This series of workshops with guest artists invites everyone who is interested in questions of materiality. We will open up a spontaneous material experimentation lab at Corner College dedicated to what things can do. The idea of the lab is a communal sharing of techniques, of experimenting and tinkering together. So, bring your stuff!

Dealing with materials affords not only a specific knowledge of properties but also concerns the process of thought. Instead of presuming that artists form docile matter, one might assume that the material’s active role in the process of formation. From here, we might also consider the process of formation as being shaped by its very situated emergence. The lab aims at constituting concrete situations of artistic experimentation following the materiality of materials seeking out their aesthetic qualities rather than their scientific properties. How can we engage in a process of “material thought” and how do such thinking activities impinge on artistic practice? Further we wonder, how we can extend our sense of collaboration and of collectivity towards the more-than-human dimensions of existence? What would be the political consequences of such an approach?

This format derives from the field of artistic research but refuses to speak of “new forms of knowledge” and instead amplifies any form of experimental practice as situated, fragmented, and materially active. Initiators of the Lab are Amélie Brisson-Darveau and Christoph Brunner of the Corner College Collective, artist Nicole De Brabandere, and designer and architect Verena Ziegler. The lab invites artists, designers, architects, philosophiers and activists experimenting with materials and material thought in their practice. We will engage in “hands on” material experimentations, seeking out their potential, their capacity to evoke surprising and unforeseen constellations and experiences. Form here the process might take us into the development of a lecture performance, an installation or exhibition, but also text production or a publication.