Visions of the future

We live in an age of profound upheaval, from the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence and the increase in wars and crises, to the privatisation and conquest of space. All these themes that pervade today’s world also feature in the works of Friedrich Dürrenmatt. One need only look at his many collages or his 1958 poem Cerveaux électroniques (‘Electronic brains’) in which he foresaw the advent of artificial intelligence nearly 70 years ahead of time.

These radical changes are also at the heart of the three futuristic stories around which the exhibition is structured:

• Operation Vega (1954), which explores the conquest of space;
• The Winter War in Tibet (1981), which imagines a third world war driving humanity into subterranean existence;
• Der Versuch (‘The Experiment’) (1992), published posthumously, in which artificial intelligence has taken over and is questioning its own origins.

What kind of future do we want to live in? What dystopias – but also what utopias – can we envision? The exhibition is intended to create a space for debate and reflection, and seeks above all to encourage visitors to explore and engage with visions of the future.

Invited artists

The exhibition extends these visions by bringing them into dialogue with contemporary artists. Esther Hunziker, Zilla Leutenegger and Ernestyna Orlowska engage with Dürrenmatt’s oeuvre through their creations, produced specially for the exhibition. Author Martina Clavadetscher will also produce a unique literary text, written for the project.