Living with cyberlove and virtual reality, Industry 4.0, seeing and being seen by machines – these were the key topics explored by trainees in media and information services from the Louise-Schroeder-School at the wannseeFORUM from June 19th to 24th, 2017. In the seminar "Human, Machine, Possibilities – Living and Working in a Smart World," they researched and discussed the future of the changing relationship between humans and machines brought about by digitalization. What role do algorithms play in self-determination and external control in everyday life and in social interaction? What pitfalls and added value does all-pervasive networking offer us today and in the near future/in 20 years? Exercises on this topic during the introductory day accompanied and inspired all workshop groups in their work processes.
The workshop group "Staged Reading" offered a glimpse into a future where VR headsets and the perception of virtual worlds are part of everyday life. A portion of the texts in the overall performance were written by the group members themselves. „"101101" are available here as a scan/pdf to read.
What does Industry 4.0 look like – especially for the participating trainees at their workplaces in the library and archive? The group also held a discussion via Skype with Corinna Haas from the library. Institute for Cultural Inquiry/Berlin on knowledge, digitization, and libraries. The participants filmed the positions they developed throughout the workshop. All the films are available on Vimeo: „Question of the week: Digitalization“, „Famina – Library & Internet” and „"Libraries - A Journey Through Time"“
The human-machine relationship also raises questions about feelings, categories like friendship and love, and conceptions of terms like morality and ethics. The comic group discussed these topics and, as one result of their discussions, presented the exhibition "Cyberlove." Further comics can be viewed here as jpg and pdf files: „Hangover“ ,„Today – 2037″, „"At the wrong time"“, „"Handyman"“ and „"Loss of reality"“
Do we walk through our world with our eyes open, discovering which machines see us, what we reveal to them, and what the consequences are? How much of ourselves do we voluntarily share and send these images to the World Wide Web via digitization? How is our historically built urban space already changing in the smart city of Berlin, the city of tomorrow, through tablets and other digital devices? The black and white photography workshop group explored these and other questions. Two works are shown here (photographed in the final exhibition): „I carry you with me“ and „"Untitled"“
More impressions from the entire seminar can be found on Flickr.
Many questions about the relationship between humans and machines remain open and must be discussed today in order to shape the future. They therefore remain an important topic – also in the wannseeFORUM.
All photos on this page: Andi Weiland, all rights reserved. For usage requests, contact ullrich_at_wannseeforum.de
The seminar took place as part of the collaboration within the program „Civic youth education in the AdB“ in the project group „Digital Media and Democracy“ instead. It is supported by the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family
The wannseeFORUM Foundation is a recognized sponsor of the Federal Agency for Civic Education.
