UTOPIA 2124 . The future through the lens of the future

The workshop offers the opportunity to link the present and future possibilities and to discover new creative forms of expression with the help of current technology.

At the beginning of the workshop, participants receive an introduction to the basics of digital photography and a short training in the latest AI-supported image processing technologies. They are invited to look for motifs in their immediate surroundings that could have a personal or social significance for the future. Captured photographically, the motifs serve as a starting point for subsequent creative work with AI tools that make it possible to visualize and interpret futuristic scenarios.

The workshop is aimed particularly at young people who are intensively concerned with shaping their future. By combining photography and AI, Utopia 2124 allows participants to express their own visions and hopes for the year 2124. This process not only encourages creative engagement with possible futures, but also critical thinking about the role of technology in life.

Following the workshop, two outstanding works will be selected by a jury and announced on August 8th. As a prize, the winners will receive two tickets for the IFA and the unique opportunity to present their self-designed visions of the future in a large poster campaign in Berlin's urban space in the run-up to and on the exhibition grounds during the IFA, which will take place in Berlin from September 6-10, 2024. There will be an official awards ceremony in the IFA's summer garden.

Julia Albrecht is a conceptual photo artist whose work delves deeply into the psychological and cultural aspects of depression and trauma, with a focus on gender dynamics and binary relationships. Her approaches in photography and beyond aim to explore and make visible the complex emotional impact of these topics.

After studying media art and design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, she deepened her expertise through a master's degree in Fine Art Photography at the Royal College of Art in London and international study experiences at TAMK University in Tampere, Finland, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Moritz Wehrmann is a media artist and artistic assistant at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. His artistic work is located at the interface between art and science. He is particularly interested in the possibilities and critical aspects of artificial intelligence as well as the analog and digital forms of human and machine interactions.

In addition to the Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Design at the Humboldt University in Berlin, he worked at the International College for Cultural Technology Research and Media Philosophy (IKKM). His works have been exhibited at the Ars Electronica in Linz and Tokyo, at the Gropius Bau in Berlin, at the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau and at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, among others.