5 Years of the Humboldt Lab
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| The participation in the special anniversary program is free of charge and registration is not required. |
| 6 years and older |
| Humboldt Lab, 1st floor |
| Belongs to: Five Years Open |
To mark the fifth anniversary of the Humboldt Forum, the Humboldt Lab invites to a special program that brings together research, poetry, exhibition practice, and interactive participation.
At Meet the Scientist, agroecologist Marcel Robischon and musicologist Sebastian Klotz will provide insights into their research and engage in conversation with the audience. A special edition of the popular poetry slam format #Lokoskop combines science and language in surprising ways. Those interested in learning how an exhibition is created can explore key questions, background information, and perspectives on the On Water exhibition through three themed short tours led by members of the curatorial team. Children and families can take part in the WaterGestalten workshop, where they can build aquatic animals from recycled materials.
These formats are exemplary of the Humboldt Lab’s self-conception: it not only conveys knowledge, but also creates spaces for exchange, questions, and participation. While some of the programs were originally developed for the opening exhibition After Nature, others emerged from the current exhibition itself.
Programme
Water is life, but it can also be destructive. The exhibition “On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin” showcases current research projects on the topic of water by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA), a consortium of Berlin’s leading universities.
During the tour, visitors will gain an overview of the diverse range of water research in Berlin.
Tickets here.
A major part of the global internet traffic runs through fiber-optic cables on the ocean floor. The filmmaker Ian Purnell created a documentary film for the exhibition that traces the path of such a cable – from its underwater installation to its connection in a remote Alaskan village. The film accompanies the crew of a cable ship, depicting the extensive physical labor that is necessary for digital communication to be at all possible. It illustrates how water not only connects living environments and travel routes, but also carries the hidden infrastructure of the internet. The footage was taken during the shooting of Ian Purnell’s film Arctic Link (2026).
If science is queen at Humboldt Lab, then #Logoskop is her court jester. Since 2021, artistic freedom has been making monthly appearances at Humboldt University’s exhibition space, using literature to shake up the scientific perspective. Equipped with microphones and amplifiers, two slam poets wander through the exhibition and recite texts.
This time, slam poets Dominique Macri and Johannes Berger aka YUNUS will be joining us. Together, they will comment on the exhibition On Water with live recitations. Visitors are invited to accompany them on their tour of eloquence.
Curated by Bas Böttcher
Three themed short tours with members of the curatorial team offer different perspectives on the On Water exhibition and its central questions. This tour focuses on the exhibition section In the Bathroom (in German).
Science in the Dialogue with Marcel Robischon
Agricultural scientist Marcel Robischon explores the sea and birds, as well as the connection between species extinction and the loss of orientation in navigation at sea. With enthusiasm and expertise, he pursues interdisciplinary research questions — something he already demonstrated in his Meet the Scientist contribution to the exhibition After Nature exhibition. For the anniversary event, he has once again chosen a topic that, starting from the water, reaches far beyond disciplinary boundaries.
Three themed short tours with members of the curatorial team offer different perspectives on the On Water exhibition and its central questions. This tour is dedicated to the exhibition section In the City (in German).
If science is queen at Humboldt Lab, then #Logoskop is her court jester. Since 2021, artistic freedom has been making monthly appearances at Humboldt University’s exhibition space, using literature to shake up the scientific perspective. Equipped with microphones and amplifiers, two slam poets wander through the exhibition and recite texts.
This time, slam poets Dominique Macri and Johannes Berger aka YUNUS will be joining us. Together, they will comment on the exhibition On Water with live recitations. Visitors are invited to accompany them on their tour of eloquence.
Curated by Bas Böttcher
Three themed short tours with members of the curatorial team offer different perspectives on the On Water exhibition and its central questions. This tour explores the exhibition section At the Coast (in German).
In the face of climate change, the question arises whether we can understand the sea and the ocean in a different way than before. New artistic projects are engaging with the ocean in a sensitive manner: it is no longer dramatized, but reveals itself as a zone of complex intense dynamism that becomes sonically present in a fascinating way and possesses agency in its own right. Whale songs are integrated into techno sounds and experienced by us in a different way than in a scientific feature.
Musicologist Sebastian Klotz describes how new, responsible approaches to the ocean can be developed from this. Since multifaceted acoustic processes take place in the ocean, which are central, for example, to communication among marine mammals, an expanded sound and musicology of the living world is needed, one that engages in dialogue with ecosystem research and marine biology.
Based on the functioning of a hydrophone, which can be used to record acoustic phenomena in water, Sebastian Klotz provides insights into the emerging research field of aquatic musicology using his own recordings in the Aegean Sea.
Jellyfish, whales, penguins and boxfish: many fascinating animals live on, in and under water. Some of them are featured in the science exhibition On Water. In a creative workshop, children aged 6 and above – accompanied by their parents or another adult – can recreate a selection of aquatic creatures (with the help of instructions) and contribute their own design ideas. Discarded materials from the Humboldt Forum are used. Exciting and funny, but also sustainable animals are created, which can be taken home at the end.
Participants
Ian Purnell (b. 1988, Basel) works at the intersection of visual art, documentary film, and performative practices. He studied film editing at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg and experimental and documentary film forms at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (KHM). His films and installations are presented internationally and have been shown at Visions du Réel, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Documentamadrid, and the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, among others. His work focuses on infrastructures, scientific work processes, and the question of how people navigate technologically shaped environments. His projects are developed in close collaboration with scientists and research institutions. In 2022, he was an artist-in-residence at Arts at CERN. His first feature film, “ARCTIC LINK”, which explores the physical infrastructure of the internet, celebrated its world premiere in 2026 in the main section of CPH:DOX 2026.
Prof. Marcel Robischon is a forestry scientist, plant biologist, and head of the Department of Agroecology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research focuses on agroecology, particularly the developmental biology and ecology of woody plants. In addition, he works on the topic of world natural and agricultural heritage in agricultural education.
Dr. Sebastian Klotz is Professor of Transcultural Musicology and Historical Anthropology of Music at the Institute of Musicology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research explores how musical entanglements permeate cultural, political, aesthetic, and economic processes, and why music can be found in all cultures around the world. He understands music as a form of cultural expression that enables pro-social behavior and forms of synchronization. For many years, he has also been interested in the question of musical infrastructures.
His publications focus on the history and present of phonographic archives, the perception of timbre, and musical cultures of knowledge reaching back to antiquity. In addition, he has worked on the persuasive power and sophistication of popular music — including Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Arcade Fire — as well as on the comparative study of musical metropolises.
Sebastian Klotz is the founder of the Erich von Hornbostel Audio Emergence Lab (HAEL). He is currently developing, together with research partners in the fields of Sound Studies and Marine Conservation, the project of an aquatic musicology.
Bas Böttcher lives in Berlin as an author, performance poet and media artist. He is one of the co-founders of the German-speaking poetry slam and spoken word scene and won the first German-language poetry slam championships in 1997. His texts appear in school textbooks and major anthologies of contemporary German poetry. His performances have taken him to venues including the Elbphilharmonie, the Centre Pompidou, international universities, and literary festivals and book fairs worldwide. Alongside his stage work, Bas Böttcher develops interactive literary and media formats and has taught at universities, Goethe-Instituts and German-speaking schools abroad in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. He organises literature and youth projects in the field of cultural education and has been curating the LOGOSKOP series at the Humboldt Lab since 2022.
https://basboettcher.de
https://poetryslam.de
Dominique Macri from Marburg is a slam poet, actress, and psychologist with a diploma degree. She performed with the improvisational theatre ensemble fast forward as well as in solo engagements for the MMK Frankfurt and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Since 2007, Dominique Macri has been performing as a slam poet throughout the German-speaking world and across Europe. In 2014, she and her teammate Dalibor Markovic won the International German-Language Poetry Slam Championships. In 2017, she worked as a trainer in Qatar on behalf of the Goethe-Institut and received the Innovation Award of the German Speakers Association (GSA) for her format Poetic Recording, in which she summarizes events in poetic form.
Johannes Berger makes music and writes texts. For more than ten years, he has been performing on stages including the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Hanover State Opera, and the Leipzig Book Fair. Among his achievements is winning the German-language U20 Poetry Slam Championship in 2014. He studied viola and is a self-taught rapper. Since 2017, he has been releasing music under the artist name YUNUS and has become part of the local pop music scene. Johannes Berger lives and works in Berlin.