Starts at
15 Jul 2022
The Alchemic Laboratory
23rd Triennale Milano International Exhibition's Special Projects
The Alchemic Laboratory invites visitors to explore matter beyond scientific determinism, blurring boundaries between nature and technology to embrace unpredictability, imagination, and a new, conscious material culture.
Ends at
11 Dec 2022
Location
Milano
Summary
Part of the 23rd Triennale Milano International Exhibition, the Alchemic Laboratory is an immersive installation exploring matter beyond scientific control. Through sensory experience and symbolic use of yellow, it challenges boundaries between natural and artificial, proposing a new material culture rooted in unpredictability, imagination, and the creative agency of matter itself.
The Alchemic laboratory is an experiential place that invites the visitor to question the concept of matter. The laboratory is yellow: yellow like that of nature, which serves to attract pollination, yellow like the lights that protect the micro-electronics sensors from direct radiation and finally citrinas – yellow lemon – as one of the four colours of the alchemical transmutation.
We tend to think of the transformation of matter as a linear and predictable scientific process, but what happens if the boundaries between natural/artificial, alive/inert, extractive/grown blur? A series of energy, environmental, health and social crises has given us a bitter lesson: nature can be unavailable and not respond to our desires. So, if we lose control of the process, if we believe in a new conscious material culture, if the material asserts its design reasons, this path opens to imagination, to the unexpected, to the creative vitality.
Curated by: Ingrid Paoletti
Curated by: Ingrid Paoletti
Project by: Zaven Outfitting
In collaboration with:
Anna Barbara,Liberato Ferrara, Antonio Grande, Sara Mantero, Maria Anischenko, Yagmur Bektas, Beatrice Belgio, Marta D’Alessandro, Olga Beatrice Carcassi, Giorgio Castellano, Danilo Casto, Valeria Marsaglia, Saverio Spadafora (Politecnico di Milano); Stefano Gomarasca (Università Statale di Milano);Paolo Bombelli (Cambridge University); Federico Leoni (Università di Verona); Claudia Mareis, Bastian Beyer, Emile De Visscher, Moritz Liedtke, Natalija Miodragović, Iva Rešetar, Daniel Suárez, Regine Hengge (Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Massimo Gatelli (Milleforma).
We thank the Laboratorio Maba.Saperlab, Sistema Laboratori ABC of the Politecnico di Milano and the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material ” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2025 – 390648296
