Mensch Maschine: Soil, Sound, Memory
Symposium on 15 November 2025
Keynotes, lecture performance, concerts, panels
Akademie der Künste
Hanseatenweg 10
Studiofoyer
13:00 – 22:00
Free admission
With: Jonathan Gray, Juno, Wesley Goatly, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Tamara Kneese, Anh-Linh Ngo, Tiara Roxanne, Jennifer Walshe, Helen Starr and fellows of the Mensch Maschine programme: Maithu Bùi, Victor Brim, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Emerson Culurgioni, hn. lyonga, Sonya Isupova, Safiya Seedmother, Kira Xonorika
Cooperation by JUNGE AKADEMIE, Akademie der Künste, E-WERK Luckenwalde, VISIT/E.ON Foundation
As AI continues to evolve, grow, and expand, from the material to the industrial to the digital and beyond, its impact on the Earth, climate, humanity and the more than human all too often remains invisible. For this years’s Mensch Maschine symposium, soil, sound, and memory serve as starting points for rediscovering alternative narratives and conceptions of technologies and intelligence in the arts that acknowledge global perspectives, experiences, and voices. In the context of ecological grief and extractivism, technologies of nature and the cosmos, vibrations of the earth, and machine learning, artists and scientists discuss and explore new ways and practices of thinking, acting, and feeling in relation to the intersection of technology with ecology. The symposium will take place alongside the group exhibition Mensch Maschine: Return to Earth at E-WERK Luckenwalde.
Curated by Clara Herrmann, Tiara Roxanne, Helen Turner
Programme:
1.00 – 1.15 pm: after the wires, our hands remain / Performance by Human Machine Fellows hn. lyonga & David Odiase
1.15 – 1.25 pm: Welcoming Remarks / by Anh-Linh Ngo, Vice-President of the Akademie der Künste
1.25 – 1.35 pm: Introduction / by Clara Herrmann, Helen Turner, Tiara Roxanne, Curators
1.35 – 2.20 pm: Regenerative Data Cultures / Keynote by Jonathan Gray, Researcher
2.20 – 2.30 pm: Break
2.30 – 4.00 pm: Art and the Seeding of Hope in the Polycrisis / Panel Discussion with Human Machine Fellows Maithu Bùi, Assem Hendawi, Viktor Brim, Emerson Culurgioni & Sonya Isupova, moderated by Wesley Goatley, Critical Artist and Researcher
4.00 – 4.30 pm: Break
4.30 – 5.15 pm: whya (2) – a listening exercise / Lecture Performance by Nolan Oswald Dennis, Artist and Researcher
5.15 – 5.25 pm: Break
5.25 – 6.10 pm: Resisting Data Extractivism / Keynote by Tamara Kneese, Researcher
6.10 – 6.30 pm: Break
6.40 – 8.10 pm: Uwani: Recursion, Relation, and the Three Movements of Life / Panel Discussion with Human Machine Fellows hn. lyonga, Safiya Seedmother, Kira Xonorika, Diva & Thuy-Han Nguyen Chi, moderated by Helen Starr, Curator and Researcher
8.10 – 8.40 pm: Break
8.40 – 9.50 pm: 13 Ways of Looking at AI, Art & Music & A Late Anthology of Early Music, Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance / Talk and Performance by Jennifer Walshe, Vocalist and Composer
9.50 – 10.10 pm: Echoes in Stillness / Closing Performance by Juno, Artist, Singer and Musician
10.10 – 11.00 pm: Bar open
