The Appearance of That Which Cannot Be Seen is a topography of various dialogues, a compilation of distinct conceptual and theoretical readings of Armin Linke’s photographs. For this ongoing project, Linke invites scientists and theorists to engage with his archive, which encompasses more than 20,000 photographs. The works are selected and commented on by these experts from various fields and unfold an orchestration of different approaches to the contemporary topics that are depicted in Linke’s photographs. During the conversations, the images are put into fresh contexts and new series of interrelations are created. This continuous recontextualization is reflected in the modular exhibition display. The Appearance of That Which Cannot Be Seen is a scenery in which the images function as starting points for conversations and individual associations. Recordings of the dialogues function as an accompanying audio-play and sound landscape; by listening to them, the visitor can follow the different conversations. The Appearance of That Which Cannot Be Seen is a collaboration with Jan Kiesswetter, Mevis & van Deursen and Alina Schmuch (concept and design), Martha Schwindling (exhibition architecture), Giuseppe Ielasi, and Nicola Ratti (sound design).

Armin Linke was born in 1966 and lives in Berlin. As a photographer and filmmaker he analyses the formation, the “Gestaltung” of our natural, technological and urban environment, perceived as a diverse space of continuous interaction. His photographs and films function as tools to become aware of the different design strategies. Through working with his own archive, as well as with other media archives, Linke challenges the conventions of photographic practice, whereby the questions of how photography is installed and displayed become increasingly important. In a collective approach with artists, designers, architects, historians and curators, narratives are procured on the level of multiple discourses. He was research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Visual Arts Program, guest professor at the IUAV Arts and Design University in Venice, and professor for photography at the University for Arts and Design Karlsruhe.

Peter Hanappe studied electronic engineering at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He wrote his PhD thesis on real-time music and sound environments at Ircam (Centre George Pompidou, Paris). While researching at Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, he worked on new modes of content creation and distribution before focusing on projects in the domain of sustainability. He was involved in setting up a collective system for monitoring noise in urban environments (NoiseTube) and in building critical components for large-scale climate simulations in collaboration with the UK’s Met Office. He has also developed technologies for minimizing energy usage in volunteer computation projects such as ClimatePrediction.net.

Bruno Latour teaches at Sciences Po Paris and is vice-president of research for the same institution. Latour has been honored for his innovative theories, which bridge the fields of philosophy, science, anthropology, and politics. He is the author of numerous books dealing with scientific practice and the political philosophy of nature, including We Have Never Been Modern, 'Politics of Nature,' and 'Reassembling the Social'. Based on these ideas, he has cocurated two exhibitions with ZKM Karlsruhe, Iconoclash (2002) and Making Things Public (2005). The exhibitions are now regarded as a revolutionary way of linking art and science and have resulted in the recent creation at Sciences Po of both the "médialab" and a new postgraduate program in political arts. He has spent the past three years engaged in making this collaborative digital platform.