Human Machine: Soil, Sound, Memory
11/15/2025, 1 – 10 PM

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 all living beings often remains invisible. This year’s Human Machine symposium takes soil, sound and memory as points of departure for rediscovering alternative narratives and conceptions of technologies and intelligence in the arts – in acknowledgement of global perspectives, experiences and voices.

Against the backdrop of ecological grief and extractivism, through technologies of nature and the cosmos, Earth vibrations and machine learning, artists and scientists discuss and explore new ways and practices of thinking, acting and feeling at the intersection of technology with ecology.

The symposium runs in parallel with the group exhibition “Human Machine: Return to Earth” at the E-WERK Luckenwalde (until 22 February).

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 and 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