A city is more than a collection of buildings and streets. It is a living system that meets the needs of its residents. As a place of myriad different encounters, the city offers spaces in which we can communicate with each other, show each other who we are, and impress each other! It is a place where many different people not only reside but live, where they are both separated from each other and connected.

With the photo exhibition The City Alive. A Photographic Game of Encounters, the Deutsches Technikmuseum is taking part in the European Month of Photography Berlin (EMOP) in March 2025. The exhibition marks the start of the museum's thematic focus on the “City of the Future”. The essence of the city, now and in future, is being playfully pursued here through the eye of the camera: what are the overarching principles of human life in a city? How does a planned city work? And when alternative concepts of using the urban fabric come into play, how does this transform what has been planned into different ways of living?

Showing 70 images, the Berlin photography collective Cadavre Exquis is taking visitors on a photographic expedition. The photos are part of a comprehensive work that has emerged in six months from three different association games. Visitors will be able to follow along with these visual chains of association, adding their own associations and thus playfully rediscovering their own conception of what a city is.

The photos were created in an associative game involving 19 photographers. The starting point was a photo by Sascha Jakubenko, the artistic director of the project. This image also serves as the first photo seen in the exhibition. Like in the game of telephone, this first image was passed on to a second photographer as inspiration. This photographer would then respond with her own photo, which in turn would be passed on to a third photographer, who would again respond with another photograph – and so forth. The photographers only got to see the image that immediately preceded theirs.

It is only with the opening of the exhibition that the entire work becomes visible: an associative chain of images. Among these images are both personal impressions and staged scenes that tell a story. Together, the photographs represent the city as a living network of people, places, and stories.

Visitors can follow along with the game – and even participate. The exhibition space has been designed as a large, three-dimensional gameboard. The chains of photographs form lines that run through the room, which visitors can follow like subway lines through the city.

Exhibition guests are prompted to look closely at the photographs. First of all, they can look for connections between the photos. Is a color or a shape echoed in the next image? Or is there a thematic connection, or even a play on words happening? Then, secondly, the interplay of the photographs raises questions about the city: what does the city mean for all of us together? What does it mean for the individual? Here, certain terms are helpful that are central in urban life: “Live” and “Reside,” “Supply” and “Dispose,” “Encounter” and “Communicate,” as well as “Impress” and “Represent.”

Both chains of association have been intentionally left open-ended. Eight empty frames invite visitors to keep playing the game and thinking about the subject. You can respond to the last image in the series by adding your own photo. It is important to the exhibition organizers that these photos show a very personal perspective on the city. Everyone can share their image through Instagram using the hashtag #LebendeStadtWeiterdenken or can share it by e-mailing it to lebendestadt@technikmuseum.berlin. The museum and Cadavre Exquis will make a selection of their favorite photos and show a new one in the exhibition every month.