Making our work and vision accessible to the general public is an important part of the group's mission. Below is a selection of recent outreach activities — exhibitions, public events, and media contributions.
June 2026
Represented the group and the MPI-DS at IdeenExpo in Hannover (June 20–28), Europe's largest youth event for science and technology. Visitors could try our interactive 3D exhibit and touchscreen-based "Game of Life" to discover how simple local rules give rise to complex, emergent dynamics; Torben and Ilias were there in person on June 24. With thanks to press officer Manuel Maidorn and the University of Göttingen for organizing our participation.
2025 – 2026
For the MPI-DS centennial, we planned and built an interactive 3D visualization exhibit on emergence — including its physical controls and electronics — for this special exhibition at the Forum Wissen museum in Göttingen (on show August 2025 – February 2026). The interactive "Game of Life" exhibit we developed for the Night of Knowledge is also featured here. With thanks to press officer Manuel Maidorn and curator Tanja Dübbel, together with the whole Forum Wissen team, for the coordination; to the electronics and precision-mechanics workshops at the MPI-DS for their support; and to all group members who prepared the 3D material, in particular Lukas, Torben, and Ilias.
August 2025
A German-language podcast episode about the group's work, methods, and vision, produced by the Forum Wissen museum. With thanks to Eva Völker (Forum Wissen).
June 2025
Presented a touchscreen-based interactive "Game of Life" together with 3D movies of our simulations to watch at Göttingen's city-wide night of the research institutions, inviting visitors to explore emergent dynamics. With thanks to press officer Manuel Maidorn and the coordination team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.
June 2023
A full-day event on the Göttingen market square presenting our research to the public together with a student — using animations, a 3D screen and glasses to visualize 3D simulations, and a hands-on experiment on physical self-organization.
2020
Explaining stochastic effects and regional containment strategies during the pandemic, based on our epidemics research — through TV and radio interviews (NDR, Radio Bremen), an article in the Göttinger Tageblatt, and a public lecture in the Göttingen University lecture series "Ein Virus verändert die Welt".