Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal

From November 25–27, 2022, Driving the Human realized a three-day festival marking the culmination of three years of collaboration, research and experimentation, connecting disciplines between sciences and the arts. Driving the Human presented the seven prototypes that were developed over the course of 2022. The festival was hosted by Forecast and welcomed more than 2000 visitors during the three days, engaging in the diverse program of talks, workshops, tours, performances, and a concert evening.

Driving the Human

The Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal propose new ways to engage with each other and with what surrounds us, at the surface of the planet and beyond. They explore ways in which AI could mitigate instead of accelerating climate change; immerse us in new forms of making community through ancestral agricultural knowledge; employ fiction as an imagination tool for new forms of multispecies conviviality; or create embodied connections as a tool to understand and change human impact in endangered territories. Together, these seven prototypes reinforce perspectives in which collaboration and interdependency become essential, determining factors for life and survival on our planet.

Installations, conversations, tours, performances

The Driving the Human festival brings to the forefront the seven prototypes and the extended network that has emerged out of three years of collaboration. Each prototype manifests in physical form as a fully experienceable installation, free and open to visit during the full festival duration. Around the installations, tours, exchanges and performances led by invited experts, project authors and partner representatives offer opportunities for conversations and shared moments of commonality.

Workshop program

The festival proposes a varied program of workshops for different audiences, led by Driving the Human project authors, by project partners, and by local initiatives in Berlin. From a fermentation station to learning how to communicate scientific topics on TikTok, and from programming with sensors to an exploration of human-microbial interactions, the workshops offer new ways of engaging with the different themes of the festival. The LINA Fellows had the chance to join all the workshops and thus be in direct communication with the practices of the project authors, our project partners acatech, HfG and ZKM and the initiatives. Initiatives included: (Soydivision, Floating, Ort-Schafft-Material, Kunst-Stoffe, Kulturlabor Trial&Error e.V). Additionally, Studio Inscape had the chance to practice their workshop (see details below) with a diverse audience that were drawn to the festival by the programming. 

What did the LINA Fellow learn through the collaboration?

The LINA fellows invited by Forecast/Driving the Human learned about novel ways of transdisciplinary and transcultural collaboration. They discussed and jointly developed practices of a truly tangible knowledge production that involves indigenous knowledge (such as from communities in Peru and Indonesia), speculative scenarios drawn by AI, and combinations of microbiology, ecology, design research, video art, and architecture.

Whom did the LINA Fellow meet and whom did they work with?

They met and experienced collaboration on eye-level with international experts such as biologist and environmental activist Brigitte Baptiste (Bogotá/Colombia), architect Tatiana Bilbao (Mexico City/Mexico), architect, urban planner, and political adviser Washington Fajardo (Rio de Janeiro/Brazil), curator Kabelo Malatsie (Bern/Switzerland), philosopher Corine Pelluchon (France/Paris), soil microbial ecologist Suzanne Pierre (San Francisco/USA), and artist Yuri Tuma (Miami/Florida, Madrid/Spain); and of course, the many creatives participating in the overall research of Driving the Human, including artist Akwasi Bediako Afrane, aesthetics researcher Kim Albrecht, designer and technologist Anne-Sofie Belling, environmental microbiologist Bea Delgado Corrales, performance artist and director Daniel Cremer, design curator and museum director Tulga Beyerle, architectural researcher Lena Geerts Danau, indigenous activist and community organizer Mang Dian, curator Sarah Donderer, media scholar and AI specialist Ariana Dongus, scientific advisor Sandra Fendl, musician Marina Herlop, material researcher Julia Ihls, video artist Hyeseon Jeong, design researcher Romy Kaiser, musician Low Khey, artistic director Freo Majer, design researcher Paula Nerlich, curator Anthea Oestreicher, artist Eliana Otta, curator Daria Parkhomenko, architectural researcher Andra Pop-Jurj, AI programmer Xiaoyu (Iris) Qu 曲晓宇, journalist Anton Rahlwes, art historian Margit Rosen, artist Vincent Rumahloine, curator and writer Vera Sacchetti, biologist and political advisor Martina Schraudner, journalist Nina Sieverding, and cultural writer Chloe Stead. Additionally, they had the unique possibility to look at the practices of local initiatives that were part of the workshop programme.

What kind of practical work or experience did your activity offer?

The fellows facilitated workshops, media-supported research on the ecological environment and eco-social preconditions of the urban context of the festival venue; they were involved in transdisciplinary conversations and performative forms of knowledge exchange, individually related to their own practice.

Full programme description here

LINA Fellow participation

Saturday, November 26, 2022 - 4:00pm [Kuppelhalle]

Conversation: Centering Sustainable and Circular Practices with LINA fellows Tevi Allan Mensah, Jonathan Steiger, and Studio Inscape (Willie Vogel and Eileen Stornebrink), moderated by Vera Sacchetti

The conversation “Centering Sustainable and Circular Practices” took place on Saturday, November 26, on the second day of the Driving the Human festival. LINA fellows Tevi Allan Mensah, Jonathan Steiger,and Studio Inscape discussed their practices and how they focus on creating sustainable and resilient ways of working, that are transdisciplinary and multilayered. During this conversation, LINA fellows introduced their practices and reflected on how they connected and related to the themes on display during the festival. They also presented their reactions to the festival, which all took different shapes:Studio Inscape led a workshop; Jonathan Steiger produced a series of images using his specific work methodology, and Tevi Allan Mensah produced a series of reflections and drawings, which will also materialize in a text to be published in the Driving the Human journal.

Sunday, Nov 27 – 1:30-2:30pm

Workshop: Gestures of Maintenance with LINA fellows Willie Vogel and Eileen Stornebrink (Studio Inscape) What makes silent green [venue of the Driving the Human event] the place that it is? Who is involved in maintaining this environment? Who inhabits it, who visits and how does the interaction between these different actors influence the site’s development over time? In this workshop we ask participants to investigate one of these actors and see how they relate to each other. By building a network of interdependence, together we will form a better understanding of the history and future of this venue. Establishing this little piece of a larger ensemble reveals a major challenge: how do we think in ecological terms? The network created with nine to twelve actors stretches far beyond silent green and takes us underground, up into the air, out across the city and into the wider world.