Following two years of social distancing and isolation Art Laboratory Berlin will devote 2022 exploring what social possibilities can be thawed and revived. The project series Hacking, Making, Thinking proposes that Doing it With Others (DIWO) can be a way of rebuilding and re-energizing damaged social relations. After a period when most of us have been reliant on corporate technologies, Open (source) knowledge will form a basis for making and thinking. Above all we are interested in an open culture based on reciprocity, cooperation and exchange on a global level. Combining Berlin based artists and venues with guest artists from Latin America and Southeast Asia this project proposes art making as a tool for social empowerment and knowledge acquisition, collaboration, and working together. In context of the group exhibition Hackers, Makers, Thinkers Art Laboratory Berlin in collaboration with the Weizenbaum Institute (UdK Berlin) and The Einstein Center Digital Future (TU Berlin) welcomes you to an interdisciplinary international conference.

The hybrid conference offers a complex layer of insights into the various practices with presentations by the exhibited artists and guest speakers from the artistic and curatorial practice, design, biology and anthropology. Diverse contributions critically elaborate on various artistic approaches towards (agri)culture, farming and social fermentation. A special emphasis will also have a viral discourse in connection with food and performance. The discussion will then evolve around the phenomenon of symbiosis, discussing cyanobacteria and bio-politics, including various approaches of hacking. Speakers additionally reflect critically on culture-political, post-colonial and sound-related phenomena related to khipu, human-computing, open AI as well as sound art and noise.

CONFERENCE DAY 1 PROGRAM

Friday, 27 May 2022 @ designtransfer, Berlin University of the Arts, Einsteinufer 43, 10587 Berlin | on-site with livestream

10:30 CET
Doors Open / Registration
11:00 CET
Conference Introduction

Intro into HMT | Art Laboratory Berlin
Statement | UdK Berlin – TU Berlin

11:30 – 13:00 CET
Panel A | Hacking Food Narratives

keywords: hacking(agri)culture, viral #socialfermenation, foodperformance

RBSC Rice Brewing Sisters Club (Artists, Seoul) | On Social Fermentation
Pei-Ying Lin (Artist, Designer, Eindhoven) | Virophilia
Oron Catts (Artist, Curator, Symbiotica, Perth) | Nature free (Agri)culture – Hacking and Contesting Future Food Systems

———— Lunch Break ————

14:00 – 16:00 CET
Panel B | Symbiotic Elements

keywords: symbiosis, cyanobacteria, biopolitics, hackinggaia

Cammack Lindsey (Artist, Berlin) | Holobiont: Relics from the Revolution
Irene Agrivina (Artist, Yogyakarta) | Entangled Beauty. A Perfect Marriage
Shujie Wu (Biologist, Plant Pathologist, FU Berlin) | On Cyanobacteria
Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou (Anthropologist, Architect, joining virtually)

Tour through Student Exhibition

———— Coffee Break ————

16:30 – 18:30 CET
Panel C | Sonic Cyborgs

keywords: khipu, humancomputing, OpenAI, DIYBio, SoundArt, Noise

Constanza Piña Pardo (Artist, Mexico-City) | The Khipu Project
Nayeli Vega (Artist, Designer, Berlin/ Mexico-City) | Codes in Knots
Interspecifics/ Leslie Garcia, Paloma Lopez (Artists, Researchers, Mexico D.F.) | Codex Virtualis (joining virtually)
Mariana Pérez Bobadilla (Researcher, Artist) | On Symbiosis

PLENUM Discussion (to be continued @ ALB on the second conference day)

Next to panels we can enjoy other activities on the first conference day @ UdK Berlin: Open Doors @ Berlin Open Lab; UdK/ TUB Student exhibition; Hangout in the Garden Lounge

The hybrid conference offers a complex layer of insights into the various practices with presentations by the exhibited artists and guest speakers from the artistic and curatorial practice, design, biology and anthropology. Diverse contributions critically elaborate on various artistic approaches towards (agri)culture, farming and social fermentation. A special emphasis will also have a viral discourse in connection with food and performance. The discussion will then evolve around the phenomenon of symbiosis, discussing cyanobacteria and bio-politics, including various approaches of hacking. Speakers additionally reflect critically on culture-political, post-colonial and sound-related phenomena related to khipu, human-computing, open AI as well as sound art and noise.