Fertile Void: Quantum Listening. Berlin Science Week at HKW
Press release, 6.10.2026
Fertile Void: Quantum Listening
Berlin Science Week at HKW
Lectures, Workshops, Performances, Installations
6–8 November 2026
From 6–8 November 2026, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) serves as the festival centre of Berlin Science Week for the first time. Under the theme In Touch, more than 100 free events invite visitors to experience science in a personal and engaging way. As part of the festival week, HKW presents Fertile Void: Quantum Listening from Ancient Earth to Spectral Densities, a programme exploring the reorganization of the senses at quantum scale.
Fertile Void: Quantum Listening from Ancient Earth to Spectral Densities
Lectures, Workshops, Performances
6–8 November 2026
Can sound open up another world? This year's edition of Fertile Void draws on composer Pauline Oliveros’s concept of ‘quantum listening’—a conscious, attentive mode of listening and engagement that presupposes openness to different forms of interpretation. At its core is the reordering of the senses on the quantum level and the question of how the constant vibrational movements of all matter can be perceived and ‘overheard’.
In recent years, scientists have succeeded in acoustically perceiving particles within computers built to hold superposition, the phenomenon in which a particle or wave can exist in a combination of possible states until measured. The detection of these phonons, that is, quantized vibrations, and the spectral density revealed through them—the distribution of energy across different frequencies—opens up a way of listening to the many overlapping fields of possibility. Shifting between poetic interpretations and scientific observations, Fertile Void: Quantum Listening from Ancient Earth to Spectral Densities asks how sound can open up new ways of perceiving and thinking.
With: Carolina Cifras, Nicole L’Huillier, Cécile Malaspina, Muindi Fanuel Muindi, Amanda Piña, Sha Xin Wei
Berlin Science Week
at HKW
Lectures, Workshops, Performances, Installations
6–8 November 2026
Every year from 1 to 10 November, Berlin Science Week transforms the German capital into a playground of scientific ideas. More than 200 institutions invite visitors to discover and experience the city's vibrant scientific landscape.
While events take place across Berlin throughout all ten days, the festival centre at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) forms the heart of the festival from 6 to 8 November. Over the course of three days, the festival centre brings together scientists, artists, researchers, and everyone curious to explore how the ways science shapes our world. With this year’s festival theme, In Touch, Berlin Science Week 2026 focuses on the personal side of science: how research touches and improves our lives, affects the people behind it, and connects us with one another. At HKW, an interdisciplinary space emerges for lectures, performances, workshops, participatory panel discussions, and hands-on experiments.
For interview requests and accreditations regarding Fertile Void, please contact presse@hkw.de
Press photos: hkw.de/pressphotos
More information: hkw.de/en/fertile-void-2026
Programme
Free entry
Berlin Science Week Festival Centre at HKW
Fertile Void:Quantum Listening from Ancient Earth to Spectral Densities
Lectures, Workshops, Performances
6–8 November 2026
Fri., 6.11.
HKW Hosts
13:00–00:00
Day 1: Science in Touch with Society
Lectures, Conversations, Performances, Installations
For the full programme see: berlinscienceweek.com
Fertile Void
13:00–00:00
Lounge und Reading Corner
Fertile Void
19:30–20:00
Nicole L’Huillier
Sonification, Reading
In English
Fertile Void
20:00–21:00
Amanda Piña and Carolina Cifras / Instituto Tropical
Performance
Fertile Void
21:00
DJ-Set
Sat., 7.11.
HKW Hosts
10:30–00:00
Day 2: Science in Touch with Other Ways of Knowing
Lectures, Conversations, Performances, Installations
For the full programme see: berlinscienceweek.com
Fertile Void
10:30–00:00
Lounge and Reading Corner
Fertile Void
13:00–14:00
Along, Across, and Against the Grain: On Spectral Densities and Margins of Play
Cécile Malaspina, Muindi Fanuel Muindi and Sha Xin Wei
Keynote Conversation
In English
Fertile Void
15:00–16:30
(Ir-)Resolution and (Non-)Renormalizability: On the Sonics of the Black Radical Tradition
Muindi Fanuel Muindi
Workshop
In English
Sun., 8.11.
HKW Hosts
10:00–19:30
Day 3: Science in Touch with the World it Seeks to Help Understand
Lectures, Conversations, Performances, Installations
For the full programme see: berlinscienceweek.com
Fertile Void
10:00–19:30
Lounge and Reading Corner
Fertile Void
16:00–17:30
Sha Xin Wei
Workshop
In English
Partner
Fertile Void is made possible by Schering Stiftung. The project is part of Berlin Science Week.
Berlin Science Week is hosted by Falling Walls Foundation gGmbH and funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Higher Education and Research, Health and Long-Term Care.
Contact
Maxie Fischer
Head of Press and Communications
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
T: + 49 (0) 30 397 87 157
presse@hkw.de