Join us in the exploration of the end of life through the speculative design project "What you leave behind". In this digital panel Henrik Rieß and his students of FH Potsdam will present provotypes of different futures with evolved technological and societal rules. Shedding light on new angles of observation to soften the stigma and create a space for debate.

While diving deep into the topic, we open it for other contexts of leaving someone / something behind. Particular emphasis is placed on the influence of rituals as temporal markers of closure as well as their increasing disappearance from our society. To what extent can future farewell rituals prepare us for goodbye and guide us through the process of parting in a strengthening way? Is our modern product and service culture – filled with communication noise – superior to the more dusty-looking sequences that have to be strictly practiced, or could new hybrid customs even emerge from them?

Works by Gesine Thränhardt, Peter Schwarz, Maryna Honcharenko, Rosa-Sophie Hamburger, Lena Hoffman, and Lena Zagora will be shown, among others.

Alu and Franziska will present the platform zukunftsforscherin.de and talk about questions of representation in futures studies, the role of women* and the importance of feminist futures.

Next, Marie Louise will present her speculative design "AYA" – a voice assistant pushing back on sexual harassment. She will use this example to discuss the challenges of gendered algorithmic systems and opportunities of imagining feminist futures of AI. As voice-enabled, AI-powered systems are entering our most intimate spaces, what unintended consequences might they bring? Can we imagine these systems becoming feminist?

Join us for an interactive time travel workshop into the future and get to know Future Modeling, a game-changing approach to
(re)think and create future ready services and strategies.