
This month, check out the CTM exhibition minus the queues for the hug machine.
You may not be able to gabber dance at Berghain or nod your head to soft pinging noises at HAU anymore, but there’s one part of this winter’s CTM festival you can still catch: the exhibition Uncanny Valleys of a Possible Future at Kunstraum Bethanien. Framed as presenting diverse approaches to this year’s CTM theme “Turmoil”, the exhibition features multimedia works related to sound, technology and club culture, including Anne de Vries’ philosophical take on raves Critical Mass: Pure Immanence; Jessica Ekomane’s VR dancing soldier in Still, and Lawrence Lek’s C GIartificial intelligence reverie Geomancer. While this uneven show can feel like a wade through media at times, make sure you stick around for Zorka Wollny and Andrzej Wasilewski’s Duel, a caged Tesla coil composition apparatus built on vocal samples of protest and prayers that’s set in motion hourly between 2-7pm. And if you’re not too claustrophobic, take this chance to experience Teun Vonk’s The Physical Mind. A guide instructs you to lie down between two giant light-up pillows; slowly, the cushions inflate, squeezing you in between them. The result is a brief “fight-or-flight” stress response that gives way to a certain calm embodied state – similar to the heightened awareness you get from meditation, and surprisingly psychedelic.
Uncanny Valleys of a Possible Future Through Apr 2 Kunstraum Bethanien, Kreuzberg