‘Das Fremde’ is a colony of robotic agents who create their own language. Their culture is then exposed to disruptions from visitors: human beings. Will the agents’ culture evolve, incorporating our culture into theirs? Will the audience feel empathy with this new species? Is a dialogue possible when both languages and appearance are totally different? Das Fremde deeply questions our relationship to artificial intelligence and machines. Through the installation, robots and humans have a chance to share time and space for a moment of reflection and poetry.

‘Das Fremde’ has been presented in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Spain, and the USA, so far.

‘Das Fremde’ was conceived and realised by Michael Spranger & Stéphane Noël, with visualisations by Supermafia, technical support from Laurent Novac (GarageCUBE) and Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc.

‘Das Fremde’ was produced by Stéphane Noël & Michael Spranger, in co-production with Digital Brainstorming (Zurich), and made with the support of Migros Cultural Percentage, Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art, Ernst Göhner Stiftung & Canton de Vaud.