Keep Your Boots Muddy — The artificial stream and pond system in Berlin is a new, large and technically sophisticated test plant where biologists carry out experiments with pollutants that influence flora and fauna.   When I first saw this plant, I was impressed by the gigantic scenery with all these green channels, tubes, cables and other technical equipment. To me, the artificial stream system looked like a huge living organism that simulated real nature in an extraordinary artificial way. I felt a great deal of artistic inspiration and started taking my camera with me. But filming these interesting instruments soon became limited, and therefore I concentrated on filming the people who worked with these machines. In my film the main focus became handling devices, how people do their daily jobs as scientists or technical assistants. I asked them about their experiments, how their use of technology and the ongoing invention of new instruments facilitated their scientific work. I also wanted to know how much attention had to be paid to ritualized and repetitive work processes, and how intuition can become a leading force in science. The idea of shooting the film without talking heads but letting the people talk offstage was to show their inner dialog with themselves during working. It allows us to gain insight into their daily job in an unusual way: their close relation to machines and how confronting permanently new work conditions can be a great pleasure.