Teaching

Project Based Seminars

Transmedia Storytelling – Worldbuilding the Future (2023, 2025)

FH Salzburg / Multimedia Design, MA

With the help of a specific semester project, a concept of transmedia storytelling is developed, in which a communicative message is told across multiple media. The work is based on a collective worldbuilding process, based on the future of Salzburg. This resulted imaginary world will serve as the basis to explore different design factors related to various narrative phenomena.

Results: Brücken – Historischer Sammelband zum 30. Gedenktag der Salzburger Separation

Communicating Matters with Prof. Dr. Michael Häfner (2022)
University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, MA

Anthropogenic climate change presents us with new challenges: resource scarcity and environmental stress demand new solutions for future living and economic activity on our planet. Under the umbrella term “bioeconomy,” various approaches are being explored — already in development in labs and start-ups. One such approach is the use of fungi as a raw material. This is the vision of Vera Meyer, a microbiologist at TU Berlin and the inspiration behind a joint project between TU Berlin and UdK titled “Communicating Matters.” The project aims to make urgently needed solutions tangible and debatable. To achieve this, we need new formats for exchange — formats that bring together different stakeholder groups and enable the broader public and academic experts to think about the future together. In short: we need new forms of science communication.

The goal of this research module is to bring “Communicating Matters” and thus the ideas of new science communication to life. Various invited guests will share their practical experience with innovative dialogue and interaction formats. Building on this, co-teaching with participants will lead to the development and testing of initial workshop formats. These formats will be presented to the public during a Pop-Up Exhibition Walk on Kurfürstendamm in February. The aim is to deliberately collide artistic and scientific methods in order to reveal innovation and spark dialogue.

Alongside the practical development work — in collaboration with various workshops at UdK — the module will also engage in theoretical inquiry. Topics include science communication, bioeconomy, transdisciplinarity, and grounded cognition. Course requirements include the development and documentation of new science communication formats designed to foster dialogue among diverse stakeholders.

Results: Project presentation

Solarpunk and the New Weird – an uncreative field trip exploring new futures with Rafael Dernbach (2021)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

The world has turned weird. Which asks for new narratives to take on, explore and celebrate weirdness.In our Kollisionswoche, we will examine the boundaries of weird imaginaries and their role for constructing strange futures.

Following the aesthetics and ideas of two young genres of speculative fiction: Solarpunk and the New Weird, we will come up with strange experiments, untold experiences, and unforeseen future fictions.

In our one week seminar we will experiment with different (un)creative methods to explore the boundaries of strangeness (e.g. generative writing, design fiction, automatic thought). We will read Solarpunk stories alongside weird fictions, recombine them and create new narratives. We will explore our surroundings and weave the input back into our futures. This one week workshop explores the normality of the weirdness.

All results will be displayed in an Instagram gallery at the end of the week.

Results: Weird Futures Instagram | Presentation

Strategic Storytelling (2020 - 2022)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, BA

Berlin SRH University of Applied Sciences / Strategic Design, MA

Strategic Storytelling is a seminar about the narrative backbone of ideas. Stories shape our world: they frame how we understand technology, society, identity, brands, and even ourselves. In this course, we explore storytelling not merely as a method of communication, but as a strategic and cultural tool that allows us to craft, question, and reimagine the projects we are working on.

Drawing from narratology, media theory, and pop culture, we investigate the building blocks of storytelling: narrative patterns, storyworlds, characters, plots, and the medium through which they unfold. We unpack how stories generate meaning through structure, from inciting incidents to climaxes, from protagonists to plot twists. Using classic models like the Hero’s Journey or Freytag’s dramatic arc, we examine how tension, curiosity, and surprise are orchestrated.

This seminar is practice-oriented. Through writing exercises, feedback loops, and group sessions, participants will develop their own narrative concepts based on their personal or professional projects. We use storytelling as a method to reflect, to test ideas, and to think through futures. Each participant sketches a story draft during the first intensive phase of the course and revises it throughout the semester. The final output is a short narrative (3–5 pages) that tells the story of a project as a crafted piece of strategic fiction.

Seminarpresentation: Slides

Auf der Suche nach dem neuen Normal. with Bernd Hopfengärtner (2020)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

The pandemic wave triggered by Covid19 has turned our world upside down due to the risks of health consequences. Changes that were previously unthinkable were put into practice within just a few weeks.
The implications of the precautionary measures can be felt in many places in our everyday lives: from closed cafés, clubs and cinemas to running the gauntlet in crowded parks and queues of people outside DIY stores and supermarkets to innovative forms of face masks, new greeting rituals and stop & go encounters on the pavements. The changes are leaving their mark on cultural practices and influencing our ideas about society. What will disappear? What will remain? What kind of world will we find when the deviation is over? And how do we want to shape this world?
Nobody knows what will happen afterwards, and yet discussions and speculation are rife. Philosophers, sociologists and futurologists of all stripes are writing their fingers to the bone and inundating us with diagnoses of the present, blueprints for the future and forecasts. At the bazaar of futures, they offer their prophecies for sale, filled with old and new ideas, fears and wishes, hopes and worries.
In our seminar, we will take a closer look at the current corona visions, shed light on the constructions of their character and want to analyse them using the tools of narratology, speculative design and futurology.

Postanthropozäne Welten gestalten with Gosia Warrink (2020)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

Based on approaches from speculative design and speculative fiction, we will declare the era of the Post-Anthropocene during the “Collision Week.” In both team and individual projects, we will create future scenarios and design objects from a world in which climate change has reached its peak. Positioned between dystopia and utopia:

(1) Dystopia: The Earth’s natural ecosystems have collapsed. Biodiversity has given way to monoculture. Every patch of land is cultivated, driven by efficiency, to yield the maximum output. The network of natural bio-actors, which evolved over millions of years, is dead. We have torn holes into the fabric of this network — and in doing so, destroyed the tissue of the Earth, our own fertile ground. Beneath it, we find only dead soil. Welcome to the desert of the real.

(2) Utopia: A hyperreal biosphere. We have not only subdued Gaia, but re-created her as Gaia-A.I. Everything dissolves into the planning games of a simulated environment. Eco-engineering — at the intersection of synthetic biology and cybernetics — virtualizes nature, programs the missing connections, and produces synthetic patches for the Earth’s torn ecosystem in biological manufactories. Artificial biofacts spread across the world, recreating what once was — only more powerful, efficient, and profitable. Welcome to the Post-Anthropocene — an era beyond nature.

The best outcomes of the course will be showcased in an exhibition as part of the Vorspiel of Transmediale 2020 at designtransfer, UdK Berlin.

Results: Project presentation

Playing God - For better or worse with Dr. Bernhard Kegel (2019)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

New and emerging technologies always come with ambiguous interpretations. On the one hand, in the form of wishes, potentials and dreams, on the other they are viewed sceptically or portrayed as threats. No matter how dystopian or utopian these interpretations may be, the overarching promise is always a story of change, as it will change the world as we know it.
The emerging field of Synthetic Biology is no exception. The designing of brand-new biological systems comes with manifold promises for mankind such as the eradication of deadly diseases, manufacturing more sustainable materials or even the creation of extinct animals. The opposing argumentation however is that humankind is on the edge of the abyss by tinkering with the evolution. Long-term changes for the environment or the genetic code as well as processes of social appropriation of this technology lie in the unknown. Meaning, that possible implications of gen edits or the creation of new lifeforms can not be foreseen by scientists – but they can be speculated about by artists.
In the seminar we will enter the realm beyond the hopes and fears by creating speculative fictions of the future. We will research on the sociotechnical imaginaries surrounding the field of synthetic biology, read into scientific and philosophical papers, watch science fiction movies dealing with the topic and invite experts and ethicists to reflect on issues. Based on our research we will create a possible world that will serve us as the foundation for the creation of Sci-Fi prototypes of one possible future. The results will take form of a book which will be designed and developed by the class together.

Visions and Values in Design and Technology – Journal Club Integrative Science and Technology Studies with Prof. Dr. Sabine Ammon (2019)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

Visions, values, and imaginaries play a fundamental role in technology development. Visions of technological futures become driving forces of today’s technology development. At the same time, values embedded in technological products turn into co-shapers of societal development. With new and emerging technologies on the threshold to markets, it is not only important to reflect the underly sociotechnical imaginaries. It is also essential to investigate the complex interrelations of visions and values in design and technology critically in order to uncover the hopes and fears related to technology’s future as well as to develop alternative ideas of preferable futures when needed.
Our Journal Club “Visions and Values in Design and Technology“ will bring together perspectives from technology of philosophy, technology assessment as well as artistic and designerly practices. We will analyse in close reading recent research positions, which deal with the assessment of technological visions and values, such as Vision Assessment, Value Sensitive Design, Speculative Design or Design Fictions. We will dive into the literature to better understand how visions and values interact with the development of new technologies and how art and design can steer the process of “visioneering“ and stimulate discourses about new and emerging technologies.

This class is an interdisciplinary cooperation between TU Berlin and UdK Berlin.

Dreamscapes of Modernity with Tom Kolombe (2019)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

In our dreams, we foresee our futures. In our collective dreamscapes, we store our future imaginaries. Inspired by Jasanoff & Kim (2015) this seminar will deal with the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, the “collectively held and performed visions of desirable future (or of resistance against the undesirable)“, strongly formed through anticipations of emerging technologies.
In this course we will talk about the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, read papers from the field of Social and Technology Studies (STS) and learn about the interception of art and emerging technologies, which encourages us to question our own anticipations about our collective future.
Besides theory we will work with ethnographic methods to research collectively held sociotechnical imaginaries. Transforming the research results, we will produce our own imaginaries through short stories about possible futures.

Doing Design Fiction (2019 & 2020)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, BA

"Things to Come…" – Exploring Future Worlds (2018)
University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

The idea of what the future will bring is already part of our cultural memory. Through novels, films, series and other forms of Science Fiction we get a glance into the everyday life of tomorrow and get an opportunity to reflect on it. Therefore contemporary Science Fiction is to be seen as a reflection of the hopes and fears we are confronted with today rather than a window into the future. From this perspective, the idea of the future becomes a participatory discourse that actors strategically create while others tactically challenge it. It becomes a contested ground and the idea of the future as „These are the things to come“ slowly shifts to an „Do we want those things to come“? Future becomes democratized. In the seminar we will challenge our shared future visions and ask for possible implications on our everyday life. Drawing from methods of design fiction, ethnography and future-research, we speculate about the implication of foreseeable innovations and technologies on our society. Through that, we will create our own „thick futures“ and anticipate changes and alternatives to create artefacts and stories out of a possible future world.

Otherworldlessness with Stephan Porombka (2018)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

From primal realities to alternative realities and science fiction. We design other worlds that may seem different, but always bring us back to our own world. We spin around, we reinvent, we think differently and above all in terms of consequences and implications.

In our collision course, we produce new short films every day. We answer the ever-changing question ‘What if...’ with ever new experiments. The result will be a small encyclopaedia of speculation, which we will present at the end of the week and make available online.

Results: Video 1 | Video 2

Future Bodies with Gudrun Herrbold and Işıl Eğrikavuk(2017)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

Imaginations of the future have something paradoxical within. They are aiming towards a time to come but are produced in the past. Saved in our memories of visionary images communicated through novels, films, documentaries and other forms of speculations of what the present times could become. Science Fiction allows us a glance into the everyday life of tomorrow and gives us an opportunity to reflect on it. In this mode, Science Fiction tells us more about our present then it does about our future. When looking at contemporary visions in movies and TV series, we also see reflections of the hopes and fears we are confronted with today.

These visions become guidelines for our actions and performances that will somehow be inscribed in our body’s in a mysterious and undefinable way. During the five days we want to explore the role of the body in the future. How can we envision our body imaginations in comparison to our current perception of time and while at the same time reflecting on the way we live our everyday life today?

Drawing from methods of storytelling, biographical theatre and movement, this workshop will focus on the body, performance and how to re-imagine the world. Combining contemporary art, theatre and performance practices, students will work on visualising and reconfiguring possible futures.

Visual Anthropology (2017 & 2018)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, BA

Filmseminar

Female Futures(2022)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

The discussion about women’s roles in science fiction literature and film has a long tradition. Between the male gaze and feminist readings, a field of discourse emerges that revolves around the role of women in relation to technology, society, conceptions of the future, and the cultural present of the authors themselves.

In Female Futures, we explore representations of women in science fiction film and reflect on them in the context of their time, production, and of course, the genre. Through a curated selection of different works, we trace recurring tropes and engage with contemporary depictions from today’s perspective. Within these narratives, we encounter roles such as the warrior — embodied by characters like Ellen Ripley (Alien) or Sarah Connor (Terminator) — or the femme fatale as a female-coded machine, like Ava (Ex Machina) or Samantha (Her). Outside of these narratives, we engage with movements like feminist science fiction, represented by authors such as Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, and many others. Science fiction is never seen as a prediction of the future but always as a diagnosis of the present, offering insight into the assumptions and cultural backgrounds of its creators.

The reception follows the format of a closed screening. To this end, the film is paused every 30 minutes, and we discuss what we’ve seen during the breaks. In these conversations, we reflect on modes of production, content, aesthetics, relevance, associations, and more. The seminar takes place every Monday from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. online. The films are selected in advance, sourced independently by the participants, and watched together during the session. Course requirements include regular attendance and a short introduction to one of the selected films.

Syllabus: Description and film list

End-Erzählungen (2021)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, MA

The end of the world is a recurring trope in the narratives of the Christian cultural sphere. From the biblical apocalypse, illustrated by Renaissance painters such as Jean Bellegambe or Hieronymus Bosch, to Roland Emmerich’s glossy disaster porn and George Miller’s post-fallout scenarios. The future as catastrophe — as described by Eva Horn — is a cultural fetish, and art serves as its outlet.

In this seminar, we will explore cinematic visions of the end of the world. We will discuss their construction, context, zero world, and the origin of this imaginary. We approach the end of the world as fiction, reflect on what it does to us, and talk about what comes after.

Reception follows the concept of a “closed screening”: the film is paused every 30 minutes to allow for discussion of what we’ve just seen. In these conversations, we reflect on production techniques, content, aesthetics, relevance, associations, and more.

The seminar takes place every Monday from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. via Webex. The films are selected in advance, sourced independently by the participants, and watched together during the sessions. Course requirements include regular attendance and a short introduction and presentation of one of the films.

Syllabus: Description and selection of films

Neuropunk (2021)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, MA

The pursuit of technological enhancement of the brain has, over time, given rise to various cultural artifacts — leaving its mark especially in pop culture. For instance, the science fiction subgenre Neuropunk offers a wide array of films and books that provide insight into these transhumanist techno-futures. From a media-anthropological perspective, we do not read these works as predictions of the future, but rather as diagnoses of the present and cultural artifacts that, in the sense of Paul Ricoeur, are prefigured by the sociotechnical imaginaries of their temporal, spatial, and cultural context,, are configured by the technical and social conventions of the film medium, and ultimately refigure public perception and the actual development of technology as a mass medium.

These visions not only speculate on possible futures, but also shape our assumedly “natural” concepts of what it means to be human. The Neuropunk corpus can be divided into three central myths, each offering a different understanding of the human being:

(1) the human as machine,

(2) the human as media apparatus,

(3) the human as computer — with the soul as software.

In this seminar, we will examine 12 science fiction films that place the neurointerface at the center of their speculative world-building. These films not only explore the technical possibilities of this device, but also its sociocultural implications and underlying assumptions about human nature. Through collective analysis, we enter the forest of fictions and embark on a journey through the technological tropes of the neurointerface. We reflect on their transtextual origins and assumed naturalness, trace intertextual references to other works, and search for signs of their diffusion into discursive fields beyond science fiction.

Syllabus: Description and selection of films

Alien Anthropology (2020)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Communication in Social and Economic Contexts, MA

The alien is familiar to science fiction: the invasion from Mars, the discovery of new planets, and uncanny encounters with the unknown are all well-established narratives of the genre. Again and again, science fiction poses the question: How can the alien be represented in a way that the audience can comprehend?

By definition, the alien resists any familiar representation — a challenge particularly for film as a medium. As a narrative-visual form, film is bound to the imagery of the familiar. Put differently: the alien appears alien to the viewer because it can be recognized as “alien.” As anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss noted, in engaging with the Other, we learn more about ourselves than about the Other. To recognize the alien is to recognize oneself.

“Alien Anthropology” thus describes two parallel lines of inquiry:
(1) On the one hand, it examines the representation of the alien in science fiction: What defines the alien? How do we recognize it as alien? What familiar elements is it tied to?
(2) On the other hand, it investigates the reaction to the alien: How does the familiar respond to the unfamiliar? How does it draw boundaries? How does it integrate?

In this seminar, we will follow both lines of inquiry. Together, we will watch a selection of science fiction films and analyze how they deal with the alien. In group discussions, we will reflect on production methods, content, aesthetics, relevance, associations, and more. Course requirements include regular attendance, a short introduction and presentation of one of the films, and an essay-style reflection on one of the films.

Syllabus: Description and selection of films

Cyberpunk Cinema (2020)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

Technology changes our society, and our society changes technology. This simple formula is the foundation of many science fiction works, from Jules Verne to Charlie Brooker. One subgenre of science fiction stands out in particular: cyberpunk.

Born in the 1980s, cyberpunk narratives depict technodeterministic societies in which subjects navigate daily life between high tech and low life. They are connected to cyberspace, their bodies enhanced by cybernetic or biological implants, and their rights suppressed by Zaibatsus (Gibson, 1984) — multinational corporations and the excesses of neoliberal economic policy. It is the sociotechnical and socioeconomic transformations that fundamentally shape these dystopian cyberpunk worlds — and influence our visions of the future like few other science fiction genres.

In this seminar, we will discuss a selection of the most important works of the genre. We will explore the depicted worlds, analyze their narrative structures, and examine recurring tropes. In parallel, we will reflect on texts from the fields of Science and Technology Studies, Science Fiction Studies, and Cultural Studies.

The seminar will take place online. Films will be watched and discussed together. Participants are expected to obtain the films on their own. In addition to a short introduction to one of the films, the course requirement also includes the creation of a video essay.

Syllabus: Description and selection of films

Verschollene Zukünfte – Science Fiction Filme des letzten Jahrhunderts (2019)

University of the Arts, Berlin / Studium Generale

Engaging with the future has a long tradition in film. The moving image lends visionary ideas an unprecedented tangibility and makes it possible to show other, possible worlds. However, many of these past visions of the future are now difficult for us to access and are therefore considered lost in the cultural memory. The reasons for this are obvious: through the development of the film medium and changing narrative forms, our viewing habits have adapted. The fast cuts and glossy images of contemporary directors like Abrams or Kurtzman appear oddly alien when contrasted with the slow takes of Tarkovsky or Fleischer. This, in turn, means that our access to film no longer connects us to the future memories of the last century. Video rental stores have disappeared, and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime rarely feature more than blockbuster hits under the label of science fiction.

Yet these lost futures represent diagnostic artifacts of their time: science fiction as a medium of the present describes the future less than it reveals contemporary assumptions about the future. The author’s “zero world” is reflected in their work — which means that today’s viewers must immerse themselves in two unfamiliar worlds at once: the depicted future and the implied present.

In this seminar, we will watch science fiction films from the last century (1960–1980) and analyze their diegesis. In the subsequent discussions, we will reflect together on modes of production, content, aesthetics, relevance, and much more. The seminar’s assessment consists of regular participation, a short introduction and presentation of one of the films, and a final written analysis of the future portrayed in one of the films.

Syllabus: Description and selection of films