Dissect is a performative discussion setting whose design is inspired by a dissection table. Six to eight speakers from different disciplines (humanities, natural sciences, art, design, etc.) are seated around the table, selected according to the artwork being presented. This allows for spontaneous exchanges and a rich dialogue between disciplines. After two events in 2019 – at the Centre Pompidou and then at Paris Photo – two DISSECT evenings will take place at the Tieranatomisches Theater of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as part of Berlin Science Week, organised by the EnsadLab group “Reflective Interaction” (Samuel Bianchini) and the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity” (Patricia Ribault) on 2 and 4 November 2022.
Image above: Samuel Bianchini & Emanuele Quinz (dir.), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, mars 2019. Foto: © Samuel Bianchini – ADAGP
DISSECT: a live round table performance, a multidisciplinary debate with works of contemporary art and design, staged in a public, interactive setting. Created by Samuel Bianchini and Emanuele Quinz at the École des Arts Décoratifs – Paris (EnsAD), DISSECT aims to re-establish more lively forms of exchange than the so-called “round table” to initiate radically multidisciplinary debates and engage with the objects of discussion themselves.
DISSECT will show the work “Amygdala” by contemporary artist Marco Donnarumma on 2 November 2022 in connection with the research of the Cutting group of the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). Marco Donnarumma, known for his performances combining sound, computer technology and biotechnology, has conceived Amygdala as an artificially intelligent robot in the form of an uncanny, human-like limb suspended in an industrial computer server cabinet, performing a cleansing ritual known as skin-cutting. Driven by biomimetic neural networks, Amygdala is capable of interactive and shifting behaviour reminiscent of animal movements, creating an ambiguity between the organic and the technological.
Guests: neurosurgeon Thomas Picht, theatre scholar Maaike Bleeker, art historian Horst Bredekamp, computer scientist Johann Habakuk Israel, anthropologist Joffrey Becker and philosopher Margrit Shildrick.
Moderators: Patricia Ribault (weißensee hochschule für kunst und design berlin) and Samuel Bianchini (École des Arts Décoratifs).
DISSECT on 4 November 2022 is organised in collaboration with artist Tomás Saraceno on the research led by the group Material Form Function and their exhibition Design Lab #13: Material Legacies at the Kunstgewerbemuseum (KGM) in Berlin.
Tomás Saraceno strives for a better balance between human, technical and biological diversity, assuming that knowledge emerges from certain situations. His works with spiders encourage us to rethink our relationship with them and perceive a world that is disappearing, calling for more cooperation between species.
Guests: the spider researcher Peter Jäger, the cultural scientist Martin Müller, the microbiologist Regine Hengge, the artist and researcher Alice Jarry, the behavioural ecologist Alex Jordan, the socio-lawyer Xenia Chiaramonte and the TA T spiders.
Moderators: Patricia Ribault (weißensee hochschule für kunst und design berlin) and Emanuele Quinz (Université Paris 8 and École des Arts Décoratifs).
Organised by the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image-Space-Material” at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in collaboration with the Chaire Arts & Sciences of the École polytechnique, the École des Arts Décoratifs Paris – PSL and the Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso; the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin and the Tieranatomisches Theater.
A project developed by the Reflective Interaction research group of the EnsadLab (laboratory of the EnsAD). Set design and direction by Samuel Bianchini, with Adrien Bonnerot and Pernelle Poyet (object design), Annie Leuridan (lighting design), Sylvie Tissot (software engineering) and Brice Ammar-Khodja (video).
The DISSECT events are part of Berlin Science Week 2022, a 10-day international festival that brings together the world’s most innovative scientific organisations in Berlin and online to celebrate science and facilitate an open and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and knowledge. The full programme can be found at: berlinscienceweek.com.
WHEN?
Wednesday, 2 November and Friday, 4 November 2022
each 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
COSTS?
Free admission after registration
WHERE?
Tieranatomisches Theater
Philippstraße 13
Haus 3
10115 Berlin-Mitte
