transobjects: An Experiment in Artistic and Scientific Exchange
The first collaborative project to emerge from the dialogue between physics students of SFB1258 and art students of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich (AdBK) was transobjects. Developed following the #echo-techno-cosmo-logic workshop, the project explored how artistic and scientific ideas might evolve through collective transformation.
The concept was deliberately simple: five pairs of art and physics students were each asked to create an initial object within one week. These objects could take any form, including drawings, sculptures, performances, videos, photographs, texts, theoretical concepts, or experimental systems. At the end of the week, each object was passed on to another pair together with a brief description of its current state and meaning.
Creating, Passing On, Transforming
The receiving pair was free to reinterpret, modify, extend, or transform the object in any way they wished. This process continued over several rounds, with each new pair contributing its own perspective and ideas. Rather than producing a single finished work, the project focused on transformation itself, documenting how concepts evolve when they move between different disciplines, methods, and ways of thinking.
Over the course of five weeks, a series of transobjects emerged, each consisting not only of a final form but also of a chain of intermediate states that revealed the history of its successive reinterpretations. The project became a practical experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration, demonstrating how artistic and scientific approaches can challenge, inspire, and reshape one another.
The resulting works were presented to the public during a performance evening at the Reaktorhalle in Munich on 9 February 2019, offering visitors a unique opportunity to experience the outcomes of this interdisciplinary exchange between art and fundamental physics.
Impressions from the public presentation of the transobjects project at the Reaktorhalle in Munich on 9 February 2019. (Photos: Andreas Heddergott (top left), Constanza Meléndez (5))
