The CIDS Interactive Science Lab invites groups to explore digital science in an interactive way. Through engaging guided tours (45–90 minutes) and workshops (1.5–6 hours), participants experience the exhibition hands-on: How do AI systems work? What kind of mathematics underlies complex processes? And what are the key questions surrounding data privacy? The program is being developed in collaboration with the SLUB Makerspace. It offers exciting and thought-provoking access to scientific, technical, and ethical topics – designed to inspire participation and reflection. Workshops are expected to be available for booking from mid to late June.

In its third project-based course with the Chair of Immersive Media Design, the CIDS Interactive Science Lab is developing new exhibits and refining existing ones. For the first time, students from the Chair of Human-Computer Interaction are also participating this summer semester. The collaboration brings fresh perspectives, creative input, and new inspiration—enriching the exhibition through the eyes of the next generation of researchers and designers.

On June 20, 2025, from 5 PM to 11 PM, the CIDS Interactive Science Lab will open its doors for the Long Night of Science at the SLUB Makerspace. The interactive exhibition “//DataSpaces. Experiencing Science” invites visitors to explore current research from CIDS and TU Dresden at ten engaging stations. The exhibition showcases scientific projects, historical computing technology, and artistic perspectives on digital data spaces. Hourly guided tours offer deeper insights into the topics presented. As a special highlight, guests can take home a unique, individually generated image.

For the nationwide Digital Day 2024, the Interactive Science Lab organized a “Speeddating with the digital sciences” at the COSMO Science Forum. Interested visitors were able to talk to scientists from the digital sciences and try out interactive applications. The Digital Day was launched to promote digital participation in Germany. The aim is to bring people closer to digital developments and make them understandable so that they can benefit from them. In this way, digitalization becomes part of the reality of life and can be discussed, understood and experienced together.

In April 2024, Monika Reich from the Interactive Science Lab held a workshop on the topic of data worlds and artificial intelligence with students from Gymnasium Klotzsche. The workshop took place as part of the 10th grade project week “No Utopia”. Together, the students developed an analog algorithm and addressed the question of whether artificial intelligence is always good or always bad.

In the Data//Art complex internship course in winter semester 2023/24, students developed visualizations for processes and calculations that run in supercomputers under the guidance of Brian Eschrich. They useed data from the ZIH supercomputer cluster at TU Dresden. This is used for data analysis, machine learning and the processing of large data sets. All these processes take place unnoticed in a huge, windowless concrete cube. The students transformed these invisible processes into artistic, tangible forms and structures. A student project is currently being revised and adapted for the “//DataSpaces” exhibition.

In 2023, the CIDS Interactive Science Lab team traveled to various museums, science centers and exhibition venues in Germany and Austria to find inspiration for the CIDS exhibition. This resulted in numerous contacts, including the ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, Experimenta Heilbronn and the Deutsches Museum Nuremberg. For example, the ZKM Karlsruhe showed the exhibit “TRACES” by Bernd Lintermann. This is currently being adapted for the exhibition //DataSpaces.

In November 2023, the CIDS Interactive Science Lab presented the concept of its exhibition at the EVA conference in Berlin, which was titled “Transform”. The lecture on “Data Spaces // Data Worlds: Changing Perspectives with Artistic Support” and the presentation of an interactive exhibit focused on the change of perspective offered by the exhibition.

From September 2023 to January 2024, the COSMO Science Forum in the Kulturpalast Dresden hosted an exhibition and accompanying program on the topic of artificial intelligence. ScaDS.AI was represented with three exhibits. ScaDS.AI will also be represented with several exhibits in the “//DataSpaces” exhibition at the CIDS Interactive Science Lab.

In the fall of 2023, the Interactive Science Lab team tested a system for real-time recording of movements in space. Based on the TRACES project by Bernd Lintermann at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, LiDAR sensors are set up to scan the room and software is used that can display the movement data in heat maps, for example.

The ScaDS.AI program asan.AI will be part of the “//DataSpaces” exhibition from autumn 2024. The application is currently being adapted for this. For the Long Night of Science 2023, ScaDS.AI presented asanAI, an interactive station for testing and trying out artificial intelligence in the COSMO Science Forum. The application was evaluated by the users. This data is now helping with the revision. You can try out asanAI for yourself at the following link.

The pilot exhibition of the CIDS Interactive Science Lab is supported by a TUD im Dialog grant. As places of knowledge and its communication, universities have a responsibility to communicate and make their research topics understandable outside the scientific community and to discuss them with an interested public audience. The exhibition aims to connect scientists and, above all, inform and educate citizens about the possibilities, limits, opportunities and risks of digitalization for society. The exhibition will act as a knowledge and exchange platform.