Lucie Strecker | Prof. Dr. David Berry
The Messy, Moist and Mucous
Workshop, Englisch/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Mittwochs-Samstags, 25.9., 11-18 Uhr, 26.-28.9.2019 jeweils 10-18 Uhr, Hardenbergstraße 33, Raum 004

Direkt link to the registration here!

The workshop will introduce participants to the theme of body effluvia in performative, biological art as well as to microbiome research. We will examine examples of hybrid art works that thematise the notion of performative ‘harvesting‘ and ‘donating’ body fluids as bio-political material. Further we will experiment with biotechnological tools and devices used for the research on microorganisms inhabiting our bodies. Workshop participants are invited to explore artistic and scientific rituals and handling of our coexistence with microbes on the base of this set up. The given artistic and biological material as well as the available biotechnological equipment will be shared, discussed and deconstructed. At the end of the workshop participants will come up with a collective or individual performative action, tableaux, installation, text or any other format that has emerged from the working process.

Leistungsanforderungen: aktive, regelmäßige und verbindliche Teilnahme; Reflexionsbereitschaft.
Ausrichtung / Charakter der Lehrveranstaltung: kritisch, vorwärtsgewandt
Aktivität / Kompetenz der Teilnehmer*innen: reflektieren/denken, transformieren

Lucie Strecker­ is a performance artist and researcher. She is a fellow of the Berlin University of the Arts and holds a senior postdoc position at the Art & Science department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Works and performances have been shown in Berlin, Vienna, Linz, Athens, Helsingør, Omaha and Irvine among others. Her work was honoured with the Performing Science Award in 2011 and with the Prix Ars Electronica – Honorary Mention in 2015. She has given seminars on experimental settings in the arts and sciences. Additionally she has published texts in Performance Research, Diaphanes and The Lancet Psychiatry. Lucie Strecker currently collaborates with David Berry on a new project called: ‘Brains’ Shit for Shit Brains’, in which a moving target shooting game will be combined with a medical action in a fairground environment.

David Berry (USA) is a professor at the University of Vienna and director of the newly-founded Joint Microbiome Analysis Facility of the Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna. He holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan, USA. His research focuses on the function of the gut microbiota in health and disease, and is currently studying microbial aspects of inflammatory bowel disease as well as microbiome and development in premature infants. He employs an ecological and evolutionary perspective as well as an organismal view by studying the physiology of key gut microbiota members. In particular, his group uses novel modelling approaches to study microbial communities and develops new molecular and isotope-labelling methods and single-cell imaging technologies for studying uncultivated microorganisms in their natural environment.