FORUM Closing: A Séance for Science in an Era of Techno-Spiritualism

In the organizer's words:

THE ART+SCIENCE SALON, Jazz Institut Berlin, Berlin University of the Arts

Step into the ART+SCIENCE SALON and join our Séance for Science to confront the digitally-mediated myths, metaphors, and manipulations that characterize our present beliefs and behaviours.

Closing the FORUM: Day 3 - Belonging

We are delighted to conclude the Berlin Science Week 2025 FORUM with a special closing performance, a Séance of Science in an Era of Techno-Spiritualism, presented by the ART+SCIENCE SALON in collaboration with the Jazz Institute (UdK).

Part debate, part performance, part speculative theater: As the FORUM draws to a close, this event invites audiences into a room where the line between science and belief begins to shimmer. Framed as a séance for the 21st century, our "mediums" convene a live conversation between a panel of invited experts, who will collectively confront the myths, metaphors, and manipulations shaping our current age of techno-spiritualism. The séance becomes both format and method: conjuring up the ghostly returns of past ideologies and playfully questioning how new technology becomes spiritualized in times of uncertainty. By blending historical and contemporary sources with a participatory format, we will engage with the now ubiquitous adoption of AI by society, investigate how quantum theory in art reflects ancient spiritual tendencies, and question the displacement of nature/the post-human in the emerging picture of our new world.

This is not a panel. It is not a lecture. It is a collective investigation into the cognitive and cultural landscapes of belief, hosted by the ART+SCIENCE SALON.

The evening opens with a few words from Christian Rauch, Festival Director, before dissolving into the séance, carried by live music from students of the Jazz Institute at the Universität der Künste Berlin.

More information you can find here.