HOLITOPIA Festival for Arts and Futures | Conference Program
HOLITOPIA is a festival focused on future design and creative disciplines ranging from art to architecture. A forum for exchange and experiences, it aims is to give shape to abstract visions of the future: futures to see and touch.
Offering a platform for everyone who wants to actively participate in shaping the future, alongside internationally renowned figures from science, research, art, other creative disciplines, and entrepreneurship, HOLITOPIA promotes interdisciplinary and cross-industry knowledge transfer and invites participants on a multifaceted journey into the future.
Navigate future scenarios together with some of the brightest and quirkiest minds in future design and creative industries.
The full-day conference program on Sept 20 includes panels, keynotes, workshops, an indoor and outdoor exhibition, and artistic interventions along the Spree riverbank, offering opportunities for various interest groups and knowledge levels.
This year's edition of the festival is based on the campus of the University of Applied Sciences (HTW), Berlin’s largest applied sciences university.
Initiated by re:future lab
Festival director, Head of Curation: Madeleine Schwinge
→ OPENING
Sept 19, 6 - 9.30 pm
Moderated by Andrea Thilo
For press, contributors and partners
Access with conference ticket
Greeting by Senator Franziska Giffey: ‘Berlin City of Design’
Opening speech by Vice President HTW Prof. Dr. Molthagen-Schnöring': 'Communicating - Networking - Enabling, the prerequisites for solving contemporary issues'
Highlight Lecture by President WFSF World Futures Studies Federation Dr Eric Øverland ‘Sustainability and futures, moving beyond “The Natural” and “The Artificial”’
Interview with HOLITOPIA Initiator Madeleine Schwinge
Exhibition inauguration Above The Sea Of Air by the curators Madeleine Schwinge and Jan Philipp Frühsorge
Networking, Music, Drinks
→ CONFERENCE
Sept 20, 9.30 am - 6 pm
Moderated by Andrea Thilo
Access with conference ticket
Full day conference spanning 4 tracks, each consisting of a panel talk, keynote lecture and workshop. Involving 25 contributors (speakers, workshop facilitators, talk guests) and moderated by reknown journalist Andrea Thilo. Embedded in an immersive indoor and outdoor exhibition.
TRACK 1 Subject to Futures opens up the vast fields of imagination through fiction and game design, and will discuss the question of what design means for democracy.
In TRACK 2 we will explore Tangible Futures, new urban realities, and innovative concepts in architecture, research and culture.
TRACK 3 From Linear to Circular will dive into interconnected phenomena, multiverses and virtual realities. More-then-human perspectives will bridge tangible to non-material realms of design.
TRACK 4 will focus on Future Toolkits and design as the guiding discipline to create systems change.
Among our contributors and speakers, we’re thrilled to welcome the President of WFSF World Futures Studies Federation Dr. Eric Øverland; design researcher Dr. Felix Kosok; strategist, and de-growth consultant Maximilian Mauracher; architect, researcher, and curator Chrissie Muhr; language and computer scientist Dr. Christian Stein; art curator and serial cultural entrepreneur Nicole Löser as well as the artists Abie Franklin, Daniel Hölzl, Marlene Bart, Andreas Greiner, and design researcher and diver Rasa Weber.
For detailed program and further updates, please visit holitopia-festival.com
The conference day is followed by two extended days, which are geared towards a broadly interested public, spanning artist talks, curator tours, concerts and interventions, and including a multisensorial workshop:
→ Public Days (free access)
September 21-22, 2024
BYCATCH, a modular climbable art installation serving as trigger and backdrop for conversations between artists Abi Franklin and Daniel Hölzl with fellow artists and audience
A cross-disciplinary exhibition Above the Sea of Air: An exploration of topical developments of our time (climate change, technological innovation, virtuality) and potential future outcomes, bringing together works from the fields of art, design, architecture, and science, and spanning an indoor exhibition space and an outdoor area
Artist Talks and artistic interventions (Sept 21-22)
Curator tours with Jan-Philipp Frühsorge and Madeleine Schwinge, provide insights into the artists' working methods, open up other contexts and offer new meanings when exploring the works and themes of the exhibition (Sept 21-22)
Music acts in cooperation with YMusic, including an AI-created score by composer Sara Glojnarić (Sept 21), and an interactive concert with robots by sound artist Nicola L. Hein (Sept 22)
Ecotuning Futures with Scent a sensorial workshop, creating an olfactory vision of the future, by design researcher and technologist Caroline McMillan (Sept 21)