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MoA Blog

The MoA Blog is where the researchers of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« write about their work. The Cluster contains more than 40 disciplines from Natural Sciences, Humanities and Design and aims to create a basis for a new culture of material. The central vision is to rediscover the analog in the activity of images, spaces and materials in the age of the digital. The interdisciplinary research is organized in six projects: Weaving, Filtering, Cutting, Material Form Function, Object Space Agency and Symbolic Material.

Felix Rasehorn
Felix Rasehorn
Design Research Public

Mastering Digital Cutting

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Dominic Eger

We would like to kindly invite you to this presentation (with open discussion) by Dominic Eger on his MA Thesis project (Supervised by Prof. Carola Zwick and Prof. Dr. Lucy Norris @KHB). Mastering Digital Cutting When: Tue. 18.01.22. 11:30 – 12:30 am Where: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/62348816853?pwd=c1JlTmVUbnRRWVZUYkdRNjNSR1RLZz09 Abstract: For the transfer of surgical cutting processes into a digital environment, it is crucial to investigate whether the transmission of traditional action patterns and the associated imitation of analogue tools for input into digital systems is still effective. Ultimately, interaction with surgical robots requires interfaces that can speak all cutting languages. For the development of input and output devices for cutting interactions, modalities of interaction were compiled from the perspective of interaction design, making possible futures of haptics tangible and usable on concrete models.

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Claudia Mareis
Claudia Mareis
Uncategorized Public

CfP: Design × Sustainability / 18th Annual Meeting of the DGTF

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Call for Papers and Projects 18th Annual Meeting of the DGTF 02.06. and 03.06.2022 Venue: Muthesius Academy of Arts, Kiel, Germany and online Design × Sustainability Materiality, Systems, Shared Prosperity Format: hybrid / Language: German and English Since the UN Climate Conference COP26 in Glasgow 2021, we can say: It can’t continue like this. The history of design is full of ideas and practices on designing for sustainability, from the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau to Victor Papanek to the Circular Design Guide. Designers are seen as experts in developing holistic solutions to complex problems. The ability to deal with uncertainty holds potential to provide valuable solutions to environmental, social and economic challenges. But in view of the upheavals of society in the Anthropocene, the question arises as to what design is really capable of achieving. Design faces considerable challenges as a…

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Khashayar Razghandi
Khashayar Razghandi
Research Public

MotorSkins: a bio-inspired design approach to interactive soft robotics

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A graphical representation of the design process.
© IOP Publishing

MotorSkins is OUT! “…On the more general scheme, the work presents an interdisciplinary design-science approach to bio-inspiration and showcases how biological material solutions can be looked at from a design/designer perspective to bridge the bottom–up and top–down approach to bio-inspiration…” MotorSkins–a bio-inspired design approach toward an interactive soft-robotic exosuit., Gutierrez, F. and Razghandi, K., Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. 2021. otorSkins–a bio-inspired design approach toward an interactive soft-robotic exosuit., Gutierrez, F. and Razghandi, K., Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. 2021.   To know more about the start-up that grew out of this project: -> https://www.linkedin.com/company/motorskins/ -> http://www.motorskins.com  

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Khashayar Razghandi
Khashayar Razghandi
Events Public

Alternative Monsters and the Probability of the Impossible

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WFSF World Conference - The Openness of Futures
WFSF World Conference

“…the key is the paradigm shift, from seeing the monsters of biology not as autonomous closed systems (subjects), with individuated characteristics (properties), influencing and shaping their habitats and artefacts (objects), but to see them as open, entangled dynamisms and performative structures within a larger meshwork of ontological relevances…” “Rethinking Growth: A Bio-inspired Take on Monsters” – K.Razghandi This Friday 29.10.2021 four of us will be giving a team talk at 24th WFSF World Conference “The Openness of Futures”: “Alternative Monsters and the Probability of the Impossible” „…the monstrous (etymologically from “moneo”, to warn in Latin), can be thought of as a warning about biological and political life marked by a displacement outside of normativity. Once this monstrous perspective is recognized and organized, we take into account the process of staging monstrosities in order to warn, to point out, some biopolitical relations that…

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Robert Stock
Robert Stock
News Public

Elevators, Breathing and Filters during the Pandemic

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Poster of 4S meeting
Society for the Social Study of Science

Elevators and healthy relations: Building knowledge about breathing and vertical dis/connections during the Corona pandemic   (A recording of this talk is available through Midspace App of the 4S Meeting Good Relations) Take the stairs and not the elevator. This well-known motto suggests that movement promotes health. However, it should be treated with caution. Office employees require fast elevators. Freight lifts spare the bodies of deliverers. People with walkers, wheelchairs or prams should be able to take the elevator instead of the stairs. However, elevator practices (Hirschauer2005) entered a state of crisis, when the Corona virus began to affect the good––and often uneven––relations of vertical mobility (Graham2016). The elevator became a target of regulatory measures concerning the physical distancing of passengers, hygienic measures of operating panels and the introduction of intelligent air purification systems. Against this background, my talk examines…

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Robert Stock
Robert Stock
News Public

ANN: Access and Tinkering: Designing Assistive Technologies as Political Practice (16-17 September 2021)

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Network Dis/Abilities and Digital Media

This event hosted by the network Dis/Abilities and Digital Media aims to think critically through a theoretical framework in the context of dis/abilities that recognizes assistive technologies as political as well as situated interconnections. On this basis, we endorse to reflect on infrastructures of design for questions of inclusion and participation – cross-cultural, inter- and transdisciplinary. Reflecting on open source practices in medical and assistive technologies (e.g. 3D printing) will allow us to question the effects of heterogeneous interests, economic implications and everyday affordances of socio-material assemblages produced within the frameworks of participatory design research. Keynotes by Aimi Hamraie (Vanderbilt University), Anne Waldschmidt (University of Cologne) and a presentation by Tomás Sánchez Criado (Humboldt University). Come and join us: For details about the programme, registration and accessibility, click here.

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Maxime Le Calve
Maxime Le Calve
Design Research Public

Public Bricolage Session on Wed 7th July 2021 :“The Labyrinth of Multimodality: World-making with WorkAdventure, a virtual environment for low-tech digital encounters”

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Joanna Khandjieva

Object Space Agency (Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity”) & Stadtlabor for multimodal anthropology (IfEE) proudly invite you to a student project presentation from the “Multimodal Ethnography. Anthropology beyond text” seminar (coord. by Maxime Le Calvé & Tomás Criado) Wednesday 7th July 2021 14:00-15:00 The Labyrinth of Multimodality is an online world made out of heterogeneous digital materials which breaks with the linear, single-sited, single-ended epistemology. It’s a thought-provoker simulating a gamified approach for the ethnographic and for other knowing endeavors. As a learning project, it aims at making palpable and experienceable the challenges and opportunities of multimodal anthropological practice. Using open-source software, we have created a low-tech and playful 2D virtual environment conducive to encounters and conversations. This space is structured through the topics of the projects which were conducted during the seminar — fermentation practices, modern witchcraft, and…

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Carolin Ott
Carolin Ott
Research Public

Assisted Writing and Writing Assistants

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Poster Workshop Assistive Media
Leuphana University at Lüneburg

I invite you to take a look at the following event where Cluster Professor Robert Stock is contributing a talk on »Assisted Writing and Writing Assistants« (03 July 2021, 5 pm) The online-workshop »Assistance, Assistants and Assistive Media. Barriers and Interfaces of Digital Cultures« (01–03 July 2021) organized by the DFG funded project Assistive Media at Leuphana University Lüneburg will discuss assistive technologies, programming assistive environments and (technological) assistance in general by looking at human-machine interactions that are nowadays mediated through a growing number and variety of interfaces. It is an interdisciplinary event bringing together perspectives from media and cultural studies, neurosciences, architecture and game studies.

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Hanna Wiesener
Hanna Wiesener
Events Public

Design Research Studio Project ‘measuring/counting/weighing’: Presentation on July 7 from 4-6pm online

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messen/zählen/wiegen
“m/z/w”, Prof. Carola Zwick

We would like to invite you to the final presentation of this years Design Studio Project ‘measuring/counting/weighing’ supervised by Cluster member Prof. Carola Zwick. The presentation will be streamed on July the 7th from 4-6pm: https://youtu.be/miE5B4OBsO0 The measurement of the world forms the basis for many processes of cognition and evaluation. Alongside science and economics, which are based almost exclusively on quantitative methods, measuring, counting and weighing have crept into almost all areas of life. Digital technologies support this process by enabling sensors to make even more precise measurements, chips to store series of measurements and algorithms to interpret these data. Data series can be overwhelming in their quantity and misleading in their apparent precision. Moreover, many measurements depict processes that are imperceptible to the human sensorium, making it correspondingly difficult to communicate the insights gained from these measurements. Long-used units…

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