the bust was awakened from its sleep and subjected to a 3D scan. To do this, the work had to be repositioned in the magazine and could be scanned manually without contact using the correct distance, coordinated lighting and a good eye. This difficult task was undertaken by Prof. em. Dr Manfred Paasch, former head of the foundry laboratory at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, and his former colleague Bernhard Bienia.
Using the EVA-Artec optical 3D scanner, the surface of the bust was scanned by means of slow, sweeping and rotating movements. A turntable was also used to reach all surfaces.

When scanning on site, it was important that the individual scans had overlapping areas so that the individual patches could be joined together through many iteration steps. For 3D printing, the data was processed in STL format, a special format for mesh coordinates of three-dimensional data models that depicts the surface of the object using a large number of small triangles.

The 3D printer’s software then had to be used to scale the data and define technological specifications such as layer thickness, extruder temperature, auxiliary geometries (support) and more. Layer by layer, the model with a size of 33% was created from the plasticised plastic – in 27 hours of printing time. Finally, technologically necessary supports and auxiliary structures had to be removed.

A nice gimmick or what’s the point?
The 3D print was initially produced as part of the 200th birthday celebrations of Robert Gustav Kirchhoff. However, the bust of Carl Begas could also be used to honour Kirchhoff’s memory. At the suggestion of the former president of the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Prof. em. Gerhard Ackermann, it could serve as a model for a bust on Kirchhoff’s grave monument that no longer exists today.
It may have been the model for the bronze bust cast by Bernhard Römer in 1889, which is no longer in situ. The marble bust of the HU, which is over 130 years old, could therefore possibly still be an important starting object for a moulding and subsequent bronze casting. The Kirchhoff project thus not only combines old sculptural art with modern digital printing technology, but may also give rise to a new work using traditional hand-casting techniques. The story goes on…

Text and photos: Christina Kuhli/ Manfred Paasch

inherit, News

inherit: New call for Fellows started!

21. March 2024 HZK

The Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation, based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, invites applications from both experienced and early career post-doc researchers for fellowships to begin in October 2025. The application deadline is 29 April 2024.

Applications for fellowships for 2025–6 should address questions of inheritance – such as, its legal, economic, material and biological dimensions and implications; its articulation with generation(s) and related concepts and practices, as well as with certain conceptions of time and space; its mobilization for constructions of identity and, or justifications for exclusions; its visualization or other multimodal renderings; and alternative (‘inheritance otherwise’) or overlapping notions and practices. Applications should also relate to one or more of our guiding themes: decentring the west, decentring the human, and transforming value. Successful projects are likely to be based in original empirical or archival study/analysis of source material (which may have already been undertaken) or creative work.

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply. We also welcome applications from artists, film-makers and curators.

For more information about the call, see https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/open-call

Photo: inherit – Sharon Macdonald & Eva Ehninger. (c) Michelle Mantel

News, Sound Archive

DZK-Project “Towards Sonic Resocialization” at the Lautarchiv

14. March 2024 HZK

The German Lost Art Foundation is funding the research project “Towards Sonic Resocialization” at the Berlin Lautarchiv from 1.3.2024 to 28.2.2026. For the first time, the focus of the research is not on objects but on sound recordings. The Lautarchiv is examining its collection of recordings of prisoners of war from the First World War who were recruited for the armies of European powers in the colonies. These include 456 sound recordings of African prisoners in German camps.

The digitized recordings and the associated historical written documentation are to be shared with the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire in Dakar, Senegal, as well as with other African archives in the future. In the course of this, the existing metadata of the sound archive will also be subject to a critical decolonizing onomastication. This requires questioning and revising the categories and terminologies that emerged in the course of colonisation.

Proactive exchange and cooperation with the respective source communities are particularly important to the project right from the start. Individuals from the countries of origin are employed to translate the recorded texts and documentation. Provenance research is also carried out on the places of origin of the colonial soldiers and genealogical research is conducted to determine possible descendants.

The project aims to create a model for the future handling of colonial heritage in sound archives. In the future, this will be done not only with recordings of speakers from the African continent but also with all colonial recordings in the Lautarchiv.

Shellac record Lautarchiv – Photo © Christopher Li

News, Open Humboldt Freiräume

Time for knowledge exchange with society: Open Humboldt Freiräume funds 2 professors and 1 postdoc

23. February 2024 HZK

The Open Humboldt Freiräume funding line is based at the HZK since summer 2023. The funded projects and researchers of the current call for proposals of the Open Humboldt Freiräume funding line have now been selected. The Open Humboldt Circle of Experts has made a funding recommendation for three applications. The university management has followed this recommendation and will fund the following projects in the summer semester 2024 and winter semester 2024/2025:

Prof. Dr Gökce Yurdakul, Faculty of Cultural, Social and Educational Sciences, Institute of Social Sciences, Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM);
Project: Intersectional Politics: Civil Society Organisations of Immigrants and their Commitment to Refugee Women and Children from Ukraine (INTERSECT) (summer semester 2024)

Prof. Dr iur. Gregor Bachmann, LL.M., Faculty of Law;
Project: Dresscode: Legal dress for civil society (WS 2024/25)

Dr Mats Küssner, Faculty of Cultural, Social and Educational Sciences, Institute of Musicology and Media Studies;
Project: Live Music meets Augmented Reality: Enriching the aesthetic processes of the concert experience with digital technologies (WS 2024/25)

For more information on the funded projects, please visit the Open Humboldt Freiräume website: https://open-humboldt.de/de/projects/open-humboldt-freiraeume/die-freiraeume-preistraeger-innen-2024-2025

The next call for applications will be launched in the summer 2024. The funded researchers will each receive a teaching reduction to 0 SWS for the summer semester 2025 or winter semester 2025/26. The funding line is financed by the Berlin University Alliance.

Time is What you Make of it – Foto © Matthias Heyde

News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: From Invalidenstrasse 110 to Adlershof. A house facade and the morphological model of an ideal crystal

1. February 2024 HZK

Object of the Month 02/2024

The model (see fig. 1) shows the ideal shape of a crystal. This is a combination of three crystal shapes that can be found in the cubic crystal system. The cube catches the eye first because of the size of the faces. In crystallography, it is called a hexahedron because it is bounded by six identical faces. The second form is a tetrahedron (bounded by 4 faces). The third shape is bounded by twelve identical faces and is called a rhombdodecahedron. The individual faces of the three shapes can be given indices. Miller’s indices correspond to the reciprocal values of the intersection points of a given face with the axes x, y and z: In the cubic crystal system these three axes are perpendicular to each other and are of equal length. In case of the rhombdodecahedron, an individual face always intersects two axes in the same ratio, while the third axis is not intersected. The axis intersections are therefore 1 : 1 : ∞. The reciprocal values are 1 : 1 : 0. If the axes are chosen accordingly, Miller indices (110) – say “one one oh” – are obtained for the face oriented towards the observer.

The mathematical consideration of the symmetry properties of crystals can not only be expressed in formulas, some people also see these shapes in completely different contexts. And that brings us to Invalidenstrasse 110: Before the Institute of Physics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin moved to its current location at Campus Adlershof in 2003, it was housed as the Institute of Physics and Electronics in the building Invalidenstrasse 110 at the junction with Chausseestrasse (see photo below right). The Institute of Crystallography with its research focus on crystal growth and crystal characterization was also part of the institute. The crystallography course was supported by an extensive teaching collection. Today, crystallography is part of the specialization in solid state physics in the Master’s degree course in physics. The crystallography teaching collection does further exist.

The facade of the former institute building with its faces parallel to Invalidenstrasse and Chausseestrasse exhibits a 45° cut off at the junction, creating an additional third face in which the main entrance is located. Whether intentional or not: if you lay the axis system along the edges of the building, then the Miller indices of this third face correspond exactly to the house number of the building. What now reads like one of the countless conspiracy stories is probably pure coincidence. It is well known that “one one oh” is also the telephone number of the police, physicists and chemists recognize the element Darmstadtium in it and as a binary system it plays an important role in computer science. And if you do recognize a connection between the ideal shape of a crystal and the facade of the building, it should be noted not only that the building was built in 1981 according to information from the Technical Department, but also that there was an inn called “Zum Kuhstall” at this address before 1920, at least according to research conducted by Foto Marburg.

In December 2023, the HU’s Technical Department handed over the property at Invalidenstrasse 110 to the Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing for the upcoming conversion and refurbishment measures. These are planned to be carried out over the next five years.

Author: Dr. Holm Kirmse

Head of Crystallographic Teaching Collection
Newtonstrasse 15
12489 Berlin

Links
Polyhedron model combination cube-tetrahedron-rhombic dodecahedron in “Sammlungen digital”: https://sammlungen-digital.hu-berlin.de/viewer/image/2949349a-7155-45e2-a88e-57126add8e1a/2/

Corner of Chausseestraße/Invalidenstraße in the Technical Department of the HU: https://www.ta.hu-berlin.de/gebaeude/no:2215 and https://www.hu-berlin.de/de/pr/30-jahre-deutsche-einheit/bildergalerie-damals-und-heute/D2_hu20mh_30Jahre_DSF1544-1.jpg/view

Restaurant “Zum Kuhstall” in photo archive Foto Marburg: https://www.bildindex.de/document/obj20555125

Event, Exhibition, News

THEATRE OF MEMORY – A neuro-acoustic sound network by Tim Otto Roth at TAT

1. February 2024 HZK

In the auditorium of the Tieranatomisches Theater (Veterinary Anatomy Theater), the “Theatre of Memory” forms an extraordinary microtonal ensemble: 70 spherical, colourfully illuminated loudspeakers ‘listen’ to each other and excite or inhibit each other via their characteristic sine tones, analogous to nerve cells.

In the immersive sound laboratory, current neuroscientific research can not only be experienced, but music literally becomes nervous: an entire room is transformed into a network of interacting sounds that reflect the fundamental processes in nerve cells that make us sentient and thinking beings. The walk-in sound space composed of communicating loudspeakers not only makes it possible to immerse yourself in the network structure, but also to interact with it via tones and noises.

Duration of the exhibition: 12 January to 10 March 2024.

Further information about the exhibition can be found on the website of the Tieranatomisches Theater.

Theatre of Memory @ TAT – Photo: (c) Tim Otto Roth, imachination projects, 2023

BUA, News, Research

Research topic “Water”: Call for contributions across all disciplines

17. January 2024 HZK

The Berlin University Alliance (BUA) cordially invites all members of the four partner universities in the design of a joint format as part of Objective 2 “Fostering Knowledge Exchange”. An inter- and transdisciplinary exhibition project with “Water” as its central topic is currently being developed in collaboration with the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HZK) at HU and the Humboldt Labor team for 2025.

To enable the project to incorporate the ideas and expertise of all BUA partners, we would like to get an overview of the research being carried out at the four institutions dealing with the element of water in the narrower and broader sense – for example in terms of the properties of water, its functions e.g. as a catalyst or as a carrier substance, water infrastructures, or water with ecological, political, social, as well as historical, cultural, aesthetic or religious implications.

We look forward to receiving numerous and wide-ranging responses from you, regardless of the stage of your academic career.

We ask all researchers, doctoral candidates and students who feel that this topic isrelevant to them and who would like to contribute to it by sharing their research with a broader public to submit an initial expression of interest here by Feb. 15, 2024.

At this stage we are simply looking to gain an overview of available research and would later on approach you with a shortlist of questions (6 questions). You are of course free to decide at a later stage whether you would like to be more closely involved in this project or not. First of all, we would like to make sure to draw a broad and diverse picture as possible of the lively research at the BUA institutions. We would therefore be very pleased to have you participate in this quest. For further questions please contact Leonie Kubigsteltig or Xenia Muth, working in the field of knowledge exchange at HZK: wasser@berlin-university-alliance.de

Prof. Dr. Eva Ehninger,
on behalf of Objective 2 “Fostering Knowledge Exchange” (BUA)

Expression of interest project “Water”

Image: Interactive curtain in the entrance area of the Humboldt Laboratory © HU / schnellebuntebilder. Photo: Philipp Plum

News, Research, SODa

Project SODa: A data literacy center for scientific university collections

14. December 2023 HZK

Joint project of the Coordination Center for Scientific University Collections in cooperation with the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, the GNM Nürnberg and the IGSD e.V.

The approximately 1,400 scientific collections held by universities and colleges in Germany and used in research and teaching harbor great potential. In order to utilize this potential adequately and in a future-oriented way, both technical data skills and digital infrastructures are required. The joint project “SODa – Collections Objects Data Literacy” will take a decisive step forward here.

Initiated and managed by the Coordination Center for Scientific University Collections in Germany, which is based at the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, SODa will develop and establish a nationwide data literacy center over the course of the next three years. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with 2.84 million euros in the funding line “Aufbau von Datenkompetenzzentren in der Wissenschaft“. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin will receive 1.2 million euros. Partners in the project are the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (GNM) and the Interessengemeinschaft Semantische Datenverarbeitung e.V. (IGSD).

SODa will be predominantly a virtual meeting place for all those who teach and conduct research in and with scientific university collections. Data skills will be taught here via e-learning, at seminars, in working groups or in collaborations. Concepts and methods will be discussed, researched and developed collaboratively.

The primary objective is to establish concepts and knowledge of contemporary research data management that meet the specific requirements of scientific collections and their objects as well as modern criteria of openness, quality, usability and sustainability. This includes knowledge of project management, data formats, technical standards, methods of data enrichment and linking, as well as knowledge and awareness of ethical and legal issues and strategies for long-term availability.

A second focus is the promotion and further development of data-driven research in and with scientific collections, including the fields of data-driven provenance research, restoration and conservation documentation, methods of structured data analysis and methods of automated data evaluation – including AI methods.

For this work, the project will establish a cloud-based data infrastructure for gathering, analyzing, processing, enriching, transforming, linking and sustainable publication of collection and object data. This infrastructure will be available to all users free of charge. SODa will work closely with the other BMBF-funded data literacy centers, with the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and stakeholders from academia and museums.

Prof. Dr. Sharon Macdonald, Director of the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik on SODa: “It was the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin where the material heritage of universities was rediscovered and recognized in the 1990s. It is the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum, which has stood for activating this heritage as a modern infrastructure for research, teaching and transfer with the Coordination Center for Scientific University Collections since 2012. We are delighted that we can use SODa to promote the digital visibility and usability of the collections at all universities and higher education institutions!”

Martin Stricker (martin.stricker@hu-berlin.de, Tel. 030 2093 12879), co-spokesperson of the coordination center and project manager of SODa, will be happy to answer any questions.

News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: “Souvenir from Yokohama” A lacquer album in the scientific collection “Holdings of the Mori-Ōgai Memorial Center”

8. December 2023 HZK

Object of the Month 12/2023

Thanks to a significant donation of historical photographs from Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912), a precious lacquer album has come into the possession of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

It is preserved in the scientific collection “Holdings of the Mori-Ōgai Memorial Center” and is currently being digitized in the media library of the Grimm Center. Fifty coloured albumen prints are mounted on the large-format pages, framed by illustrations lovingly executed in watercolours.

There is no information about the authors of the photographs or their age. It is not known when and how the album came to Europe. The only clue is a delicate entry in pencil on the otherwise blank third page. It reads “Farsari” and thus assigns the object to “Yokohama photography”, which was in demand worldwide at the end of the 19th century.

In the middle of the 19th century, the dynamics of global history had also torn Japan from its “idyllic silence” (Mori Ōgai). After more than two hundred years of self-imposed isolation, the island kingdom opened up to the scientific and technological civilisation of the “West”. Although the tourist discovery of the distant destination was initially difficult, the “Land of the Rising Sun” quickly became a new place of longing for the travelling classes of Europe. Aesthetic currents such as the flourishing Japonism and a zeitgeist increasingly critical of civilisation worked together to passionately imagine the popular destination.

Nach dem Frühstück steigen wir zu den Tempeln empor, über lange Stufenreihen in rauschenden Hainen, durch deren dunkles Laub das Meer hindurchleuchtet. Was Griechenland einmal war aber nicht mehr ist, was man [ … ] von seiner Schönheit träumt, das ist in dieser Landschaft zur Wahrheit geworden.
After breakfast we climb up to the temples, over long rows of steps in rustling groves with the sea shining through the dark foliage. What Greece once was but no longer is, what one dreams [ … ] of its beauty, has become the truth in this landscape.
(Harry Graf Kessler, Diary, 15 April 1892)

As early as the 1860s, European and Japanese photographers had studios in Yokohama – the port city that most travellers used to arrive and depart from. The studios mainly produced for tourists, who purchased individual prints or artistically crafted albums. Felice Beato (1832-1909) is considered the founder of “Yokohama photography”. In the early years of his Japanese creative period, the Italian-British photographer captured impressions of a seemingly magical world that had supposedly barely been touched by Western civilisation. His studio popularised the production of prints on albumen paper. His students and competitors – including Adolfo Farsari (1841-1898) and Tamamura Kōzaburō (1841–1932) – responded to the rapidly growing demand. Initially, genre paintings, and later also coloured landscape views, came onto the market.

The employees who skilfully added colour to these prints brought with them skills from the production of woodcuts. Thanks to the cost-effective process, which delivered detailed and attractive results, tens of thousands of copies were soon being produced and sold overseas every year.

Photography and tourism enjoyed a fruitful interrelationship. Travellers at the end of the 19th century were familiar with images. They formed longings and expectations; they defined what was worth seeing. The demand from Europe and North America, which had been preceded by a lively reception of Japanese woodblock prints, in turn exerted a great influence on the choice of motifs, perspectives and colours. By choosing from thousands of images, tourists were able to compile an album of ‘their’ experiences as souvenirs.

The donation mentioned at the beginning is thanks to a private collector and was made in 2021 in memory of the private banker Moritz Friedrich Bonte (11 July 1847 Magdeburg – 18 July 1938 Berlin). The twelve albums and a total of more than 700 photographs form a valuable source for the work of the Mori-Ōgai Memorial Center, which focuses on the diversity of encounters between Japan and Europe during the transition to modernity. The “Souvenir from Yokohama” and a selection of photographs will be on display in a special exhibition at the Memorial Center from the beginning of 2024. Tokyo Views prepares for the anniversary of the Tokyo-Berlin city partnership next year and looks at the tourist perception of the Japanese metropolis at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It explains contemporary concepts of sightseeing and presents a series of “notable places” (meisho).

Author: Harald Salomon
Scientific director of the Mori-Ōgai Memorial Centre

The information on the photographs was compiled by students of the Institute of Asian and African Studies.

Mori-Ōgai Memorial of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Luisenstr. 39, 10117 Berlin
Phone: 030-2093-66933
E-Mail: mori-ogai@hu-berlin.de
Website: https://www.iaaw.hu-berlin.de/de/region/ostasien/seminar/mori
Opening hours: Tuesdays to Fridays 12pm – 4pm; Thursdays 12pm – 6pm

Sound Archive, News

One master thesis, two bachelor theses on Lautarchiv-related subjects in 2023

7. December 2023 HZK

In 2023, three students successfully completed their master’s or bachelor’s degree with a thesis on a Lautarchiv-related topic.

At Aarhus University, Nikoline Jørgensen has completed a master’s thesis in the Department of Comparative Literature (Prof. Marianne Ping Huang) on the topic ‘A decolonial universal museum? A reading of metamuseal stories of decoloniality at Berlin’s Humboldt Forum’. Nikoline completed a three-month internship at the Lautarchiv the previous year.

Paula Zwolenski successfully completed her bachelor’s degree in Cultural Theory and History at Humboldt University of Berlin (Prof. Christian Kassung) with a thesis on the topic of ‘Sensitive sound recordings from the archive. Attempts at communication and self-location in the audio recordings of the Indian prisoner of war Baldeo Singh’.

Sophie Ehmke successfully completed her bachelor’s degree in Transcultural Musicology at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Prof. Sebastian Klotz) with a thesis on the topic ‘The postcolonial handling of the prisoner of war recordings from the First World War in the Berlin Lautarchiv’.

Congratulations!

All three works may be read on site in the archive’s reference library upon request/appointment. Nikoline Jørgensen’s work is currently only available in Danish (Et decolonialt universelt museum? – En læsning af metamuseale fortællinger om decolonialitet på Berlins Humboldt Forum).

Please contact the head of the Sound Archiv, Dr. Christopher Li.

Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik

Zentralinstitut der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin