On behalf of the State Ministry, we developed the contribution of the State of Baden-Württemberg for the exhibition for the Day of German Unification 2020.

With the title “Grenzauflösung” (Border Dissolution) we do not only refer to the fall of the border between East and West Germany, but rather to the overcoming of the much more persistent political, social, and cultural differences. Moreover, “Grenzauflösung” also addresses the dissolution of the boundary between humans and technology. Large parts of our lives are already taking place in the digital space. How will this development continue and where will it end?

For this purpose, we set up a screen of over 10 square meters in size. Passers-by were captured by a camera and the images were artistically transformed in real time through deep neural networks on a supercomputer. Within a few milliseconds, the camera image is quasi reinvented through certain structural elements. This neural process resembles a machine hallucination, which then was reflected back on the large screen to the passers-by. In this way we were able to motivate the viewers to abandon their passive role and become part of the artwork through their interaction. Not only individual passers-by got involved in the game with the AI. Throughout the entire exhibition, again and again groups have formed spontaneously and played and interacted together playfully. In total, more than 100,000 passers-by engaged with our installation during the 30 days of the exhibition.