Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
The DIY Biolab is a working environment equipped with professional laboratory equipment to perform (micro)biological experiments. For example, plants, algae and fungi as well as harmless microbes can be cultivated and researched here.
The DIY Biolab is a working environment equipped with professional laboratory equipment to perform (micro)biological experiments. For example, plants, algae and fungi as well as harmless microbes can be cultivated and researched here.
This enables students to engage in an artistic and scientific study of living organisms, in which they can design the respective environmental conditions themselves and observe the reactions of living organisms. For the experiments, only organisms are used in which a health hazard can be excluded and which, for example, are also approved for work in schools. In recent years, work has been carried out with various plants (e.g. duckweed), fungi (e.g. oyster mushrooms), single- and multicellular microorganisms (e.g. euglena and nematodes) and the so-called slime-mold Physarum Polycephalum.
The DIY (Do It Yourself) aspect of the Biolab refers to the establishment and development of technical processes (DIY microscopes, Arduino Boards, etc.) and interfaces between different systems, whether biological or otherwise. For example, bio-electronics courses are offered which are dedicated to the combination of technology and biology.
Our role in the project
Bauhaus University Weimar contributes across multiple work packages, with a focus on participatory events, sustainability, knowledge exchange, replication, and dissemination. BUW supports the co-creation of urban manufacturing scenarios (Task 1.1), contributes to defining sustainability requirements and shared economic value (Task 1.3), and participates in developing transformative impact indicators (Task 1.4). It also helps shape the “maker-to-market” alignment of the LAUDS framework (Task 1.5).
Within WP3, BUW contributes to building the LAUDS open-access knowledge pool and training facilities (Task 3.3), supporting skills development and knowledge exchange for urban manufacturing.
BUW leads Task 5.5, organising and contributing to high-visibility dissemination events—talks, round tables, transdisciplinary workshops, and exhibitions—at major international venues such as Ars Electronica, and university-based events. This includes delivering artistic and educational methodologies, curating artistic outcomes, and hosting a scientific event within an existing conference.
Overall, BUW plays a key role in replicating LAUDS factories, guiding partners in aesthetic and artistic dimensions, and maximising the project’s visibility and impact across art, design, technology, and urban manufacturing communities.
Our expertise
Referring to environment as a concept from artistic practice of the nineteen-fifties that emphasizes the mismatch between life and art, the Media Environments Research Chair (GMU) at Bauhaus University Weimar aims to redesign everyday situations, objects, devices and practices. Through transdisciplinary experimentation with art, technology, biology and nature, we challenge our own self-conceptions in a rapidly changing world.
Along with creating artwork for exhibitions, GMU works throughout everyday situations; cooperations with the sciences and cultural institutions; the internet; game environments and public spaces. We develop audio visual installations; mise-en-scènes; performance and interventions in urban space. Media Environments co-workers work with a variety of tools and techniques to create wearable technology; smart objects; digital visualizations; electro-mechanical sculptures, experimental games and simulations of utopian city planning. Media Environments encourages students to experiment with technological processes, creative coding, DIY electronics and further with species, organisms, plants and animals.