Hello! We are the Interdisciplinary Laboratory. from Bild Wissen Gestaltung on Vimeo.

Complex problems cannot be solved within the boundaries of a single academic discipline. They require the knowledge and skills of researchers from different fields of knowledge: representatives from more than 40 different disciplines were involved in the research of fundamental design processes in the sciences at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory »Image Knowledge Gestaltung« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 2012–2018. The Interdisciplinary Laboratory brought together the humanities, the natural sciences and engineering sciences, medicine and – for the first time in basic research – design and architecture, with the objective was to strengthen and enrich each discipline through interdisciplinary collaboration.

IMAGE 
Images play an active part in the production of knowledge, transcending the scope of mere human artifacts and also forming an essential sphere within natural processes. Following this broad understanding of images, the spectrum of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory’s research encompassed objects, spaces, structures, forms of movement as well as sound. Projects investigated how these pictorial forms actively shape the knowledge they represent.

KNOWLEDGE 
The generation, transmission and storage of knowledge are shaped by architecture, media and tools, structures and models, means of information and images. From the laboratory arrangement to the seminar room, from the chemical formula to theory building – science is design. New methods of virtualization and networking of data and digital imaging present new challenges within research. What is the creative potential of knowledge? Historical reflection and innovation form two sides of the same context.

GESTALTUNG
Imaging and knowledge production are creative practices. They influence perception, thinking and action. The Interdisciplinary Laboratory was convinced that creative processes in a technically advanced knowledge society should be understood as genuine research achievements and that research should be taken seriously as a creative process. On the basis of examining design as both materialization and realization of knowledge, »Image Knowledge Gestaltung« linked basic research with its application....