Exploring Speculative Futures
Workshop, 7-9 August 2025
How do we design spaces not just for telling “a story”, but for allowing multiple stories and shared experiences to exist simultaneously? What if, instead of persuasion, we would encourage negotiation? Stories have been a prime practice of making sense of our shared present, past and future. Yet new technologies have opened up a space for new cultural practices allowing for interaction and negotiation, for shared yet unaligned experience as sense-making. We can use these new practices to design spaces that encourage exploration and speculation of our shared future through social engagement that lets us experience a shared present.
Workshop description
Over a 3-day workshop participants will get an introduction into the design and practice of division interactive performances and situations for social negotiation. We will explore technical and artistic best practices as well as theoretical lenses that provide a dictionary of terms to help in shape and design truly interactive spaces.
Participants will prototype speculative interactive scenarios, with the opportunity to involve physical computing (Arduino, Processing), twine and Unity, as well as their crafting and writing skills.
We expect around 8-12 participants with interest ranging from performing arts, architecture, design and interactive technologies. Participation is free of charge by registering here.
The workshop marks 8 years of the ITPMA MA Program at UNATC and is an occasion to find out more about the program and the admission process for 2025. Participation of potential candidates to the ITPMA MA in the workshop will be prioritized. You can find out more about the admission process here. Registration for admission is between 4 August and 9 September.
Pre-requisites: apart from intellectual curiosity and the openness to experiment NO PRIOR SKILLS ARE REQUIRED, yet contributing skills and interest in physical computing, stage design, unity3D, acting, creative writing and/or interaction design is encouraged.
Participants are kindly asked to bring their own laptops with their favourite design applications already installed.
Workshop structure
Thursday, 07.08.25
14:00 Welcome and Introduction.
14:30 Lecture: Input Session: Designing for Agency
– Projects and Concepts
15:30 short Pause
15:45 Sketching conflict and negotiation – a method
17:30 wrap-up and outlook for friday
18:00 end of day 1
Friday, 08.08.25
10:00 Warmup and splitting into groups
10:30 Ideation
11:00 short Pause
11:15 Concepting
12:30 lunch break
13:30 ITPMA input lecture
14:00 Idea presentations and feedback
14:30 Theory Input – Situations, Technology and Negotiation
15:30 coffee break
16:00 project work
Saturday 09.08.25
10:00 Project Setup
11:30 Presentations – 30 minutes/group, three groups
13:30 lunch break
14:30 outlook and feedback
15:00 end of workshop
Friedrich Kirschner
Friedrich Kirschner is a visual artist and software developer. He uses social interaction and code as an artistic framework for participatory theater, speculative world building and videogames.
His work has been presented at numerous international new media festivals and exhibitions, including the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Laboral in Gijon, the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York and the Seoul Media Art Biennale, as well as in theaters like the HAU Berlin, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Eyebeam New York, Teater Nordkraft in Aalborg and more.
He was Professor for digital media at HfS Ernst Busch in Berlin from 2012 to 2024 where he founded the MA program Spiel und Objekt. His recent work in video-games was nominated for the German Video Games Award and awarded a special mention at the Animated Games