Presence-Event Berlin

The Garden: and the Landing:Stage at the University:Future Festival 2025 in Berlin are characterised by good futures for (digital) higher education. In addition to concrete problems and practical solutions, we discussed fundamental visions, narratives and values for shaping a future-proof academic education.

Please note: The programme of the face-to-face event in Berlin will be mainly in German.

Dates: Garden: and Landing:Stage offer a two-day programme on 13 & 14 May. On the first day, the programme starts at 09:00 and ends at 18:15. On day two, the programme also starts at 09:00 and runs until 18:30. This will be followed by an evening get-together. On the third day of the festival, the programme continues purely digitally. Have a look at our programme.

Location: Festsaal Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 2, 12435 Berlin.

How to get there: Festsaal Kreuzberg can be reached by underground lines U1 and U3 via Görlitzer Bahnhof station or by underground line U8 via Schönleinstraße station, from where it is about a ten-minute walk. If you are travelling by car, it is advisable to look for parking in the surrounding area, as the Festsaal itself does not offer parking spaces and these are generally limited in the area.

Keynotes
Stage programme
Experience:Space
Evening programme
On-Demand

Keynotes (selection)

Here you will find all keynote speakers of the Garden:Stage 2025.

Stage programme

The Berlin presence event will once again offer a varied programme on two stages. On the Garden:Stage, we will be welcoming keynote:speakers such as Julia Freudenberg, Sven Schütt, Christoph Biemann, Lisa Niendorf and the podcast KI-verstehen.

The second stage, Landing:Stage 2025, will take place for the first time with a live audience on site. Here, important topics will be combined with exciting methods. Look forward to the return of popular game shows such as Herzblatt and Family Duel.

Experience:Space

Strange Faces
This interactive installation plays with identity, perception and imagination. What happens when our own reflection does not show what we expect? When we look into the faces of strangers instead – as if they were our own? ‘Strange Faces’ challenges us to think about the boundaries of the self – and about how fluid our identity is.

A fragment is never just a piece
A Fragment is Never Just a Piece reflects the tension between control and boundlessness in dealing with nature and technology. At the centre are hexagons, a form that symbolises stability and is found in both nature and technology. The reflective surface of the sculpture changes depending on the perspective and plays with perception and space.

Visual Literacy. I see something you don’t see!
/imagine – a world in which visual literacy goes beyond the surface of the image. The ‘Visual Literacy’ exhibition by students at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences makes it possible to experience the limits of our visual understanding. How do images influence our thinking, our decisions and our understanding of the world? In an age of digital manipulation and algorithmically controlled visual worlds, we are often unconscious recipients of content that specifically steer emotions and actions. The exhibition brings these mechanisms to life and invites visitors to discover the invisible behind the images.

‘The controllable eye’
How do we look at an object without being there? This installation makes it possible! A camera on a robotic arm can be controlled remotely to experience a physical object from different perspectives. Whether as part of hybrid events or as an artistic experiment – ‘the controllable eye’ makes it possible to discover new perspectives and experience how technology expands our perception!

Jajaja, neeneeneee – talking about monkeys
This installation connects Berlin and Graz and enables visitors from both stages to communicate directly with each other. In a playful way, it invites people to exchange ideas and encourages reflection: How do we overcome distances and what makes us feel close?

Machine Sensing – Virtualised Em/bod/ie/ments
Immerse yourself in an interactive installation that creates living art from movements! This installation transforms gestures into fascinating visual and sound compositions – in real time and in interaction with artificial intelligence. Visitors experience how their own body and expression shape the digital environment and transform into dynamic patterns.

Growing together: Participatory education on the move
The roadshow ‘Growing Together: Participatory Education on the Move’ promotes the ‘Students as Partners’ (SaP) approach and advocates a collaborative teaching and learning culture at (art and design) universities. With the mobile pop-up format ‘Learning Garden’, it promotes interactive exchange, practical experience and innovative teaching methods. The aim is to break up traditional structures and redesign education together – in a sustainable and inspiring way.

Factory facades Change of perspective and interdependence
The installation sheds light on the shifting of perspectives and the breaking up of points of view with a focus on post-colonial and post-industrial culture. The interweaving of architecture and society is shown using videos and layers of fabric and the interactions between the digital and real world are reflected upon.

Intelligent Collaboration Desk (ICD)
The ICD combines analogue and digital creativity on an interactive workbench. Physical notes and sketches from an idea generation process are captured digitally and enhanced with action cards. A camera captures the scene and an AI transforms the ideas, e.g. into an inspiring design fiction. This creates a hybrid approach to generative AI that goes beyond text and voice input and enables new forms of virtual and physical teamwork. The result is an exciting field of experimentation for innovative forms of virtual and physical collaboration.

Let’s imagine: Future Learning Spaces!
Let’s imagine: Future Learning Spaces! The virtual reality application fuelsME consists of innovative teaching and learning spaces. It invites you to take a tour through these ‘Future Learning Spaces’ developed in the joint project of the same name, including a virtual EU Parliament for VR-supported simulation games, an immersive VR creative space with AI technology for collaborative work, a virtual excursion in a national park and a VR room developed by students for physics experiments.

E,丂oξ – Überwacht für 3,50: A queer feminist intervention against the price of control
The art installation ‘E,丂oξ’ explores the glitch as a subversive element and uses the underground as a metaphor for standardised social spaces. Inspired by Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism, it questions surveillance and standardised patterns of behaviour. Disruptions and disturbances open up alternative realities: Visitors are invited to become part of the glitched body – to escape the AI through make-up or costume and evade normative categories. This creates new possibilities of being.

Friendly Fire
Friendly Fire is an interactive digital installation that deals with social media, interpersonal closeness and consent and involves viewers.

Touch the Untouchable: XR as a medium for university teaching
Have universities already arrived in the world of virtual realities? What opportunities and challenges does extended reality (XR) bring to the university environment and what role does it play in the design of future teaching and learning landscapes? The TU Berlin’s Reality Lab approaches these questions through applications that visualise the otherwise untouchable. The event invites you to explore and discuss the possibilities of integrating XR into higher education.

Evening programme

At the end of the second day of the event (14 May 2025), we invite all day guests to an evening get-together in Berlin. In a relaxed atmosphere, with refreshing drinks and musical accompaniment, we will create an informal setting for personal dialogue, stimulating discussions and new encounters.

On-Demand

You will find videos of the event in Berlin after the U:FF 25 on the YouTube channel of the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung.