Vernissage: Zusammenarbeit mit dem Unbekannten
– Versuch einer parasitären und symbiotischen Gestaltung

Collaboration with the Unknown
 – An Attempt at Parasitic and Symbiotic Design

On the 4th floor of the Bilker Bunker, works from Prof. Holger Jacobs’ seminar are on display, in which students explored non-human life forms from the perspective of typography. The focus was on forms of symbiotic and parasitic collaboration with species such as fungi, worms, and insects.

Dates
July 17–19, 2026

Opening
July 17, 6:00 p.m.

Hours
Fri & Sat, 2–9 p.m.
Sun, 2–6 p.m.

Background

The fundamentals of typography—particularly with regard to the treatment of text—have fundamentally changed. In Swiss typography, content was once sacred. Typography served the purposes of readability and clear communication. That is no longer the case. Nothing is unequivocally true or false anymore. The authority of the text or the author no longer exists. We know less and less about where the information we consume or process actually comes from—who was involved, which platforms, people, machines, or conscious or unconscious entities.

Similarly, most physical processes and reactions occur unconsciously. According to Katherine Hayles (Bacteria to AI), our bodies consist of far more non-human than human cells. We have thus long been in a state of symbiosis with bacteria and microorganisms. Criticism of the Anthropocene is growing. It is human arrogance to believe that our consciousness makes us superior to life forms that are “merely” cognitive. The question is rather one of collaboration with non-human—but often more resilient—forms of existence.

Peter Schwenger describes a language of nature that eludes human understanding and control as “eco-asemic” (eco-asemic), while the German poet Franz Mon compares words to insects that crawl through cracks, creating new connections and meanings and revealing the dynamics of language as an independent, almost organic system.