Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal
Hosted by Forecast

November 25-27, 2022
silent green
Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany 

Hosted by Forecast at silent green in Berlin, the festival featured at its heart seven tangible prototypes that responded to our current planetary moment, enabling new ways of envisioning and inhabiting the world.

The Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal propose new ways to engage with each other and with what surrounds us, at the surface of the planet and beyond. They explore ways in which AI could mitigate instead of accelerating climate change; immerse us in new forms of making community through ancestral agricultural knowledge; employ fiction as an imagination tool for new forms of multispecies conviviality; or create embodied connections as a tool to understand and change human impact in endangered territories. Together, these seven prototypes reinforce perspectives in which collaboration and interdependency become essential, determining factors for life and survival on our planet.

FULL PROGRAM  | LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Installations, conversations, tours, performances
The Driving the Human festival brought to the forefront the seven prototypes and the extended network that has emerged out of three years of collaboration. Each prototype manifested in physical form as a fully experienceable installation, free and open to visit during the full festival duration. Around the installations, tours, exchanges and performances led by invited experts, project authors and partner representatives offered opportunities for conversations and shared moments of commonality. From Brigitte Baptiste to Tatiana Bilbao, and from Corine Pelluchon to Suzanne Pierre. Explore the extensive participant list here.

The Driving the Human Center
The Driving the Human Center acted as the beating heart of the festival. Here, visitors could hang out and enjoy the lounge space, listen to conversations between participants and experts, depart for tours and deep dives, use the bar and peruse the Driving the Human library. At the silkscreen station, visitors could bring their old tote bags for a refresh; and at the pin button station, they could create new questions to respond to the festival’s many dimensions. Dive into the many dimensions of the program here. 

Workshop program
The festival proposed a varied program of workshops for different audiences, led by Driving the Human project authors, by project partners, and by local initiatives in Berlin. From a fermentation station to learning how to comunicate scientific topics on TikTok, and from programming with sensors to an exploration of human-microbial interactions, the workshops offered new ways of engaging with the different themes of the festival. Explore the workshop program here.

form x Driving the Human
The form Design Podcast teamed up with Driving the Human! For this year’s festival that took place in Berlin, the form editors-in-chief, Nina Sieverding and Anton Rahlwes, set up a Speakers’ Corner. In this cozy environment, the two talked with participants and design experts about new concepts of designable togetherness. Find the form x Driving the Human podcast episodes here.

Concert: Marina Herlop and Low Khey
On Saturday evening, visitors could experience the vibrant, polymorphous music of Marina Herlop. The Catalonian, conservatory trained composer, vocalist, and pianist channeled her environment in truly posthuman form, following her third album Pripyat (2020). The opening act of the evening was Low Khey, an unidentified human machine juggling between epic choirs, cutting-edge trap and pre-apocalyptic soundscapes, in a rich and complex ensemble. 

LINA Fellows
Three LINA fellows—Tevi Allan Mensah, Jonathan Steiger, and Studio Inscape – were contributing guests at the festival. Representing an emerging generation of architects that center sustainable, circular and clean practices, they reflected on the intersections between their work and the seven prototypes on display, via workshops, individual explorations, and a conversation.