University of Freiburg: Opening of the NEXUS Lab

On 23 September 2022 at 7 pm, the NEXUS Experiments platform invites to the opening of the NEXUS Lab in the Intelligent Machine-Brain Interfacing Technology (IMBIT) at the University of Freiburg in its new event space. NEXUS Experiments uses creative, artistic formats to reflect on social and ethical-normative implications of research and technology. It explores what emerges when art, science and the public meet. With the inauguration of the NEXUS Lab, NEXUS is expanding its repertoire: in the future, the platform will also conduct empirical research on human-technology interaction, for example on the topic of assistance robotics or AI systems in medicine. “We are very pleased that with the NEXUS Lab we now also have our own space for our events and research activities and can establish IMBIT as a place of lively exchange between science and society,” says Sabrina Livanec, who manages the platform together with Dr. Philipp Kellmeyer.

The Lab will be celebrated with the premiere of “NeurOper”, an opera intermezzo by the Community Oper Freiburg e.V. in cooperation with researchers from the BrainLinks-BrainTools Centre and the Neurosciences and Neurotechnology profile field. In an exchange of research texts, scientists and amateur and professional artists developed an opera about processes in the human brain. To the accompaniment of electronic sounds, the actors artistically address fundamental questions of neuroscience, such as: What strategies does the brain use to understand the world and itself?

The performers of Theater Zerberus then lead the visitors into the world of science fiction, artificial intelligence and robotics. In the interactive live radio play grotesque “What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?”, a special unit of AI systems – which have now taken over the world – explores the question of what the phenomenon of human humour is all about. The evening will end with DJs from Freiburg and the “Nu Disco”.