In Berlin, we present the festival’s main stage. There, you can expect national and international experts as well as contributions from our community. The stage in Berlin will take place on 22 and 23 June 2026. The programme is scheduled to begin on 22 June at 9.30 a.m. and will conclude on 23 June at 5.30 p.m. An evening reception will follow on 23 June, to which all participants are warmly invited.

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

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.

Keynote Speaker
Experience:Space
Evening programme
Stage programme

Keynote Speaker

Dorothee Bär
Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space

Amrei Bahr
Assistant Professor at the University of Stuttgart

Karim Fereidooni
Prof. Dr. Karim Fereidooni, an educational researcher and expert on racism at Ruhr University Bochum.

Vince Kellen
Chief Information Officer at Texas A&M University

Tanja Brühl
President of TU Darmstadt

Philipp Schmidt
VP Technology Innovation, Axim Collaborative

Experience:Space

Manometer! – Reflecting on pressure at universities
Universities are “under pressure”: financial uncertainty, AI transformation, increasing bureaucracy, and social polarisation. This pressure often remains abstract – relegated to strategy documents or internalised on an individual level. Our contribution makes it visible and physically tangible through the medium of the “Smart Mirror”. It asks: How does systemic pressure feel when reflected in one’s own role – and where does individual resilience end, and where does structural responsibility begin?

Revierdebattenbox (“Local Debate Forum”): Discussions under pressure
The ‘Revierdebattenbox’ was developed as part of our work in the field of science and structural change communication in Central Germany. We use it there to encourage people to discuss controversial issues in a light-hearted way and to engage in dialogue with one another. This is particularly effective for topics that can quickly escalate outside the context of this game.

PRESSURE RELEASE STATION
Students and university staff are under constant pressure: pressure to perform, time constraints, digital overload. Mental health issues are on the rise. The PRESSURE RELEASE STATION offers three methods for relieving stress that work immediately. MOVE provides physical release, BREATHE regulates the nervous system, and WRITE offers emotional release. Visitors can experience first-hand at the interactive station: pressure can be actively transformed. Practice rather than theory – in keeping with the festival’s motto, “Under Pressure”.

DISTRACTION
Interruptions are the invisible pressure of everyday university life: messages pinging, colleagues with “quick questions”, ambient noise. They disrupt your flow, waste time – and cost Germany billions every year. DISTRACTION makes this productivity killer visible by turning the guerrilla video installation itself into a distraction. An artistic paradox to the track ‘People’: how much pressure is caused by a constant loss of focus?

Gap Lab
What if education could be approached in a more agile and experimental way, without directly interfering with the existing system? Our focus: media literacy – a field with growing demand and few robust solutions. At the Gap Lab, we examine not only visible content, but above all what is missing: the gaps in the image that viewers must fill themselves. It is precisely here that meaning, emotion – and manipulation – arise.

Future Formats Studio – Format Generator for Teaching & Learning
Higher education institutions are under pressure: technological transformation, social change and new digital opportunities demand flexible and innovative learning formats. The Format Generator brings this challenge to life and makes it tangible: visitors combine over 5,000 building blocks live to create new knowledge and learning formats, add their own ideas and playfully discover surprising, creative ways to shape the resilient university of the future.

Anti Öde Ecke
“Anti Öde Ecke” originated as an applied semester project at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and demonstrates how urban spaces can be greened up: making seed bombs, trying out DIY boxes. Through this project, we promote biodiversity and address the often-lacking awareness of the need to take action oneself. At the same time, the project encourages reflection on new forms of teaching: How can participatory, hands-on projects enrich university teaching in the future?

Fãl: AI Face-Reading and the Poetry of Hafez
We live under the “pressure” of constant biometric tracking and data extraction. This project subverts that pressure by using surveillance technology for a poetic, non-utilitarian purpose. It addresses the social issue of how we perceive AI: can a machine move beyond cold calculation to become a medium for cultural memory? By repurposing face-tracking to deliver ancient wisdom, the project explores “digital mysticism” as a counter-narrative to the data-driven optimization of the self.

Drunken AI: Ancient Batteries and the Poetics of Energy
Modern AI is measured by efficiency, but human intelligence includes ecstasy and “bi-housh” (productive loss of control). By linking ancient chemistry (2,000-year-old battery tech) with contemporary LLMs, I address the “pressure” of rigid, optimized systems. I propose an alternative: a machine influenced by the historical and poetic weight of its own power source, asking if a machine can carry the resonance of the metaphors that fuel it.

Pressure is an interactive sculpture that reflects the overwhelming emotions and experiences of our time. The sculpture is equipped with motors and sensors that are activated when visitors approach. The motors apply pressure to a stress ball shaped like a brain. As the pressure increases, eyes emerge from the object. This interaction expresses the feeling that we are living in an age of constant overwhelm—one that is steadily increasing and becoming more and more normalized over time. 

Floating Memories — Memory in Weight and Light
Memories are fleeting – they emerge, change and then vanish again. This installation uses a mechanical structure to allow characters to rise gently into the air. The letters move upwards via a rotating mechanism, appearing elusive, as if they were floating in space. At the same time, a curved holographic film reflects light onto the text, so that the characters appear clearly recognisable, distorted or almost invisible depending on the viewing angle. The flickering light reflections create a fire-like effect that makes the ephemeral nature of memories visually tangible. “In many cultures, smoke serves as a bridge for longing for loved ones. That is why I have combined Chinese phrases with the form of smoke. As the phrases rise slowly, our longing is also carried to the people we are thinking of. And when the phrases sink back down, the longing returns to our memories to await the next awakening. Longing is a constant cycle – it rises and sinks back down again.”

Under Pressure? Quiet Rooms as a Pedagogical Solution (hybrid)
Learning environments are under increasing pressure due to time constraints, an overload of information and content, constant interaction and perpetual visibility. These conditions lead to cognitive overload, exhaustion and superficial learning processes – among both learners and teachers. The central issue is that rest has so far hardly been understood as a designable educational resource, even though it is crucial for the quality of learning, reflection and the sustainable acquisition of skills. We offer participants a (virtual) quiet room to try out and relax in.

Evening programme

On the second day of the event (23 June 2026), we invite all visitors to join us for an evening get-together in Berlin to round off the day. We will create an informal setting for personal exchanges, stimulating conversations and new encounters in a relaxed atmosphere with refreshing drinks and musical accompaniment.

Stage programme