Procedure.
- Discussion: laboratories and workshops, timeframe, thematic framework, exhibition venue.
- Call for entries or invitation: FUNKEN will work with you to curate a selection of artists.
- A two- to three-week programme at your institution: a joint programme, access to laboratories and machinery, mentoring by your researchers, and a Creative Catalyst from FUNKEN.
- Public exhibition at the end.
- Documentation and a discussion about follow-up projects and joint applications.
What emerges. Without fail: multiple outcomes, a network of artists and researchers, an exhibition, documentation. Possible: follow-up projects and joint applications, in which collaboration between the arts and science has now become an evaluation criterion. This is achieved on an equal footing, with time, with the freedom to fail, and with a counterpart in the laboratory who thinks along with you rather than merely implementing ideas. In return, the artists gain what they would otherwise lack: access to technologies before they are incorporated into products, a laboratory, a fee and a counterpart who responds to their ideas.
What you provide. Access to laboratories and machinery for two to three weeks, researchers as points of contact and mentors, a space for the exhibition, or we can host it at FUNKEN.
Fees and services. 15,000 EUR per organisation. Included: artists’ fees, Creative Catalyst, programme, exhibition, documentation.
Reference. The format stems from the European Summer School 2023 held in the laboratories of Fraunhofer ENAS and IWU, and from FUNKEN × TUC 2025 – three workshops at the MAIN, MERGE and MeTech centres of Chemnitz University of Technology, culminating in the FUNKEN Echoes exhibition. In the ‘Common Matter’ workshop, artist and researcher Yana Zschiedrich worked with the team at the MERGE Lightweight Construction Centre on GEOBRIS, an open material family made from bio-PLA and mealworm frass: compounded at various fill levels, extruded, calendered into films and processed into filament for 3D printing. Using MERGE’s machinery, the participants explored the material’s aesthetic, technical and narrative potential and created a shared material archive. For the laboratory, this constituted a material test under conditions that no test bench can replicate. → Results: European Summer School 2023, FUNKEN × TUC, Common Matter
