Sina Hensel, Anja Neuefeind
Colour agencies, a practice-based
research project in search of a
contemporary understanding of
colour
Received: 10.05.2021
Reviewed: 14.06.2021
Published: 30.06.2021
How to cite this article.
Hensel,S., Neuefeind,A., 2021. Colour agencies a practice-based research project in search
of a contemporary understanding of colour. Inmaterial. Diseño, Arte y Sociedad, 6 (11), pp.
24-46
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Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
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Abstract
Finite resources and mass extinction caused by global
warming have a deep impact on our current way of unders-
tanding the world. erefore, the need for a practical and
theoretical focus on a more sustainable and empathetic
gaze towards human and non-human relations, including
our relationship with maer, is driving a search for new
perspectives and procedures in research and teaching of
design processes in academic institutions.
As a result of a long-standing engagement with the maer
of colour at the Chair of Visual Arts in Architecture De-
partment at RWTH Aachen University/GER, the ongoing
research project ‘Living Colour’ was conceived in 2020
and implemented as a teaching format.
Living Colour’ discusses a theoretical context of contem-
porary colouring methods and the sustainable production
of material and its application. Questions of cultural,
ecological and social implications and how specic cha-
racteristics of organic sources aect design processes are
examined and reected on.
e focus lies on the processual, performative and trans-
formative qualities of the colouring agents regarding
lightfastness, temperature, moisture and carrier material.
Practices and outcomes give insight into the impact of
intertwining interdisciplinary theory and practice, treating
both as equals for the production of knowledge in research
and teaching.
Keywords: material agency, design-research, colour research,
academic teaching, new materialism, practice-based research,
material-science
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Fig. le. Joergens, M., ‘Haematometer’ tool to measure the transformation of bruises, 15 cm diametral,
coon dyed with diverse plant colours, © Neuefeind, A.
Fig. right. Hensel, S., Chlorella vulgaris, © Hensel, S.
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Resumen
La limitación de los recursos y la extinción masiva provoca-
da por el calentamientoglobal tienen un profundo impacto
en nuestra actual forma de entender el mundo.Por ello, la
necesidad de un enfoque práctico y teórico sobre una mirada
mássostenible y empática hacia las relaciones humanas y no
humanas, incluidanuestra relación con la materia, está impul-
sando la búsqueda de nuevasperspectivas y procedimientos
en la investigación y la enseñanza de losprocesos de diseño
en las instituciones académicas.
Como resultado de un largocompromiso con la cuestión del
color en la Cátedra de Artes Visuales en elDepartamento de
Arquitectura de la RWTH Aachen Universidad/Alemania,
elproyecto de investigación en curso “Living Colour” fue
concebido en2020 y puesto en práctica como un formato de
enseñanza.
En “LivingColour” se discute el contexto teórico de los mé-
todos contemporáneos decoloración y la producción sosteni-
ble del material y su aplicación. Se examinany reexionan las
cuestiones relativas a las implicaciones culturales,ecológicas
y sociales y cómo las características especícas de las fuentes-
orgánicas afectan a los procesos de diseño.
La atención se centra en lascualidades procesales, performa-
tivas y transformadoras de los colorantes enrelación con la
resistencia a la luz, la temperatura, la humedad y el materialde
soporte. Las prácticas y los resultados dan cuenta del impacto
de entrelazarla teoría y la práctica interdisciplinarias, tratando
a ambas como iguales parala producción de conocimiento en
la investigación y la enseñanza.
Palabras clave: agencia de materiales, investigación en di-
seño, investigación del color, enseñanza académica, nuevos
materialismos, investigación basada en prácticas, ciencia
de los materiales
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Context
In short, sustainable access to natural resources has become essential and demands
a rethinking of our usual production techniques. Recent perspectives such as posts-
tructuralism (Deleuze, Guaari, 1980), Actor-Network-eory (Latour, Callon,
Law, 1980) and Material-Oriented Ontology (Benne, 2010) seek to challenge the
hegemony of the previously-dominant anthropocentric outlook, aiming to change
our perspective towards the agency of the non-human and therefore constitute
a perspective of acknowledgment, companionship (Haraway, 2003) and care
towards other entities (Neimanis, 2017)
1
. is especially applies to the rising awa-
reness of how the interconnection between human and non-human forces across
all disciplines has led to a renewed engagement with the dynamics of material and
its entanglement with discursive practices, a perspective which is referred to with
the term New Materialism or Material Turn (Yoshihara, 1956, Barad, 2007, Ingold,
2007)
2
. Philosophy, and Social and Cultural Sciences shed new light on material
properties and their role in the production of art, design and architecture. e
research project ‘Living Colour’ discusses these theoretical perspectives in order
to consider novel accounts of acting forces, processual nature and self-organising
capacities of maer, whereby maer is perceived as co-productive in conditioning
and enabling social worlds, human life and experience.
is framework, given during the teaching format, requires operating in practice,
“the turn to the performative, which revises traded methods and integrated expe-
rience and aesthetics, characteristic to arts and design, in a culture of knowledge
1
Poststructuralism established theories to overcome humanistic human-centred views in philosophy. In visual arts, design and architecture,
these ideas had a deep impact in theoretical and practical belongings, because they changed and challenged common conceptions of creativity.
Among the many positions we cite are Deleuze and Guaari, establishing the idea of assemblage, and Latour, who developed the Actor-Ne-
twork-eory, or ANT, with Callon and Law at the same time, enabling ideas of agency and symmetric relationship.
In parallel to this development, Donna Haraway proposed provocative theses on biotechnological challenges and the conditions of making scien-
ce. Her border-crossing analyses on science and social relations, and her term ’situated knowledge’ (1988) paved the way to trans-disciplinary for-
ms of research as well as marking a fundamental shi in understanding human agency. Her term ’companionship’ (2003) suggests an equality of
all entities including animals, plants and maer and emphasises relationship, which gave an important impulse to change perspective on scientic
and artistic practice, similar to Jane Benne’s political and ecological approach to materiality in her main work “vibrant maer”, 2010.
Astrida Neimanis is one of many thinkers and writers who suggests rethinking the dominant Western and humanist understandings of embodi-
ment, where human bodies are gured as fundamentally autonomous from the non-human, and who proposes to cultivate gestures of empathy,
stewardship and nourishment towards natural commons in the context of nite resources.
2
Important aspects in new materialism concerning material agency are the mutual relationship of material and mind, as stated in opposition
to western humanistic thinking by ’gutai’, a group of Japanese artists in 1956, and stated by Jiro Yoshihara in the “gutai manifesto” as well as the
focus on a material-discursive practice by Karen Barad on materiality and performance in her “agential realism” in 2012. Her main inuence on
practice-based research formats is her conclusion that knowledge is continuously changing in practicing with materiality.
Ingold follows this argumentation when stating “e properties of materials, then, are not xed aributes of maer but are processual and
relational.” He also shaped the term “ocean of materiality, in which humans like all other entities, swim.” (Ingold, 2007, p.8). In this ocean
materials exist on their own terms. “Plants, too, provide an endless source of materials for further processing and transformation. One has only
to enumerate, for example, all the dierent materials that can be derived from trees, including wood, bark, sap, gum, ash, paper, charcoal, tar,
resin and turpentine (Ingold, 2007, p.8).
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is rising, (and) in which knowledge is experienced in action and process.” (Bi-
ppus, 2012, p.18)
3
. Research on design-processes reveal that the active qualities of
maer are valuable partners in body-material-dialogues, examined and described
in Embodied Knowledge (Christensen et.al., 2020, Schmitz, Groninger, 2014)
4
,
Tacit Knowledge (Palaasmaa, 2009) and Reection-in-Action (Schon, 1982).
Tight relations are stated between scientic and artistic research practices since
both are based on intuitive, exploratory aesthetic and experimental approaches to
achieve knowledge (Mareis, Windgäer, 2014, Bippus, 2012, Rheinberger, 2001).
Seen this way, creating material knowledge in the higher education of art, design
and architecture is applied research which again reects the strong entanglement
of theory, method and practice (Borgdor, 2015). In academic education, archi-
tecture is taught as a discipline which intertwines artistic and technical knowledge
into a built design. It is also a subject with social responsibility and impact. Social,
cultural and economic demands have to be skilfully combined with design proces-
ses since the eect, the organisation and the appearance of the built environment
concerns all of us as well as the non-human. If architecture is to reect its time, it
has to develop appropriate tools to react to environmental changes including new
working methods and concepts. e aim of the exam regulations for the Master of
Architecture and Urban Planning degree program which came into force in 2019
is to establish a stronger link between teaching and research and to integrate the
students as “science assistants”. Here, research-based studying serves to develop
not only interdisciplinary and innovative teaching, but also critical awareness and,
increasingly, to introduce students to a research culture of their own.
Colour as maer is a eeting phenomenon that people have been trying to grasp
in sciences as well as art, architecture and design for thousands of years by looking,
wandering, dreaming, painting or writing (Schmitz, Schröder, Kramer, Neuefeind,
2019)
5
. Yet, living in a contemporary colour world, we tend to forget that most
colouring agents once originated from minerals, lichens, insects, and plants. e
development and industrial production of synthetic pigments and dyes starting
3
Performative Turn is a collective term to describe the rising interest in performance and action in epistemological processes, whether artistic
or scientic. Practice in general comes into focus in academic research, not only as a subject but also through performative methodologies like
re-enactment, re-construction, reection-in-action and so-called hands-on practices.
4
Christensen, Drach et.al, (2020) Schmitz, Häußler, Mareis and Groninger (2014) edited publications on practice-based research in an archi-
tectural context, and share the thesis that media and materiality in the dra not only depict, but in turn are the basis of further knowledge acts.
5
“Orte der Farbe”: a multidisciplinary approach to colour in spatial situations was published in 2019. Diverse positions on the eeting pheno-
mena of colour were discussed and assembled in this book aer an international conference, held at RWTH Aachen University in 2015.
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in the late 19th and early 20th century
6
led to the imitation and replacement of
traditional colouring agents. e new dyes and paints were more brilliant, durable
and aordable. In just a few decades, the colours that had previously come from
all sorts of organisms and mineral sources were cast aside. We nd ourselves in
an “articial paradise (…), the ultimate mimetic camouage that allowed second
nature to pose as nature.’’ (Taussig, 2006, p. 49). Furthermore, a long tradition of
know-how on the manual production of pigments and dyes, a knowledge which is
nowadays referred to as tacit knowledge
7
, has been cast into oblivion. In scientic
research on colour, especially in material art history and conservation science, there
is a growing interest in recovering (and discovering) knowledge involved in the ma-
nual practices of ‘making’ colour, conserved in historical recipes. e re-enactment
of these recipes can provide us with artisanal and tacit knowledge that exceeds the
language-based notes of a historical journal
8
.
Another hands-on approach to the maer of colour is performed by the interdis-
ciplinary institution Haus der Farbe, Zurich/Ch where crasmen and scientists
cooperate on dierent aspects of colour in architecture. Here, colour as a supply
material is handled and examined as a fundamental part of a design practice while
it remains strongly connected to a traditional cra knowledge
9
.
e research around colouring agents derived from microorganisms is rather new, al-
though research on microorganisms used in various other elds has been ongoing for
several years. Increased global warming has paved the way for engaging with microor-
ganisms as they sequester atmospheric CO2 and convert it into biomass, as a source
of nutrition, or as a helpful indicator where colour oen acts as a signal for environ-
6
William Henry Perkin wasn’t trying to make the colour red in his lab that day. As a research assistant for a famed chemist, he was trying to
whip up synthetic quinine, a treatment for malaria. Perkin was interested in the properties of coal tar, an abundant by-product that comes from
heating coal. But instead, he ended up with a dark powder. Washing out his ask with alcohol, Perkin was struck by the residue’s bright purple
colour. He tried using it to dye silk, and it was a success. Perkin had found the world’s rst synthetic dye. From that moment on, “coal-tar color
coated the world as a natural backdrop. Coal-tar color became the light of the world.”, M. Taussig, 2006, p. 49.
7
Tacit knowledge, a term coined by Michael Polanyi, as opposed to explicit knowledge, is a form of knowledge that is dicult to transfer to
another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. Abilities such as facial recognition, riding a bicycle or kneading dough require all
sorts of knowledge which is not always known explicitly, even by expert practitioners, and which is dicult or impossible to explicitly transfer
to other people. In design, arts and architecture this concept of implicit knowledge has a deep impact on teaching methodologies.
8
In contemporary research on colour, performative methods like re-enactment are practiced in art history and conservation studies by Sven
Dupré, “Art Techne—making and knowing on arts from the 15th century until today” and Anne-Sophie Lehmann, with the making and
knowing project on arts in renaissance, University of Utrecht, Netherlands, as well as in e Straus Conservation Center, Harvard Art Museum,
in their colour laboratories, and by Pamela Smith, “the making and knowing project - intersections of cra making and scientic knowledge”,
Columbia University, NY. hps://harvardartmuseums.org/teaching-and-research/research-centers/straus-center-for-conservation-and-tech-
nical-studies
9
Haus der Farbe, Zürich, is a Swiss institution to connect theoretical knowledge with skillful experience in crasmanship. Applied Research on
colour is strongly connected to contemporary practice in workshops and studios. hps://hausderfarbe.ch/de/institut/forschung/
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mental change. As colorants, their biomass is mostly extracted in the food industry,
where they need to be compatible with food avours, safety, and nutritional value.
Microorganisms already produce industrially useful natural colorants such as carote-
noid and anthocyanin, while contributing to the sensory aributes of food. However,
research into the creative and artistic value of these organisms is only at the starting
point. Capable of producing colours in numerous dierent shades and hues, they
could serve as ecological substitutes for the ready-made colouring agents we buy in
shops. In recent scientic art and design studies, there have been cooperative eorts
to connect design, technical and biological knowledge and expertise on plant-derived
colour (Atelier Luma, Arles, Colorlab/Laboratorium, Ghent, Greenlab, Berlin)
10
.
How long does it take a dye to be grown and produced by plants or seaweed? How do
they inuence the choreography of a design? Similarly, how can they direct our daily
gaze? Can their characteristics enable new forms of colour appearance or the percep-
tion of colour? How does their agency aect and change the design-process? What are
the ecological, political and social implications? ese are the main questions tackled
by the ‘Living Colour’ research project.
Fig. le. Joergens, M., paper dyed with Arthrospira platensis, © Neuefeind, A.
Fig. right. Hensel, S., pigment extracted from micro-algae Dunaliella salina (le) and Arthrospira platensis (right), © Hensel, S.
10
e three projects chosen may be representative of the broad range of cooperation:
> Atelier Luma - an interdisciplinary experimental cultural institution based in Arles, southern France, “brings together experts in design, art,
biology and technology with regional partners and material resources such as algae to create new and sustainable solutions.” hps://atelier-lu-
ma.org/en/about
> Laboratorium is a biotechnological laboratory based in the SK School of Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Its “Color Lab was a trans-disciplinary
research project approaching the colour eld from dierent perspectives: from sustainable production and application to the use of colour as a
common language between art and science.” hp://www.laboratorium.bio/
> Greenlab Berlin- a laboratory for sustainable design strategies. “Initiated in 2010, the interdisciplinary greenlab laboratory at Weißensee
Kunsthochschule Berlin links university projects with practice-oriented research and industry with the aim of inspiring and developing inno-
vative concepts for sustainable and environmentally-friendly products and services. In this research-oriented collaboration, sustainable design
methods and strategies are to be applied to develop and implement new concepts and answers to ecological, social and cultural questions.”
hp://greenlab.kunsthochschule-berlin.de/
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‘Living Colour’ research project
As a teaching format, ‘Living Colour’ took place for the rst time in the 2020/21
winter semester with 12 Architecture Masters students in order to discuss the
agency of colouring agents sourced from living organisms. With respectful con-
sideration of the historically tactile qualities of colour before the rise of synthetic
paint, we explored the sensory and bodily experience of colour in detail. Following
Ingold’s proposition: “Could not such engagement–-working practically with mate-
rials—oer a more powerful procedure of discovery?’’ (Ingold, 2007, p.3), parti-
cipants produced and used pigments and dyes derived from dierent organisms
such as plants, micro-algae or cyanobacteria, by following dierent instructions for
experimental seings. Ingold points out that “the knowledge of a skilled practitio-
ner in a world of materials is a knowledge born of sensory perception and practical
engagement.” (Ingold, 2007, p.11-12).
‘Living Colour’ started from everyday colour phenomena, such as the industrial
dyeing of diverse food products like salmon or oranges. By raising awareness regar-
ding the cultural, ecological and economic dimensions of such quotidian pheno-
mena, a layer was added that shed new light on the usage of colouring agents.
Learning outcomes included the acknowledgement of interdisciplinarity (art/
architecture and biotechnology) as a potential for innovation, the reection on the
temporality of materials (growth, fragility and decay as the resulting properties)
and its implications for their usage and the investigation of architectural topics
such as the interaction of location, weather conditions and time and the resulting
implications for the choice of material. Since the colouring agents are fugitive, par-
ticipants reected on the capacity to convey the momentary aspects of sensation
and how we have lost or even have never learnt an ability to support change and
seasonality as part of the characteristics of time.
Practice, process and results were thoroughly documented (photography and vi-
deo-documentation, handwrien notes and sketches in research journals) and were
reviewed at short time intervals in online meetings. e discussion was intersected
by theoretical sessions in order to connect the practical experience to an anthropo-
logical and philosophical understanding of maer in general. Hence, this research
on colouring agents served as a micro-history that can propose a new understan-
ding and perspective of how we now considerately and sustainably refer to maer
and consequently, to the environment where this maer originates.
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“Re-enactments of historical techniques bring to the surface ideas that are oen latent in strictly theoretical approaches to technique and mate-
riality. By investigating recipes of pre-modern color, we engage with colour as both technique and concept, as the cross-geographical product of
nature and artistic experimentalism, and, above all, as an area of study that has increasingly come to move across disciplines and scholarly domains”
Dupré, S. (2018) (Blogpost) available online at: hps://artechne.wp.hum.uu.nl/re-working-with-makers-part-2/
Sharifa Lookman remarked, regarding the 2019 ROOTHS summer school (Research on the Origin of Historical Techniques):
“As a participant, I found that the summer school’s give-and-take between the wrien word and re-enactment emphasized two fundamental ideas
in the study of color technologies: his process, the mutability of language in interpreting recipes and the intellectual merit of touch and sensation in
reconstructing them; in other words, the valuable cross-fertilization of both mind and body in materiality studies.” Lookman, S. (2019) (Blogpost)
available online at: hps://artechne.wp.hum.uu.nl/experiencing-historical-techniques-through-the-color-black-at-the-roohts-summer-school/)
“Drawing on techniques from both laboratory and archival research, the Making and Knowing Project crosses the science/humanities divide and
explores the relationships between today’s labs and the cra workshops of the past, and between pre-industrial conceptions of natural knowledge
and our understanding of science and art today.” Smith, P. (2015) available online at: hps://www.makingandknowing.org/about-the-project/
Fig. le. Hadasch, L., coon dyed with Rubia tinctorum (madder root), @ Hadasch, L.
Fig. right. Aliskan, A., Isikli, T., following instructions on extracting colour from Indigofera tinctoria (Indigo), video still, @
Aliskan, A.
Tacit Knowledge
Madder root and Indigo
One of the aims of ‘Living Colour’ was for participants to rethink our
material production modes. Once a dye is produced from madder root
or enough lichens harvested to dye a piece of fabric, the participants ca-
refully used what took seasons to grow, a process similar to what Taussig
describes as “slow deliberation of speed, or rather non-speed’’ (Taus-
sig, 2006, p. 164). erefore, the research project acknowledged the
methods and strategies of pigment and dye production before the rise
of synthetic paints, when tacit knowledge was a given for many indivi-
duals. Here, historical recipes of plant-based dyes (such as madder lakes
and Indigo) served as a guideline
11
with the aim of tracking the aect
those manufacturing techniques have on the researcher. e objective
was to stress the spatial, bodily and sensory experiences of the partici-
pants and to develop or rethink specic choreographies of producing a
colouring agent, considering the movements which dyers have perfor-
med over hundreds of years before paints were industrially produced.
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Fig. Presentation and discussion of results, coon and linen dyed with Rubia tinctorum (madder root), screenshot, © Hensel, S.
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Fig. le. Hadasch, L., paper dyed with chromatography of purple maple leaves, © Neuefeind, A.
Fig. right. Honrath, L., paper and coon dyed with pale green lichen, © Neuefeind, A.
Following the idea of seasonality and locality, one student task evolved around the
investigation of their respective surroundings with regard to potential colouring
sources. Inspired by the ‘Colour Walks’ of William Burroughs, they were invited to
stroll around their neighbourhood and engage in observation of organic sources such
as plants, mushrooms, algae or lichens. is served as a way to reect on the specic
colour palee of their daily environment and to acknowledge the potentials that
lie at their doorstep at this particular moment in time. A Google map documented
the respective locations (accessible online). e sources found were surprising, and
much more than could be expected in a north European winter, thanks to saturated
colours that came from mushrooms, mosses, berries and owers.
Agency
Plants, micro-algae and cyanobacteria
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Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
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Fig. le. Dierkes, C., documentation of ‘Colour Walk’ in the centre of Aachen, © Dierkes, C.
Fig. right. Schwab, L., diagram and text observing her own body aer consuming beetroot, © Schwab, L.
Another task used an environmental chamber, a UV-light simulation chamber.
In general, an environmental chamber, also called a climatic chamber or climate
chamber, is an enclosed space used to test and simulate the eects of specied
environmental conditions on biological items, industrial products, materials, and
electronic devices and components. In this task, students dyed several papers with
a strongly saturated blue from Arthrospira platensis and spread them in dierent
locations to observe their transformation over time due to UV-light radiation. is
served as eld research to gather initial data regarding the disappearance of the
fugitive pigment phycocyanin, derived from cyanobacteria.
In order to compare the collected data, the next step involved standardised mate-
rial tests for lightfastness of media conducted in the UV-light simulation chamber.
Next, the colouring agents, applied on the paper and with one part of the sample
masked, were exposed to light energy accelerated by a factor of approximately nine.
By doing so, the sample was projected into a future scenario and it was possible to
gather reliable data regarding the colouring agents’ behaviour over time.
A third task involved the participant’s body itself. Following instructions from Coo-
king Sections, a duo of spatial practitioners based in London, published via Serpen-
tine Galleries 2020, the students digested two cooked beetroots which dyed their
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Fig. le. Dierkes, C., coon dyed with mushrooms, © Neuefeind, A.
Fig. right. Aliskan, A., colour samples derived from fresh berries, @ Neuefeind, A.
bodies from the inside in tones of red, a phenomenon which showed in the form of
red- tinted urine aer some days. is task served to raise a more profound un-
derstanding of a dialogue between body and maer with a focus on the time-based
aspect of colouring methods. Students’ observations were expressed in the form of
a poetic text, as well as a self-designed diagram.
What participants learned from working with organic sources as colouring agents
is that although they can have a surprisingly bright and saturated appearance im-
mediately aer extraction, their nature can be highly fugitive. Results showed that
exposure to UV-light can degrade some of the pigments rather quickly, which raised
awareness on how harmful sunlight can actually be to any skin. Furthermore, on
paper, applied surfaces appeared ma and dull, but when applied in thicker layers
they took on an almost lacquered appearance. Sometimes extraction of pigments led
to pale hues of grey or yellow. Experiments with dierent mordants and supports
indicated that the possibilities are endless and that we are only at the starting point
of exploring the full potential of the agency of these colouring agents.
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Elke Bippus explores artistic practices in relation to scientic practices, with a strong focus on manual practice and thinking.
13
Concerning his research on scientic notes and sketches, Bredekamp also stated a logical relation between hand and mind, and the importan-
ce of manual recordings in scientic processes. Rheinberger denes the term “experimental systems”: he focusses on science practices as pro-
cess and denes a seing of knowledge, technologies, instruments and materials as an experimental system, as an assemblage in the meaning of
a system or network of actors according to Latour’s ANT, and Deleuze, which enable research processes. Handwrien notes then form part of
this assemblage.
Empiric cycle
The handwritten journal: a tool to reflect
A fundamental part of the project was the accurate documentation of
processes where the epistemological aspects of handwrien notes and
sketches could be appreciated. Writing and drawing preserved fugiti-
ve aspects and showed the agility of thinking within such a dynamic
(Bippus, 2009)
12
. In most scientic experimental seings, handwrien
notes and sketches serve as a tool since they enable immediate docu-
mentation and expression of the action of body and mind in relation
to the seing (Rheinberger, 2019, Bredekamp, 2007)
13
. In ‘Living
Colour’, sketches and handwrien notes functioned as a step-by-step
reection process.
“Astonishing and previously unintelligible aspects are revealed when
being able to draw a logical conclusion through accurate documenta-
tion. Since research denes the concept of further development, com-
plete, detailed and objective documentation is essential for following
experiments. Establishing principles and starting points is important in
teamwork in order to achieve usable results and developments instead
of a collection of random products without traceability. e use of the
research journal in ‘Living Colour’ made all participants very aware of
this aspect of scientic work in the course of the series of experiments.’’
39
Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
sustainable sources. Understanding Design as a messy socio-technical Actor-Network_Sina Hensel, Anja Neuefeind
“Of course, in a fast and complex world, it is not possible for everyone
to have “worked out” or manufactured all of the products they use
themselves beforehand. But repeated memories with small projects on
very dierent levels (food, clothing, furniture, ora, fauna, etc.) could
be enough to broaden the view of the origins and complexity of things.
Even a conscious walk, for example, in the format of the Colour Walk
by William Burroughs, is a simple, but haunting and transformational
experience, contrary to the familiar and what we take for granted. It
is like wearing a kind of “focus glasses” that help to concentrate on
previously neglected aspects. Exciting discoveries that we never would
have thought possible await in our immediate surroundings. In my
search for colouring materials in urban areas, I was surprised to nd
such a large number of very dierent lichens and mosses in the city
centre alone. e structure, colour, spread and habitat were more di-
verse than I ever would have expected for early February…’’
“Improvisation, adaptation and alternatives are tools that are widely
used since every design is individual. Its planning and realisation can-
not be carried out under laboratory conditions. ere are established
procedures for design elements which, like the colour recipes, have
been tried and tested over decades, but an exact transfer is never pos-
sible without adjustments. In this respect, working in our own colour
Fig.: Teixieira, D., notes in research journal, @ Neufeind, A.
40
Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
sustainable sources. Understanding Design as a messy socio-technical Actor-Network_Sina Hensel, Anja Neuefeind
laboratory was a completely new experience and a useful insight into a
dierent way of working. e detailed documentation of every single
step initially seemed unusual, superuous and sometimes exhausting,
but their usefulness was proven as early as the rst series of tests in
order to understand the processes and dierences in the results.’’
“However, dierences can be precisely demonstrated on the basis of
the documentation. It helps the understanding enormously. e un-
conscious seeing and acting become conscious perception and interna-
lisation.’’ Participant Honrath, L., 2021, notes in research journal.
Accurate documentation and structured notes served as a tool to
increase an understanding of corporeal and im(material) dimensions
of the experiments. Yet, as opposed to structured notes, we also advi-
sed the participants to take more personal notes to reect on sensorial
and emotional dimensions of the study. Here, notes relating to a bodily
experience such as haptic experiences, smells, sometimes even tastes
and what impact they had on the experience of the use of the colouring
agent were recorded. “e challenge under discussion is how to develop
and account for methodologies that enable cultural researchers to inves-
tigate aective processes in relation to a certain empirical study.’’ (Timm
Knudsen, Stage, 2016, p.1). Here, “we dene an aective method as an
innovative strategy for (1) asking research questions and formulating
research agendas relating to aective processes, for (2) collecting or
producing embodied data and for (3) making sense of these data in
order to produce academic knowledge.’’ (Timm Knudsen, Stage, 2016,
p.1). Embodied experiences were not only reected personally in the
research journals, they also oen became a topic during the weekly
discussions with the participants. At rst, questions regarding smells,
tastes or emotions were viewed with scepticism by the participants, but
as the project evolved, they became accustomed to the idea of these di-
mensions having an impact on the study. In the end, the sensory aspects
of encountering material were embraced; many research journal entries
were a testament to this. Participants related to their experiences in their
reports and conclusions.
41
Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
sustainable sources. Understanding Design as a messy socio-technical Actor-Network_Sina Hensel, Anja Neuefeind
Fig. Honrath, L., notes in research journal, @ Neuefeind, A.
42
Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
sustainable sources. Understanding Design as a messy socio-technical Actor-Network_Sina Hensel, Anja Neuefeind
Conclusion
In educational Institutions such as academic faculties of architecture, the model of
research-based teaching is a promising format. Since academic research is highly
dened by its discipline and the methods belonging to it, developing adequate me-
thods in an interdisciplinary eld such as architecture is a multifaceted challenge.
Processes are divergent and constantly changing; therefore the aempt to extract
a purely systematic structure is equivalent to neglect. Rather, its interdisciplinary
character synthesizes inuences and methods from dierent disciplines and the-
refore develops new entry points and perspectives in order to exibly respond to
contemporary challenges. Design research can oer an open ‘toolbox’ to a process-
and maer-oriented approach that can exceed our current understanding of maer
and a built environment.
Starting from everyday phenomena such as the articial colouring of food products,
we observed a rising awareness among the participants towards their surroundings.
Participants opened their eyes to previously-unnoticed quotidian events and the
complex infrastructure and dynamic of economic and environmental relationships at
play behind them. e encounter with the material itself—roots, plants, micro-algae
and cyanobacteria—and the eeting manifestations of colour in (even the partici-
pants’ own) bodies, strengthened the feel and awareness for materials and for the
subtlety of physical changes in an animate and inanimate world. erefore, the topic
of colour served as an entry point for questions that went much further. e constant
reorganisation of colour in organisms or maer, both articial and natural, and the
life around it, exposed global entanglements of human forces, cross-examined their
bare necessity and sought answers on to what extent we can be held responsible.
e perceptive shi on colour as an agentic material, as a source for design-pro-
cesses and a fundamentally bodily, haptic and aesthetic experience questioned our
human-centred point of view and the resulting expectations towards colouring
agents and material in general. To consider colour as an active force marks a pos-
sible shi in design practices as well as in teaching, since it neglects the hierarchy
of maker and material. To handle the material, to notice its sensual appearance, to
get in touch with it, apply it, question it, observe it and to accept its transforma-
tion, generated an aitude dened by curiosity and respect. e borders between
research and teaching blurred, and facilitated the intertwining of both. e strong
link between contemporary theory and a bodily experience opened up new pers-
pectives in a teaching format derived from a research-based approach like the one
implemented at RWTH Aachen University.
43
Inmaterial 11_Artículo_ Colour Agencies: colouring plants, cyanobacteria & micro-algae a practice-based research on
sustainable sources. Understanding Design as a messy socio-technical Actor-Network_Sina Hensel, Anja Neuefeind
Note: In this paper, we refer to the research
project ‘Living Colour’ that took place in
the 2020/21 winter semester at the Chair of
Visual Arts, Architecture Department, RWTH
Aachen University/GER, with 12 participants.
It is funded by Curriculum 4.0 of the Ministry
of Culture and Science Nordrhein-Westfalen
in cooperation with Stierverband NRW and
is still under way.
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46
Inmaterial 11_Editorial_Luis Guerra
Sina Hensel (*1986 in Mainz/GER) is a visual artist, based in Brusse-
ls/BE and researcher at the Chair of Visual Arts, Faculty of Architectu-
re, RWTH Aachen University/GER.
In 2012 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in
Karlsruhe/GER and Hamburg/GER and 2018-2019 she took part in
the Postgraduate Research Program of HISK (Higher Institute for Fine
Arts) in Ghent/BE.
Her work has been shown among others: MH- Museum for
Contemporary Art Antwerp/BE, CIAP Kunstverein Genk/BE, Albert
van Abbehuis Art Center, Eindhoven/NL, Kunsthaus L6 and Kul-
turwerk T66 Freiburg/GER, Kunstverein Paderborn/GER, Kunstve-
rein Tiergarten Berlin/GER, SouthBlock Glasgow/UK and LaChau-
erie Strasbourg/FR.
Artistic research residencies brought her to: Hangar, Center for
Art Research and Production, Barcelona/ES, Tatra National Park/PL
with STEP Travel Grant of the European Cultural Foundation, Cairn-
gorms National Park/UK with Beta-Beta Residency, Brussels/BE with
Penthouse Art Residency by Harlan Levey Gallery, Luberon National
Park/FR with a Travel Grant of the Roi Baudouin Foundation and to
Villa Romana/IT with a Travel Grant of the Annual Award of Academy
of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe/GER.
Anja Neuefeind (*1973 in Darmstadt/GER). Educated as a theater
painter at the state theater in Darmstadt, she studied Stage and Costu-
me Design at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin/GER and Sce-
nography, Media Arts and Architecture at the Karlsruhe University of
Arts and Design/GER. Until 2005 she worked as assistant Set Desig-
ner at the eater Freiburg/GER. Freelance activities in the eld of
stage design, exhibition design, set design for photoshoots and theater
painting in Dortmund/GER followed.
Since 2008 she has been a Science Assistant at the Chair of
Visual Arts, Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen University/GER,
research, publications and teaching in the eld of drawing, painting
and colour, among others.
Since 2019 she heads the Atelier für Farbe und Raum at the
Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen University/GER.
