Kältebilder. Ästhetik und Erkenntnis am Gefrierpunkt (Ed. Matthias Bruhn)
Bildwelten des Wissens – Band 17 Edited by Katja Müller-Helle, Claudia Blümle, Horst Bredekamp and Matthias Bruhn
As means of preservation, low-temperature technologies have always been of paramount importance to humankind’s culture, but it was not until the industrial age that processes of artificial cooling were developed, which soon became a fundamental element of civilization. Henceforth, it shaped the production and form of knowledge: Frozen motion became a metaphor for slowed recording; modern computing or various imaging techniques required cryogenics. Forms of ice-cold observation, however, are contrasted by losses of visibility due to frost or precipitation, just as the artificial lowering of temperatures continues to fuel climate change precisely through its energy consumption. In every respect, cooling technology is reaching new all-time heights and lows – with extensive consequences for knowledge and perception.
The book title “Eine Frage der Perspektive” addresses several highly topical issues at the same time: On the one hand, the volume negotiates the gain of knowledge from an object through its mere contemplation; on the other hand, it is precisely the change of perspective on an object that helps to formulate scientific working hypotheses and theories. The volume illustrates how today’s perspectives are taken into account when old objects and their collection contexts are examined under new ethical and moral values. Thus, the classic object topics in this volume are joined by the view of provenance research, artistic object debate, autoethnographic object description, and the question of how broadly the concept of a museum object can be defined at all and how categorization and naming should be done accordingly. The object histories included here, in particular, cut a wide swath from research content to its mediation. This volume brings together eleven contributions by young scholars from the fields of museology, archival studies, ethnology, the history of physics, medicine, theater, human anatomy, mathematics education, geology, paleontology, and the liberal arts. They all focus on the consideration of collection objects from different perspectives. The contributions clearly show that objects can convey science excellently, often more vividly than texts or images can. Object-based knowledge transfer promotes a representational and thus often more easily understandable science. This link from object to research to reflection on research is the strength of this fifth volume of the Young Forum for Collection and Object Research.
Authors:
Frank D. Steinheimer Waltraud Mudrich Sarah Fetzer Daniel Falk Michael Stache Anja Weber Sophia Gräfe Julia Bärnighausen Henrike Stein Beate Eismann Leonie Braam Hannes Junker Sara Müller Johanna Lessing
What are active materials? This book aims to introduce and redefine conceptions of matter by considering materials as entities that ›sense‹ and respond to their environment. By examining the modeling of, the experiments on, and the construction of these materials, and by developing a theory of their structure, their collective activity, and their functionality, this volume identifies and develops a novel scientific approach to active materials. Moreover, essays on the history and philosophy of metallurgy, chemistry, biology, and materials science provide these various approaches to active materials with a historical and cultural context.
The interviews with experts from the natural sciences included in this volume develop new understandings of ›active matter‹ and active materials in relation to a range of research objects and from the perspective of different scientific disciplines, including biology, physics, chemistry, and materials science. These insights are complemented by contributions on the activity of matter and materials from the humanities and the design field.
Discusses the mechanisms of active materials and their various conceptualizations in materials science.
Redefines conceptions of active materials through interviews with experts from the natural sciences.
Contextualizes, historizes, and reflects on different notions of matter/materials and activity through contributions from the humanities.
A highly interdisciplinary approach to a cutting-edge research topic, with contributions from both the sciences and the humanities.
Authors:
Peter Fratzl Karin Krauthausen Michael Friedman Wolfgang Schäffner
The Open Access eBook was published on December 20th, 2021, and is available here. The paperback can be ordered on the De Gruyter homepage, too.
Digital launch of the book-as-exhibition zwischen körpern
On 19.03.2021 the Kleine Humboldt Galerie celebrates the launch and vernissage of zwischen körpern, the book-as-exhibition!
Via a livestream, visitors can immerse themselves in video works from 2 pm onwards, take part in guided tours by curators and graphic designers of the exhibition and publication, join a conversation with the Berliner K. Verlag, and much more.
Program 15.00 h / Q&A with the K. publishing house 16.00 h / Guided tours by curators 16.45 h / Video stream of Carolina Caycedo 17.15 h / Video stream by Marco Buetikofer and Lotte Meret 17.30 h / Video stream by Kirstin Burckhardt 18.00 h / Video stream of Theresa Schubert 18.30 h / Cocktails 🍸 19.00 h / Pub Quiz 20.30 h / Sin Maldita A/V Performance
Exhibition zwischen körpern An exhibition in the format of a book – from March 19, 2021 to April 30, 2021.
zwischen körpern negotiates the physical body as the starting and ending point into which society inscribes itself. Various mechanisms of control are examined, which affect diverse bodies in very different ways. The focus is on the impact and experienceability of control on and of the body: bodies are consciously or unconsciously modeled and also controlled by historical and social circumstances. The body is understood as a venue for political struggles, which is why emancipation strategies and self-empowerment processes take on a central role. To what extent are the carnal and new technologies interwoven and what role do intimacy and social constraints play? Eleven contemporary positions investigate these complex dynamics by means of sculpture, spatial installation, video, photography, and performance. As with the selection of artworks, corporeality is reflected and critically questioned from a decolonial and intersectional-feminist perspective.
Publication zwischen körpern / among bodies
How our bodies see, are seen, and behave with and among other bodies, is inevitably political. To move the body is also always to insist on meaning — just as meaning is always in movement.
The book-as-exhibition presents ten contemporary art positions that each explore the complex and intimate dynamics that expose our bodies to new technologies, social pressures, and desires for liberation. As curatorial experiment within the micro-architecture of the book, the project initiates singular relays from sculpture, installation, video, photography, and performance to paper that enable parallel engagements with decolonial and intersectional feminist perspectives.
Book concept by Kleine Humboldt Galerie Curatorial-editorial team: Franziska Dommers, Lotta Feibicke, Nikolas Geier, Eileen Kesseler, Patricia Kühn, Anna Latzko, Monique Machicao y Priemer Ferrufino, Sarah Marcinkowski, Katharina Ripea, Evelyn Sutter, Nicole Wittmann, and Yuanwen Zhong. With artworks by Kirstin Burckhardt, Marco Buetikofer, Carolina Caycedo, Stine Deja, Lotte Meret Effinger, Ester Fleckner, Yngve Holen, Luisa Krautien, Michael Liani, Theresa Schubert, and Zuzana Svatik; additional texts by Michaela Dudley, Felix Sattler, and others; and a glossary of terms by the curators. Design: K. Verlag with Ginny Rose Davis and Megan Ricca
German & English Wendebuch / turning book 196 pages 20 x 29.7 cm Black/white with purple Pantone spot color & full-color image section Softcover, Swiss binding ISBN 978-3-947858-22-4 https://k-verlag.org/books/zwischen-korpern-among-bodies
Technical image censorship is omnipresent and invisible at the same time. Content moderation in social media and automatic deletions by algorithms create a new kind of association of human and non-human actors that trigger shifts in image ethics and jurisprudence in the field of visibility. Whereas traditional institutions of censorship regulated the sphere of action of dangerous images through legal and religious norms, today it is automated mechanisms controlled by international corporations that govern socio-technical scripts of image deletion. In the public sphere of technical image worlds, visibility markers of deletion – such as censor bars or pixelation – are being replaced by upload filters, content moderators or deepfakes. In this experimental phase of digital modernity, it is once again being renegotiated in technical, social, juridical and image-theoretical terms which images circulate in the data stream, disappear from view or never reach the light of day.
On the occasion of the exhibition Oliver Thie: Die Wahrheit über den Ursprung der Welt a companion volume has been published.
For over two hundred years, a collection of inconspicuous gray basalt boulders has been stored in Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde. They are evidence of a heated controversy in the 18th century about the origin of the earth, the so-called basalt controversy. Oliver Thie has artistically researched them in an interdisciplinary dialogue with scientists from the Humboldt University and the Museum of Natural History. By combining recording techniques of historical measuring instruments with shadow projections, Oliver Thie developed his very own pictorial method for fixing shadow images, a kind of “drawing excavation” in which the shadows of the stones are worked out of paper covered with soot. The contributions by Claudia Blümle, Angela Strauß, and Felix Sattler collected in this volume contextualize Oliver Thie’s work in terms of art history, the history of science, and museum studies. The illustrated book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Oliver Thie: The Truth about the Origin of the World at the Tieranatomisches Theater, October 1 – December 30, 2020.
Sattler, Felix and Oliver Thie (eds.): Oliver Thie: Die Wahrheit über den Ursprung der Welt With contributions by Claudia Blüme, Angela Strauß and Felix Sattler Publication date: October 1, 2020. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 44 pages, in full colour, Cover silkscreen printing with lampblack on glassine 1st edition 800 copies
