For this year’s STADTLABOR FOR MULTIMODAL ANTHROPOLOGY: WINTER SERIES 2024-2025, the ERC team has organised a series of events that explore the intersection between art and anthropology in relation to wave-related phenomena and their possible multimodal activation and representation. In this semester’s Stadtlabor Series, artists and art-anthropology teams will share with us how they use non-textual ways of making the immaterial tangible, and how they translate physical waves into shared experiences.
All events will take place at the Institute for European Ethnology (IfEE)
Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. (ehem. Mohrenstr.) 41,
10117 Berlin
We will host the following performative events:
HEATED CONVERSATIONS by Amor Schumacher and Summer Banks. 4th November 2024. 4pm-6pm. Rooms 408-409.
It’s November, the summer sun has faded to a distant memory and everyone’s putting on an extra sweater. Just enough distance for us to reflect on the high temperatures of August. Two researchers from an unknown organization conduct a qualitative data gathering session to fill in the gaps in the depiction of heatwaves in 2024. Participants become experts of heat, tasked with mining each other’s lived experiences. Let’s get personal in some Heated Conversations!
Amor Schumacher is an interdisciplinary artist who uses humor and horror to examine silence, isolation, and women’s place in society. Summer Banks is a theatermaker and writer focusing on interaction and canon critique in her incisive and playful works.
SENSING MATTERS OF 5G+ IN BRUSSELS: protocols & prototypes from public authorities, citizens, research collectives and electro-magic constellations, by Giulietta Laki and ooooo. 2nd December 2024. 4pm-6pm. Room 212.
A Parliament, radio frequencies, long and short range antennas, health concerns, birds, democracy, transuniversal constellation, tubes, a title, carrier waves and electromagic spectrum… Giulietta Laki/Urban Species and ooooo will take you on a small experiential and reflexive journey through protocols & prototypes for becoming sensitive to 5G+.
Giulietta Laki is an anthropologist and co-funding member of Urban Species, an action-research collective experimenting at the crossroads of social sciences, art, design and urban studies. https://urbanspecies.org
ooooo is a transuniversal constellation that initiates, mediates and facilitates, curates and appropriates projects, abducing thought, reflection and praxis on relevant societal issues. https://www.ooooo.be
LISTENING IN: SONIC STRATEGIES FOR BRIGHTER CITIES by Jeremy Knowles. 4pm-6pm. 13th January 2025. Room 212 (begins in the main entrance hall).
Though we, as humans, are sensitive to so much – spectrums of light perceived through the eye, sonic frequencies received by the eardrum, various forces felt and interpreted on the surface of the skin and throughout our fleshy bodies – there is also much of the natural and the digital that we cannot pick up on. But by tuning our ears to subtle changes in sound that are imperceivable merely through sight, we can define and categorise light sonically. Instead of just seeing the light that brightens our cities at night, we can listen in.
Jeremy Knowles (he/him) is a British artist whose work explores intersections of culture, technology, and the city through a mixed practice of photography, sound, walking, and writing.
WHAT HUMS BEYOND by Merche Blasco. 3rd February 2025. 4pm-6pm. Room 408-409.
The electromagnetic field hums all around us, shaping the spaces we inhabit yet escaping our senses. What if we could listen in? This performative talk invites you to explore the hidden energy of this building. We will listen to a sound piece composed from its electromagnetic presence, followed by hands-on exploration using custom-built antennas to tune into the building’s invisible landscape. Can we create a collective hum that resonates with the building’s unique frequency?
Merche Blasco is a multimedia artist and composer who designs imprecise technological assemblages that catalyze embodied forms of live electroacoustic composition and new modes of listening.