Artificial intelligence is on the rise – as can be seen not only from the growing popularity of dialogue systems like Alexa. However, some key criteria still need to be met before it can serve as a substitute for a real-life language teacher: spontaneity, creativity and shared knowledge.

Will Artificial Intelligence rule humanity at some point? – On the insurmountable distinctions between humans and machines. An essay by Peter Glaser.

International research networks are working on robots that move, behave and even think more and more like humans. Still, it will be a while before artificial intelligence catches up to us.

If you think art and robotics have nothing in common, think again. Artificial intelligence is a tool for creative minds, and increasingly their competition. The digital revolution also provides art with plenty of fodder for critical reflection.

“Can art be artificial and intelligent at the same time?”, is a question that unfolds a paradox: the hypothetical (according to some) or potential (according to others) intelligence of the non-living. 

They make algorithms dance and breathe life into software: Artists working with artificial intelligence are exploring and blurring the distinctions between man and machine. Fans of the sci-fi series “Black Mirror” will love these artists. 

Isabel Fargo Cole was nominated for the 2018 Leipzig Book Fair Prize for her debut novel “Die grüne Grenze” (the Green Frontier). US-born Cole wrote her novel in German, and here she shares her thoughts about writing in a foreign language.

Arne Winkelmann, an architecture expert based in Frankfurt am Main, would like to see more a more critical approach to the Bauhaus school: an interview. 

Germany prides itself in having film festivals dedicated to almost every genre and region in the world. The scene is unique worldwide – and so diverse that one tends to almost lose track of them all. Film critic, Michael Kohler, presents his ten favorite festivals.

The Hamburg Elbe Philharmonic Hall has opened its doors. From former critics there is now little to be heard. But it remains to be seen whether the Elbe Philharmonic can fulfil the promise its proponents have been making throughout the years. 

The Saxon town of Görlitz is called “Görliwood”, because it is one of the locations, among many others in Germany, where Hollywood film teams regularly shoot their films. Let’s take a look at where the Hollywood dream factory shoots in Germany – and why?

It was political revelations that enabled “Der Spiegel” to become the defining medium of the German press scene. Has the news magazine, however, still managed to retain its importance 70 years after it was first published?

Mit dem Tod des Altkanzlers Helmut Kohl verliert das Goethe-Institut einen Freund und Förderer. In vielfacher Hinsicht war die Ära Kohl auch richtungsweisend für die Arbeit des Goethe-Instituts, besonders in den Jahren nach der Wende. 

Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat – social networks are becoming the most important platform for political communication in Germany. Though this is not without its downsides.

The spotlight at the 59th Festival for Animation and Documentary Films in Leipzig was on Turkey. Numerous films and discussions showed how the cultural and film scene is coping with a country that is currently being torn apart by fierce social and political conflicts.

Ulrich Pohlmann, director of the Munich Stadtmuseum’s photographic collection, discusses the German photobook market, its specific features and its future in the age of digitalisation.

Germany is the guest of honour at the Istanbul International Book Fair. This could not have happened at a better time – despite or because of the political dissonances.

Economical line drawing, muted watercolour techniques and expressive colouration – Julia Friese has mastered the entire spectrum of the illustrator’s art. With great love of detail she illustrates children’s books, some of which are successful worldwide. 

In the middle of the nineties the filmmakers of the “Berliner Schule” (The Berlin School) created radically new images of German society. Their films still have so much to say about their country.
 

In a book published in 2013, two German writers lamented the fact that humorous literature was thought very little of in Germany. However, things are beginning to change in that respect.

On 23 June 2016 the majority of the British people voted for Brexit, the withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU. The world’s reaction ranged from consternation to approval. Here a compilation of Twitter messages.
 

For more than 500 years one of the world’s first traditional food ordinances has been defining beer culture in Germany. But this is changing - Craft Beer has boldly ventured onto the scene.

No country more beautiful” (Kein schöner Land) – the heading under which the 17th Poetry Festival gathered together 150 poets from 37 countries and showed that poetry is capable of broadening horizons and building bridges.

Is the Bauhaus still relevant? The Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein posed this question to sixty artists, designers and architects in advance of its Bauhaus exhibition. Their answers give some indication of the far-reaching importance of the Bauhaus to this day.

Their names are Max Richter, Hauschka and Nils Frahm, and they are pioneers of a trend that blurs the old boundaries. For “neo-classical” has reached an audience that has little use for the concert tradition.

A Jewish girl who was killed in the Holocaust lives on in a graphic novel, teenagers helping to write the continuation of her story. An interview with Avitall Gerstetter, a cantor for the Jewish Community of Berlin and the initiator of the project “We will call out your name”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made the CDU a more socially-oriented party and has broken with the conservative dogma. Now there is increasing resistance to this approach. Matthias Geis takes stock.

A “welcome culture” for refugees and asylum-seekers has yet to be established in many cases in Germany. It is not only politicians and society who need to step up to the plate – filmmakers can also do their bit.

Burkhard Horn speaks about his unusual and enriching experience when he came back to Ireland after 25 years to talk about Berlin's policies on cycle traffic at the National Bike Week in Dublin.     

In the night from 9-10 November 1938 over 1000 Jewish synagogues across Germany and Austria were attacked, damaged or burned to the ground. The historic synagogue in Ulm was one of them. 

While a raging discussion concerning banking and monetary policy within Europe continues apace as part of the European Union expansion as a whole, the architecture of its banking institutions, the European Central Bank [ECB], the German Central Bank [Bundesbank], and the Central Bank of Ireland, mirrors the divergent conditions between these bodies and serves to illustrate these growing differences. 

Community gardens are a recent form of urban growing project. They are made by and for members of their local community. They are sustainable because they manage their own resources and maintenance, and they are also very inclusive because they can involve anyone who wants to join in.     

Vacant properties can be found in Germany and Ireland. They exist in Dresden, the city of Baroque art and culture in east Germany, and in Dublin, the hip city of young creatives.

How Germany’s so called ‘unity generation’ – those born around 1989 when the Berlin Wall tumbled – view the country’s divided past

With his stories, which are set in Germany and Turkey, the auteur Fatih Akin has gained international recognition.

Theatre presupposes participation. A new interactive model has re-defined the role and position of the audience: as mobile actor that actively co-shapes the reality of the performance.

How do dancers memorise movement? Stephan Brinkmann casts light on this question in his dissertation “Remembering Movement – Memory Forms in Dance” from the perspectives of neuroscience, philosophy, cultural studies and dance techniques.

What effects are digitalisation and globalisation having on our world? The Centre for Art and Media Technology Karlsruhe (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe /ZKM) is addressing this question with a large-scale exhibition both in urban space as well as in its own facilities.

Has our memory capacity declined since we have come to rely on smartphones? Are we perhaps even at risk of suffering “digital dementia”? On the contrary, claims memory researcher Emrah Düzel.

For bike activist, bicycles serve not only as a means of locomotion; they are also a political statement and a symbol of a self-determined life.

This is the story of Irish-German Modern Dance pioneer Erina Brady, winding back the Dublin years to the 1940s, a woman who was poetically named by her exiled father after Ireland itself - Erina, a personification of Éire.