Media Art Envisioning the Future
The UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts Karlsruhe will once again present itself at art karlsruhe from February 5 to 8, 2026, with its own exhibition under the title The Shape of Tomorrow. At the international fair for Classical Modern and Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe will showcase a media art installation specially created for art karlsruhe, exploring future living spaces and the relationship between humans, technology, and space. Visitors are invited to experience the installation and learn more about the work of the city’s media arts office at the stand.
At the center is the immersive work Soft Utopia by Veronika Biebrich, Verena Stella Gompf, Stefan Lotze, and Nikolaus Völzow. The installation was selected through an open call seeking artistic positions that make utopian ideas of coexistence, sustainability, and digital design tangible.
Soft Utopia invites visitors to linger on a large, softly cushioned lounging landscape—alone or together. The installation creates a calm, protected space in which a screen floating above the loungers responds to movements and makes them visible in real time. This creates a transformable environment that encourages encounters and allows the future to be experienced as a shared, immediate experience.
Further information about the exhibition and Soft Utopia is available on the UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts Karlsruhe website.
In 2019, Karlsruhe became the first and so far only city in Germany to receive the UNESCO designation “Creative City of Media Arts.” Within the international UNESCO Creative Cities Network, Karlsruhe collaborates with more than 40 partner institutions to promote sustainable urban development with a focus on creativity and culture.