Dear Sir or Madam,

A very warm welcome to you with news from the Bright World of Metals and GIFA.com.

It is sometimes the case that those used to living in countries where cars travel on the right side, experience the shock of seeing an apparently driverless car travelling along the road – until they realise the steering wheel and the driver are actually on the other side of the car.

In the future, however, this could well be something that happens more frequently – once cars have learnt to drive unaided, and we can let them get on with it as we search for our missing wallet or our house key in the foot-well. It is known as Ambient Intelligence – and it can mean roller blinds that move as if by magic, driverless cars, or refrigerators that shop for customers... How will these visions one day affect our world of work? Read all about it in our topic of the month – an exhibition on Ambient Intelligence.

Enjoy reading!
The GIFA team

The Topics

Topic of the Month

Beautiful and Intelligent Working World – An Exhibition on Ambient Intelligence

© DASA (Photo left); © Ilja Hendel / Wissenschaft im Dialog

Thinking offices, intelligent protective clothing or helpful smart glasses. Such things are no longer the stuff of science fiction. The smallest of networked technology already encompasses our everyday life. It aids us independently, lying hidden and unnoticed in objects or rooms.

What opportunities these invisible helpers provide, what research into the latest technology looks like and whether technology can at all be "intelligent" are subjects which the "Beautiful and Intelligent Working World. An Exhibition on Ambient Intelligence" show will be tackling at the DASA Working World Exhibition in Dortmund.

Düsseldorf CityTip

Katharina Grosse - Inside the Speaker

© Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014 / Foto: Nic Tenwiggenhorn

For one of the exhibition halls of Museum Kunstpalast Katharina Grosse is conceiving and creating an impressive walk-in installation measuring nearly 800 square metres, using masses of soil, colour and panels of fabric. A second exhibition hall focuses on her paintings: Like her installations, her canvases measuring up to 36 square metres take on considerable proportions and burst into the space with their colour expansions.

The internationally renowned artist Katharina Grosse (*1961), who lives in Berlin and teaches at the Academy of Art Düsseldorf, has explored the expressive potential of the medium of photography for over two decades. In the process, her work has reflected not only upon the impact of colours on the viewer, but also upon a radically new definition of the relationship between colour and picture ground.