Impact

Foto: David von Becker

Publications

12

co-speculation workshops

≈ 300

co-speculators

2

exhibitions

8

other knowledge communication formats

5

training programs for researchers & science communicators

We’ve learned a lot as a team over three years of project work. Inspired by our co-creative work with workshop participants and exhibition visitors, many of our activities, research questions, and insights have extended beyond CollActive Materials and made their way into other areas. We believe that the issue at the heart of a project always reveals itself in situations and spaces where it is able to transcend its context. That’s why, alongside our workshops, exhibitions, and publications, we are using this space to present the other forms in which our work has had an impact on us and others.

»mit:forschen!« Citizen Science Platform

Since 2022, CollActive Materials has been represented as a public engagement project on the mit:forschen! platform (formerly Bürger schaffen Wissen), the German network for citizen science.

metaLAB (at) Basel in cooperation with Harvard and FU Berlin

Research residency of Dr. Martin Müller on methods of collaborative speculative design, April 2024. At the invitation of Prof. Dr. Dr. Aylin Yildirim Tschoepe

»Future of Life: Elementals« International Summer School, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design/ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, July 2023

The seminar »Aerial Witness/ing« by Dr. Léa Perraudin, Emilia Tikka, Dr. Martin Müller, and Clemens Winkler, hosted as part of the »Future of Life: Elementals« International Summer School, focused on the materiality of air as highly significant for geopolitical and climatic changes, applying methods such as experimental mapping and speculative material narratives in its approach.

»Histories of Air. Pneuma, Breathing, Aerosol«

Seminar by Dr. Martin Müller, winter semester 2024/2025, Institute for Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

»Damaged Planet. Climate Catastrophe and Cultural theory«

Seminar by Dr. Martin Müller, summer semester 2024, Institute for Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

»Air. Elementary Thinking between Environmental humanities and Material Culture«

Seminar by Dr. Martin Müller, summer semester 2023, Institute for Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Eva Bullermann’s Master’s Thesis

»Gestalten mit Cellulose, Wasser und Luft« (»Designing with Cellulose, Water, and Air«, 2023) – this is the thesis that designer-researcher Eva Bullermann submitted to complete her master’s degree in Textile Design at weißensee kunsthochschule berlin. Her research on this topic was partly inspired by her work as a project assistant in CollActive Materials. Eva Bullermann presented her concepts for designing with biodegradable cellulose at a co-design workshop and as part of a pop-up exhibition in Futurium.

»Playing Emissions«, Participatory Theatrical Performance, bat Studiotheater, June 2023

In »Playing Emissions«, students of the MA program Spiel & Objekt at the Ernst Busch University of Theatre Arts Berlin staged eventful dramaturgies about the futures of air, using means such as body heat, wind, and breathing exercises. The project by Mari Hakopyan, Jonas Olbrich and Vili Pääkö, supervised by Prof. Clemens Winkler, emerged, among other ways, from a collaboration with CollActive Materials.

Future Lab: Where Science Meets Communication, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, October 2023
Keynote speech by Dr. Kristin Werner: »Why? Make Your Science Communication Matter«, 12 October 2023

Leakage: Inaugural Conference of stsing, TU Dresden, 19–22 March 2024

Lecture by Dr. Léa Perraudin on »Subsurfacing Air. Breathing Bodies, Leaks, Bioindicators«, 20 March 2024

Audio Score by Monika Dorniak at »48 Stunden Neukölln«

The audio score (porously) anchored in the peripheries of time was developed by the interdisciplinary artist Monika Dorniak for the exhibition »AIRBOUND«. It was presented as part of her site-specific installation The Shortest Shadow in the »circles, squares, corners, moments, for, 48, hours« exhibition curated by Canberk Akçal for the »48 Stunden Neukölln« festival in 2024.

Designing Interactions, Public Engagement Training Portfolio, Berlin School of Public Engagement, 2024

Antje Nestler and Dr. Kristin Werner contributed to continuing education for future public engagement practitioners with a workshop discussion on designing interactions and speculative co-design that was hosted at the Berlin School of Public Engagement.

Training for Researchers and Public Engagement Practitioners

Dr. Kristin Werner and Antje Nestler were also able to share our experience-based knowledge of science communication, public engagement, and speculation as a co-creative mode of knowledge transfer in their own training sessions: in a workshop at the summer school hosted by the network »Women in Natural Sciences« Adlershof, and in a two-part workshop series for PhD candidates at the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«.
Media Mentions

What is speculative design and how can it help science communication? 01/2023, Video interview on speculative design, Berlin Science Week, Dr. Léa Perraudin and Emilia Tikka

 

Interview on the exhibition »AIRBOUND«: »An der Luft entscheidet sich die globale Klimakrise« (»The Course of the Global Climate Crisis Will Be Decided Through our Relationship with Air«, 10/2023, with Dr. Martin Müller (in German only), Tagesspiegel

 

Besser bauen mit Baumrinde: Vom Abfallprodukt zum Baustoff der Zukunft? April 2024, HU Berlin (German only)

 

»Back to nature – is that actually possible?« Interview with Dr. Martin Müller, WDR 5, Neugier genügt/Freifläche. 13.4.2023.

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