“Robotron. Code and Utopia” at GfZK Leipzig revisits the long-shuttered East German computer manufacturer whose technological ambitions and economic contradictions mirrored the state’s eventual collapse. Curated by Franciska Zólyom (GfZK director) and collaborators, over 20 artists—including Horst Bartnig, Nadja Buttendorf, knowbotiq, and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt—present works probing computerization’s false promises, environmental destruction, and how the GDR’s technological fantasies illuminate our own.

As part of the Dialogfelder initiative, DIY connoisseurs Niklas Roy and Kati Hyyppä take to the streets of Chemnitz, Germany, to engage the public in pop-up machine drawing sessions. As participants wrestle Vektor Kollektor, a crude plotter with a joystick as input device, the drawing’s meta data is collected on a vintage Robotron typewriter. While the Etch A Sketch-style outputs are for the creators to take home, the vector and meta data feed an animated online archive at vektorkollektor.com (image).