What will future urban environments look like? And how are they designed when they are inspired by the imagination of children? 250 children used their imagination to envision the city of tomorrow. On this basis, the VR experience designs walk-through scenarios. The work is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration to develop new concepts for changing societies.

In 1923, the Dutch erected a radio station on Puntang Mountain on Java deploying indigenous forced labourers. 2,000 metres of wire between two mountain ridges were meant to transmit news from what was then the Dutch East Indies across the 12,000 kilometres to Europe. A speculative and poetic examination of the remains of Radio Malabar – in the earth, in the mountain, in dreams of geoengineering, in local history.

A Nazi propaganda film that survived only in fragments and never got to “test” its effect. It took intensive research to identify the scattered remains, correct the title in circulation, “Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt” (The Führer Gives a City to the Jews), and clarify who was able to see the roughly 90-minute attempted defraud at all before it disappeared. The intended international audience was no longer within reach in 1944/1945. But would they have been convinced by the retirement home for “resettled” Jews staged here? Kurt Gerron, film and theatre celebrity, interned in the Ghetto and conscripted as co-director, was deported to Auschwitz and gassed as late as 1944.

How are we shaped by our DNA? The 360° film tells the story of fictional scientist Roderick Norman, who tries to extract dreams from an unidentified skeleton that are inscribed in the blueprint of this ruin of a body. This black and white collage of text, 3D images and traditional film footage questions our conventional understanding of gender and identity.

Two siblings, a boy and a girl, play together. They say goodbye to their father who has to go to war. To comfort his sister, the big brother gives her “tò he” every day, a traditional toy made of sticky rice powder. Until one day their father returns. A colourful and imaginative animated story from Vietnam.

Trees and other plants during the period of American colonial rule in the Philippines, photographed from the perspective of those in power. The images not only document the rich flora, they categorize and classify the resources of the colony. The forest becomes inventory. From potted plants to sawmills, from logging to reforestation: In her essay Shireen Seno takes us to the essence of photography itself – and to its relationship with colonialism. Because both are trying to pick something.

No sooner had optical sound been invented than it was used in other than the intended way. Geometric patterns, intertwined lines, facial profiles and letters instead of voice recordings and music – Moholy-Nagy imaginatively designs the optical soundtrack of the film. The photocell of the film projector then translates his “handwriting in sound” into electronic buzzes and beeps, along and beside the musical scale.