Prof. Chris Kondek & Prof. Christiane Kühl
Tell Me The Future (Future Machines)
Workshop, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Saturdays/Sundays 11 - 16 h, on 6./7.12., 13./14.12.2025, 17./18.1.2026,
Bundesallee 1-12, room 333

Registration on Moodle starts on 13.10.2025:https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=2869
Enrollment Key: machine

What does it mean to predict the future, and what kinds of machines have we built to try? From tarot cards to horoscopes, from fortune cookies to the Magic 8-Ball, cultures have long created tools—serious, playful, poetic—that claim to reveal what lies ahead. In this workshop, we’ll explore “fortune telling machines” in the broadest possible sense: as devices, rituals, artworks, and speculative systems that promise foresight. Each session will combine discussion of historical examples, cultural and artistic contexts, and hands-on prototyping. By the end, each participant will have designed their own future-predicting machine—absurd, profound, digital, mechanical, edible, or otherwise.

Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation: active and regular participation.

Chris Kondek, born in Boston in 1962, started as a video designer for theater in 1990 working with the New York Theater company The Wooster Group. In 1995 he began a multi-year collaboration with performance artist Laurie Anderson; in the late 90's he made video for productions by Robert Wilson, The Builder's Association and Michael Nyman. After moving to Berlin in 1999 Kondek established himself in the German Theater world, working with directors Stefan Pucher, Falk Richter, Jossi Wieler, Armin Petras among many others, as well as with choreographer Meg Stuart. In 2007 Kondek created video for the first of many opera productions with Sebastian Baumgarten. With director Lydia Styer he worked on Stockhausen's “Donnerstag aus Licht”, which was named production of the year 2016 by Opernwelt magazine. For his video work in theater Kondek received the OPUS/Deutscher Bühne Prize in 2008 and the Faust Theater Prize in 2012. Since fall 2023, he and Prof. Christiane Kühl share the Professorship for Interdisciplinary Artistic Practice and Theory at Studium Generale at UdK Berlin. 

Christiane Kühl is a theater maker, author, editor, and curator of interdisciplinary symposia between art and theory. Since winter term 2023/24 Kühl is Guest Professor for Interdisciplinary Artistic Practice and Theory in Studium Generale at the University of the Arts Berlin. After studying Modern German Literature, Philosophy, and Spanish at the University of Hamburg, she worked as an arts editor for the newspaper taz, SPIEGEL magazine, and radio station radioeins/RBB. She has  freelanced for various media outlets, including Die Zeit, F.A.S., dummy, and Du (Switzerland). From 2006 to 2015, she collaborated with the steirischer herbst festival (Austria), and from 2011 to 2013, she served as deputy to the artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele. She is a co-founder of the performance group doublelucky productions, which has been creating theater pieces, lecture-performances, and video installations since 2005, in co-production with HAU Berlin, Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig, Münchner Kammerspiele, among others. Their work has been critically acclaimed and tours internationally (www.doubleluckyproductions.org). Since 2018, she has been part of the team for "Weiter Schreiben. A Platform for Literature from War and Zones of Crisis," which has been awarded the Power of the Arts Prize in 2018, the PEN Centre Germany's Encouragement Award in 2022, and the BDI Cultural Promotion Prize in 2023. More information on www.christianekuehl.de.