On/Off Relationship: Family Day

Just Add People is a game that highlights the relationship between architecture and society. Amidst wooden bars, neon-yellow connectors and brightly coloured adhesive tape, brand-new, useless and necessary connections emerge – between people, objects and environments. 

Location: Forecourt | free of charge, no booking required

What would you like to say to a machine one day – and what might it say back to you? Improvisational performers exchange letters between humans and machines, seek technical solutions to human problems, and offer human help for overwhelmed technologies.

On stage, the audience itself becomes the relationship AI, witnessing a machine quit its job and experiencing how a technological body extension becomes an emotional roller coaster ride. Closeness, dependence, trust and conflict between people and technology are explored playfully through conversations, classified ads and improv scenes. How close are machines allowed to get to us, and at what point do we pull the plug?

Location: Foyer | Stage show: 15 min.

The arena is open for self-optimisation!
Fitness apps count our steps, smartwatches monitor our sleep, and new technologies are constantly emerging that promise to extend our lives or even grant us eternal youth. But where does sensible care end – and where does the pressure to constantly improve oneself begin? What health data do we want to share, and with whom? And should our health insurance status depend on how well our bodies are optimised? And where does all our sensitive health data actually end up? At the ‘Pillow Fight Club’ , you’ll tackle these questions with a hilariously unexpected arena pillow fight. 

As soon as they enter, visitors are assigned to one of four different types of training. After that, it’s onwards to the Pillowdrome – the arena.  Armed with pillows, the participants step into the ring and go head-to-head in a high-energy pillow fight. Amidst competition, heated exchanges and visions of the future, the boundaries between play and taking things seriously start to blur. Participants experience first-hand what issues such as health data, tracking and body optimisation are like – and, in the process, question their own ideas about what makes up a truly healthy life. 

The Pillow Fight Club combines performance art, playful competition and socially critical questions about the future to create a unique experience. It invites us to expose the relentless pressure to improve ourselves, all while smiling – and clutching a pillow.

Location: Forum

Have you ever wondered how a robot ‘thinks’ or ‘learns’? Prof. Dr. Florian Röhrbein and his team from Chemnitz University of Technology will present a special robotic mouse that has been developed to investigate biological intelligence and neural processes – and to derive new approaches for smarter machines from this research.

Come and experience how the small robotic creature masters a course with various obstacles – the level of difficulty is up to you to decide. You can follow the mouse in real time on a screen as it makes decisions and see how the artificial neural network algorithms work in the background. This makes it possible to experience how robotics and neuroscience work in tandem – and how technology draws inspiration from biology.

Location: Foyer

Mental health is increasingly becoming a key issue for many people. However, technology is simultaneously becoming an ever-greater part of our lives: mobile phones count our steps; smartwatches measure our heart rate. What if in the future, our clothes could monitor our stress levels – and communicate with other garments?

With her collection E-MERGENCE, fashion designer Pauline Stockmann explored how electronics can be used in fashion to support mental health and, in particular, help ease the challenges people with epilepsy face in their daily lives. Here, she presents selected pieces, offering insights into how they work and into her creative, exploratory design process. Using samples of materials and technology, she invites you to experience the collection through touch and to try out the built-in electronic components for yourselves.

The collection was developed as a final-year project at HTW Berlin in collaboration with Fraunhofer IZM.

Location: Foyer | free of charge, no booking required

Is this image real or was it generated by AI? At our hands-on station, you can test how well you can spot deepfakes yourself. First, put your skills to the test and take a close look: then decide for yourself if it is real or fake.

The ever-increasing prevalence of AI-generated images, videos and audio is changing the way we perceive information online. If everything could be fake, what can we still believe? And how can we tell which sources are trustworthy?

After the quiz, you’ll find out how other people answered, be provided with background information on deepfakes, AI slop and copyright, and discover why media literacy will become even more important in the future.

You can join in at any time.

Location: Exhibition

In ‘Doppelgänger’ exhibition, Rosi Pernthaller and Jim Kramer create digital copies of us and the ways we communicate. Their AI doppelgänger gets to know us: about interests, hobbies and memories all through conversation. It turns us into 3D avatars who encounter other visitors’ avatars in a virtual world. But what do our digital reflections do when we’re not there? And just how much of ourselves is actually in them? Come and meet the two artists at our ‘Ask me anything’ exhibition. 

Location: Exhibition

A flower drone? A helmet to make the world a better place? A solar-powered slot machine? There are countless ways to envision the future – what hopes, dreams and ideas do we have? Here, people experiment, draw, work on a sculpture and discuss the future. Together, we’ll invent our very own world of (still) unknown wonders that simply need to be part of a museum of the future. With a pen, paper, a laser cutter and a computer, entirely new and essential inventions emerge.

Activities for young children aged 4 and over

Location: Studio | free of charge, no booking required

The arena is open for self-optimisation!
Fitness apps count our steps, smartwatches monitor our sleep, and new technologies are constantly emerging that promise to extend our lives or even grant us eternal youth. But where does sensible care end – and where does the pressure to constantly improve oneself begin? What health data do we want to share, and with whom? And should our health insurance status depend on how well our bodies are optimised? And where does all our sensitive health data actually end up? At the ‘Pillow Fight Club’ , you’ll tackle these questions with a hilariously unexpected arena pillow fight. 

As soon as they enter, visitors are assigned to one of four different types of training. After that, it’s onwards to the Pillowdrome – the arena.  Armed with pillows, the participants step into the ring and go head-to-head in a high-energy pillow fight. Amidst competition, heated exchanges and visions of the future, the boundaries between play and taking things seriously start to blur. Participants experience first-hand what issues such as health data, tracking and body optimisation are like – and, in the process, question their own ideas about what makes up a truly healthy life. 

The Pillow Fight Club combines performance art, playful competition and socially critical questions about the future to create a unique experience. It invites us to expose the relentless pressure to improve ourselves, all while smiling – and clutching a pillow.

Location: Forum

On this tour, you’ll discover the new exhibits in the ‘On/Off Relationship’ spotlight: immerse yourselves in virtual spaces, the world of algorithms, and encounter learning systems. Technology is transforming the way we live and understand one another: together, we’ll explore how we as humans are changing and what the future of our relationship to machines might look like.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | Language: German | free of charge

How will people and machines work together in the future? Robots, sensors and artificial intelligence are already performing many tasks today – from sorting to navigation. In this open workshop, you will explore what human beings and machines are each good at in their own right and reflect on your own attitude towards technology and AI. See for yourself how robots process information, how they are controlled and how they react to their environment! 

Activities for children aged 10 and over

Location: Lab 

The exhibition at Futurium presents different futures. Visitors can discover exciting options for the future in the technology, nature and human thinking spaces and develop their own attitudes to controversial topics. The highlights of the exhibition are explained with illustrative examples.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | Language: English | free of charge

It’s not a party without some proper music: our DJ, Don Andrés, blends house and disco with Latin American influences and a touch of funk, delivering just the right tunes to transform our forecourt into a dance floor. 

Location: Forecourt | free of charge, no booking required

The arena is open for self-optimisation!
Fitness apps count our steps, smartwatches monitor our sleep, and new technologies are constantly emerging that promise to extend our lives or even grant us eternal youth. But where does sensible care end – and where does the pressure to constantly improve oneself begin? What health data do we want to share, and with whom? And should our health insurance status depend on how well our bodies are optimised? And where does all our sensitive health data actually end up? At the ‘Pillow Fight Club’ , you’ll tackle these questions with a hilariously unexpected arena pillow fight. 

As soon as they enter, visitors are assigned to one of four different types of training. After that, it’s onwards to the Pillowdrome – the arena.  Armed with pillows, the participants step into the ring and go head-to-head in a high-energy pillow fight. Amidst competition, heated exchanges and visions of the future, the boundaries between play and taking things seriously start to blur. Participants experience first-hand what issues such as health data, tracking and body optimisation are like – and, in the process, question their own ideas about what makes up a truly healthy life. 

The Pillow Fight Club combines performance art, playful competition and socially critical questions about the future to create a unique experience. It invites us to expose the relentless pressure to improve ourselves, all while smiling – and clutching a pillow.

Location: Forum

Making the exhibition simple to understand: Futurium worked with Kopf, Hand + Fuß GmbH to adapt the ‘Verainfacher’ (Simplifier) for its exhibition – an AI-powered application developed by Kopf, Hand + Fuß in cooperation with people with learning difficulties. It helps people to understand complex texts more easily. Rather than merely simplifying the language, the application is built around dialogue: visitors take a photograph of an exhibition text and explore its content by asking questions. They can also have difficult terms explained to them or repeat the content as many times as needed until they’ve understood the text. Tailored specifically for Futurium, the guide helps visitors explore the exhibition at their own pace. 

Location: Exhibition

Actually, you only came to explore Futurium’s exhibition and discover the new thematic focus “Raw Materials” interactively … but suddenly something unexpected happens and you find yourself in the middle of an exciting thriller!

Location: Exhibition | 90 minutes

On this tour, you’ll discover the new exhibits in the ‘On/Off Relationship’ spotlight: immerse yourselves in virtual spaces, the world of algorithms, and encounter learning systems. Technology is transforming the way we live and understand one another: together, we’ll explore how we as humans are changing and what the future of our relationship to machines might look like.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | Language: German | free of charge

The exhibition at Futurium presents different futures. Visitors can discover exciting options for the future in the technology, nature and human thinking spaces and develop their own attitudes to controversial topics. The highlights of the exhibition are explained with illustrative examples.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | Language: Ukrainian | free of charge

A life in virtual worlds – is that just a pipe dream? Far from it! Even today, we spend a large part of our time in digital spaces, particularly on social media. But how do these platforms really work? Why do we share our data so freely? And how do algorithms influence our opinions, decisions and even our behaviour?

In this interactive discussion, we take a closer look at the mechanisms of social media with Dr. Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Junior Research Group Leader in Computational Social Science at TU Dresden. We examine how algorithms influence our attention and freedom of choice, what data platforms collect, and how they use it to target content specifically to us. We’ll also look at the future of social media: what might platforms look like that prioritise democratic rather than economic goals – and algorithms that build bridges rather than filter bubbles?

A particular highlight: the newsfeed experiment for you to explore! Test how an algorithm works, and find out what content captures your attention and what data is collected about you. 

Location: Exhibition

On this tour, you’ll discover the new exhibits in the ‘On/Off Relationship’ spotlight: immerse yourselves in virtual spaces, the world of algorithms, and encounter learning systems. Technology is transforming the way we live and understand one another: together, we’ll explore how we as humans are changing and what the future of our relationship to machines might look like.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | Language: English | free of charge

The arena is open for self-optimisation!
Fitness apps count our steps, smartwatches monitor our sleep, and new technologies are constantly emerging that promise to extend our lives or even grant us eternal youth. But where does sensible care end – and where does the pressure to constantly improve oneself begin? What health data do we want to share, and with whom? And should our health insurance status depend on how well our bodies are optimised? And where does all our sensitive health data actually end up? At the ‘Pillow Fight Club’ , you’ll tackle these questions with a hilariously unexpected arena pillow fight. 

As soon as they enter, visitors are assigned to one of four different types of training. After that, it’s onwards to the Pillowdrome – the arena.  Armed with pillows, the participants step into the ring and go head-to-head in a high-energy pillow fight. Amidst competition, heated exchanges and visions of the future, the boundaries between play and taking things seriously start to blur. Participants experience first-hand what issues such as health data, tracking and body optimisation are like – and, in the process, question their own ideas about what makes up a truly healthy life. 

The Pillow Fight Club combines performance art, playful competition and socially critical questions about the future to create a unique experience. It invites us to expose the relentless pressure to improve ourselves, all while smiling – and clutching a pillow.

Location: Forum

The exhibition at Futurium presents different futures. Visitors can discover exciting options for the future in the technology, nature and human thinking spaces and develop their own attitudes to controversial topics. The highlights of the exhibition are explained with illustrative examples.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | free of charge

Actually, you only came to explore Futurium’s exhibition and discover the new thematic focus “Raw Materials” interactively … but suddenly something unexpected happens and you find yourself in the middle of an exciting thriller!

Ort: Exhibition | 90 minutes

On this tour, you’ll discover the new exhibits in the ‘On/Off Relationship’ spotlight: immerse yourselves in virtual spaces, the world of algorithms, and encounter learning systems. Technology is transforming the way we live and understand one another: together, we’ll explore how we as humans are changing and what the future of our relationship to machines might look like.

Ort: Foyer/Ausstellung | Sprache: Plain German | free of charge

The arena is open for self-optimisation!
Fitness apps count our steps, smartwatches monitor our sleep, and new technologies are constantly emerging that promise to extend our lives or even grant us eternal youth. But where does sensible care end – and where does the pressure to constantly improve oneself begin? What health data do we want to share, and with whom? And should our health insurance status depend on how well our bodies are optimised? And where does all our sensitive health data actually end up? At the ‘Pillow Fight Club’ , you’ll tackle these questions with a hilariously unexpected arena pillow fight. 

As soon as they enter, visitors are assigned to one of four different types of training. After that, it’s onwards to the Pillowdrome – the arena.  Armed with pillows, the participants step into the ring and go head-to-head in a high-energy pillow fight. Amidst competition, heated exchanges and visions of the future, the boundaries between play and taking things seriously start to blur. Participants experience first-hand what issues such as health data, tracking and body optimisation are like – and, in the process, question their own ideas about what makes up a truly healthy life. 

The Pillow Fight Club combines performance art, playful competition and socially critical questions about the future to create a unique experience. It invites us to expose the relentless pressure to improve ourselves, all while smiling – and clutching a pillow.

Location: Forum

Artificial intelligence is changing our world. But what can it really do, and how far can it go? In conversation with Dr. Theresa Züger, an expert in public-interest AI and head of the research area ‘Social Values, Transformation and AI’ at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, we explore various AI models and their possible applications. The aim is to explore where AI already offers solutions today and where it merely appears to help, what opportunities and risks its use entails, and how it can be used sustainably, inclusively and transparently for the benefit of society.

This event also thrives on your perspectives: whether you’re new to AI or an expert, this is the place to share thoughts, ask questions and contribute ideas. Together, we want to find out how AI can be used responsibly and effectively.

Location: Exhibition

Everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence, but what’s really behind all the hype? In the card game ‘AI Compass’, you take on the role of AI experts and help members of the public with their enquiries. Your mission: to find out which problems can actually be solved by AI systems. But beware! Not every task is suitable for AI. It’s up to you to identify which challenges can best be tackled without artificial intelligence. Let your creativity flow and work together to find new ways to navigate the uncharted territory of artificial intelligence. Alongside having fun and enjoying the experience, we take a realistic look at current AI systems and their significance for the common good.

The card game was designed and developed by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for the Internet and Society, under the direction of Dr. Theresa Züger and Sarah Spitz, as well as the non-profit organisation neuland & gestalten, and is available from the State Centres for Civic Education.

Activities for adults and children Ages 12 and over, 20–40 minutes of play.

Location: Studio | free of charge, no booking required

The arena is open for self-optimisation!
Fitness apps count our steps, smartwatches monitor our sleep, and new technologies are constantly emerging that promise to extend our lives or even grant us eternal youth. But where does sensible care end – and where does the pressure to constantly improve oneself begin? What health data do we want to share, and with whom? And should our health insurance status depend on how well our bodies are optimised? And where does all our sensitive health data actually end up? At the ‘Pillow Fight Club’ , you’ll tackle these questions with a hilariously unexpected arena pillow fight. 

As soon as they enter, visitors are assigned to one of four different types of training. After that, it’s onwards to the Pillowdrome – the arena.  Armed with pillows, the participants step into the ring and go head-to-head in a high-energy pillow fight. Amidst competition, heated exchanges and visions of the future, the boundaries between play and taking things seriously start to blur. Participants experience first-hand what issues such as health data, tracking and body optimisation are like – and, in the process, question their own ideas about what makes up a truly healthy life. 

The Pillow Fight Club combines performance art, playful competition and socially critical questions about the future to create a unique experience. It invites us to expose the relentless pressure to improve ourselves, all while smiling – and clutching a pillow.

Location: Forum

The exhibition at Futurium presents different futures. Visitors can discover exciting options for the future in the technology, nature and human thinking spaces and develop their own attitudes to controversial topics. The highlights of the exhibition are explained with illustrative examples.

Location: Foyer/Exhibition | Language: German | free of charge