Driving the Human - open call

Driving the Human invites designers, artists, architects, filmmakers and other multidisciplinary agents from everywhere in the world to send their applications in order to develop future-proof concepts and test them as tangible prototypes responding to complex contemporary scenarios. The scientifc and artistic collaboration Driving the Human will develop and produce the seven final prototypes which can materialize in different ways: from walk-in room installations to designed objects, architectural mock-ups to interactive games, video works to performances and many others.

Our Open Call invites proposals that critically engage with the present and propose alternatives current developments and disruptions, reflecting on what makes us human, and reexamining our relationship with society, the planet, and life itself.

Proposals may connect to larger themes such as the social impact of climate change, energy cycles and our current technological acceleration, the mirror between the biosphere and the technosphere, contemporary processes of exchanging values and objects, and/or the impact of collective decision-making. Driving the Human welcomes proposals that embrace notions of urgency and radical openness as much as curiosity, interconnectedness, and new modes of collectivity across scales. Similarly, we encourage proposals that ask fundamental questions about the predominant narratives we exchange about the world and our role in it.

After a series of crisis, from the economic to the pandemic, it is evident that humanity and its way of living on planet earth are endangered. Fundamental questions about issues such as mass consumption, factory farming, and mass tourism need to be reflected upon. We welcome new constellations for working and thinking together, connecting diverse knowledge and varied disciplines. 

Selected applicants will be invited to interact with the expertise and multidisciplinary know-how of the Driving the Human partner institutions – acatech, National Academy of Science and Engineering; the mentoring program Forecast; the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design; and ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe – in order to develop future-proof concepts and bring them to fruition as prototypes. Ultimately, the process and outcomes of Driving the Human become tools that enable new worldviews, and open the door to alternative ways of coexisting. 

Following an initial selection by the jury, 21 proposals will be presented at the Driving the Human event in 15-17 October 2021 in Berlin. Following this event, the jury and a board of experts will select seven finalists. These seven proposals will be developed further and first presented in-depth at a public presentation in Munich, 10-11 December 2021; and finally as prototypes at the concluding Driving the Human event in Berlin, in December 2022.

The application deadline is Friday, April 9, 2021, at 11:59pm CET. 

Applications must be submitted in English using the form available on website.
Read our call for proposals in Arabic, French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.