In this edition of Kein Kino, Yasaman Sheri discusses the molecular materials unfolding around and within us in a time of growing climate disasters.

With case studies as wildfires, ocean health and female reproduction disruptors, we see a rise in invisible chemicals and particles that infiltrate our air, water, and soil—often in ways that escape direct human perception—tiny matter that flow within every living cell, humans, plants, animals, and surface; every interaction becomes a molecular affliction. Through advances in sensor technology, AI, and material science, we are developing new tools that inform our understanding by measuring and visualizing invisible matter that may be toxic. From sensing nanoscale pollutants to synthetic molecules, we are forced to face the politics and poetics of sensing in a very different lens, tracing the migrations of invisible harms.

Yet across scales and species these systematic and prevalent problems are viscerally felt and evoke a type of elemental intimacy, reframing our relationship to our bodies and matter itself. Like fossils, debris impresses in our skin, hair, and bodies. The discussion will weave science, technology, and critical & creative inquiry to foreground new relationships to environmental matter and toxicity — not as abstract data, but as something intimate, relational and embodied. The climate collapse is a molecular affair; not only landscapes and weather are shifting —it is the chemistry of our everyday lives that’s shifting.

Kein Kino is an interdisciplinary lecture series presented by the Department of Design of Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), focusing on projects at the intersection of design, arts, and technology, with the goal of examining trends critically and identifying productive collaborations between disciplines. The theme of the current edition of Kein Kino is “Design Realities – Future Technologies.”