Area of Activity II: Innovation and Technology

Designing Tomorrow // Über Morgen

Participants
Guest speakers at the re:publica and Utopia conferences
Conference attendees

Project Content
Science fiction and fantasy both sound a long way away from our present reality. And yet the works of this literary genre create social blueprints that say a great deal about where we are now and about our fears and yearnings. What do we hope the world of tomorrow will bring? And what role can the digitization of our world play in overcoming social challenges?

These questions summarize the overlap between the respective thematic spectrums of the re:publica conference in Berlin and the Fantasy Festival Utopia in Tel Aviv. The project focuses on designing a utopian society in the grip of digital change and to get to the bottom of what democracy, integration, and coexistence might look like in the future.

Project Working Methods
The presentations given by the Israeli participants at the conference in Berlin and the ones given by their German counterparts at the event in Tel Aviv form the basis of the project. In parallel, they also develop a workshop that turns science fiction methods into the starting point for civil society engagement with the question of what sort of world and what sort of state we would like to live in.

Project Goals
The project aims to make its approaches accessible to a wide audience. This is ensured both by including the conference attendees in the workshops as well as by publishing the materials developed on digital platforms. In this way, the communities in both countries have the opportunity to network and exchange ideas and the participants are encouraged to rethink questions relating to society by looking to the future.

Collaborating Partners
Association for Speculative and Fantastic Fiction / Utopia (Tel Aviv)
re:publica (Berlin)