Research as an art, art as research

Light installations, art in buildings, historical monuments: an expedition through Adlershof

The Technology Park Adlershof in autumn. Shiny new buildings, the doors of high-tech companies and institutes are locked, only few people are outside. Hurrying across the site, it could easily seem like purely functional place. “Technology in the sticks,” as the light artist Nils Schultze says. He has been realising art projects here for about 20 years and knows: If you give it some time, Adlershof offers quite a few things to discover, historical or otherwise.

The Aerodynamic Park, for example, which features the technical monuments of the former German Research Institute for Aviation, is history cast in concrete. Long ago, aeroplane models were spun out of control in the tailspin wind tunnel (the “Trudelturm”) and wings were tested in the airflows of the Great Wind Tunnel to determine their drag and flow behaviour. The former sound-insulated engine test bed, built in 1935, is now a meeting centre for students. On the grass in front of the engine test bed, fifteen red ellipsoid bodies protrude from the ground like peculiar mushrooms. Here, the past constantly whispers in your ear. Quite literally, it can be heard through integrated speakers. Sound pieces from more than a thousand historical audio documents from the German Radio Archive in Babelsberg are the basis for the sound installation “AIR BORNE”. It sends out randomised engine noises from biplanes, recordings of cockpit chatter, or historic eyewitness reports.

A few metres further down the street, the curious stroller will come across a rusty auburn object with a milled-out interior and might be able to identify some strange characters inside. Schultze’s work “Kryptografisches Experiment” is a reference to the encryption technology research conducted in the neighbouring mathematics building of Humboldt-Universität. Much like in real life, the message can only be deciphered by choosing the right perspective. The object is one of many elements of the “Gedanken-Gang”, an educational tour that meanders through the site, using art in buildings and information boards to make science and technology accessible to visitors. It includes the Aerodynamic Park, the Climate Garden, and the isothermal spherical laboratories set in large concrete spheres on Rudower Chaussee.

Leaving the cryptic messages behind, another element of the “Gedanken-Gang” is visible on the other side of the road – theoretically, at least. Nils Schultze’s green laser used to move through the sky from the roof of the Innovation and Start-Up Centre (IGZ), where it was set up in 2003. Until it was turned off due to construction in 2015, the laser used to gleam from the centre of the park to the S-Bahn train station, guiding the way for the local residents, commuters, and guests. “We’re optimistic that it’ll be turned back on again soon,” says the artist. Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald, who ascribed the green light to insurmountable class differences, Schultze’s laser aimed to build a visible bridge between today’s high-tech present and the old town’s historic past.

Ever-changing perspectives and positions are the theme of another multi-layered piece of art at Forum Adlershof. Two oversized white heads on top of five-metre-high concrete slabs constantly change their form, facing each other, or turning away. “Thinking, researching, combining facts are movements of the mind. That was the thought behind it,” says Josefine Günschel, who thought up the shifting heads sculpture together with Margund Smolka. The shifts within the complex architecture of the two heads sometimes obscure their facial features or wrinkle their foreheads, making them symbolic of inwardness and the transformative power of changing the way we think. The reactive movements of the heads, turning towards and away from each other, implicate the intellectual exchange with all its consequences, dissent within the sciences, as well as the fruitful dialogue between different disciplines.

Just a few minutes down the road, the art of the Integrated Research Institute for the Sciences (IRIS) building symbolises how (re-)searching is never purely functional but often playful. With its extensive use of glass, the futuristic building’s sober and functional nature is juxtaposed by seemingly random golden elements that can be found all over the building. In the lobby, a golden ladder leads to nowhere. Somewhere else, there is a flash of a golden airlock door. The elevator boasts a golden display.

Architecturally not unlike IRIS, the Center for Microsystems Technology and Materials (ZMM) on Max-Planck-Strasse rises into the autumn sky. Here, the building’s art makes visible the relationship between nature and technology. Günschel and Smolka use insects and gastropods to unlock associations to research processes in microsystems technology. Videos of snails leaving their traces on lab instruments, photographs, and building surfaces flicker on screens. It is up to the viewer to decide whether the snail’s progress, representative of the research process, is perceived as contemplatively decelerating or agonizingly slow.

It’s getting dark outside, and the foraging bee colonies are returning to ZMM, back to their living towers that Josefine Günschel has designed. Viewed from the artist’s perspective, the bees are interconnected microsystems tested by evolution. “They encode and decipher information, move around individually, but still act as parts of a system. And as biological microsystems, they produce a substance that we would today consider a smart material.” Outside, malleable, germicidal beeswax is turned into a fibre composite material by the silk threads of the larvae, while, inside, individual research efforts come together as one.

Half a kilometre southeast of ZMM, the flow of Teltow Canal guides walkers and cyclists back to Berlin’s city centre. On the green Ernst-Ruska-Ufer, it marks the border of the Technology Park, sending off the promenaders into the night with its glow of blue and turquoise. The five silver water tanks of Adlershof’s heating plant are each wrapped by 13 LED strips. The flowing colour gradients indicating the inside temperature of the tank at night  are also symbolic of the blurry boundary between art and science. “Every research has an element of art,” says Josefine Günschel. And one is compelled to add: art has an element of research, too.

By Nora Lessing for Adlershof Journal

• Educational tour “Gedanken-Gang”
• Aerodynamic Park
• www.air-borne.info