How would Berlin look, sound, smell and feel with friendlier mobility infrastructure? In Berlin 2037, a teenage girl with a radical desire for change invites you to hop on a VR-enabled bicycle and ride into her utopia.
Berlin 2037 is a multisensory cyber-physical installation that connects a bicycle to a virtual reality headset. In the fictional narrative experience, you meet Maya, 14, a computer and 3D animation nerd living in Berlin, who recently broke her wrist when a truck knocked her off her bike in heavy traffic. Determined to use her digital skills to transform her city, Maya sets herself a mission to create a virtual version of her Berlin; a version that’s child-friendly, safe and sustainable.
You are invited to try the prototype of her VR experience. Pedal the bicycle in your real world to steer your virtual journey into an alternative urban universe with less private cars, exclusively sustainable energy, new forms of housing, and new forms of work.
Large scale photogrammetry scans of Berlin today combine with imagined, futuristic CG animations to tell a scientifically sound story.
The experience gives you food for thought - can we imagine a sustainable and thriving future for all of us? How can we get there and what may be the hurdles?

directors: FELIX GAEDTKE, GAYATRI PARAMESWARAN
writer: FELIX GAEDTKE, GAYATRI PARAMESWARAN, MIA VON KOLPAKOW
lead developer: FELIX LANGE
art director: MORITZ MAYERHOFER
sound designer: BILLY MELLO
executive producers: JAN KERHART, SANDRA MAISCHBERGER
an idea from: JAN KERHART, ARMIN TOERKELL
producers: FELIX GAEDTKE, ENZO MAAS, GAYATRI PARAMESWARAN

a production by VINCENT Productions and NOWHERE MEDIA

This Artwork is realized by NowHere Media and Vincent Productions and co-commissioned by STATE with the support of the RISE Cities Program of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt and the STARTS program of the European Union.

Repairing the Present received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement LC01641664.

Felix Gaedtke is a multi-award winning immersive storyteller and creative producer currently based in Berlin. He co-founded the immersive storytelling studio NowHere Media with an urge to create spaces for under-represented voices in mainstream discourses. His passion to convey different realities across the world has led him to working with VR and AR storytelling techniques. His recent work Kusunda is co-created with the eponymous indigenous group in Nepal and highlights their fight for language reclamation. Kusunda recently won the prestigious Storyscapes Award at Tribeca Film Festival. He is a Sundance New Frontier alumnus and has been awarded the ‘Best Use of Immersive Arts’ at SXSW as well as the Lumiere Award for ‘Best VR documentary’ among other accolades. Felix’s immersive works have been exhibited at the Venice International Film Festival, SXSW, Cannes XR, the UN, HotDocs, Bergen International Film Festival and beyond.