Project

What Will Life Become?

The definition of life is under momentous revision. Artificial intelligences, biological robots, and space habitats made of mushrooms invite new possibilities of what it means to be human. We are developing novel technologies and tools that are dismantling traditional notions of the liberal human subject, reshaping how we humans think of the nature of consciousness, the boundary between the biological and the synthetic, and our evolution with multispecies kin. Future Humans asks, What will life become?

Future Wunderkammer

The Future Wunderkammer is an interactive platform that reimagines the cabinet of curiosity for the 21st century. You will find speculative art, science, and stories that ponder the futures of life, technology, and identity. The Future Relics contained within are artifacts that contemplate how humanity’s relationship with the world, and with itself, might evolve.

As you explore, Future Humans invites you to consider:

What forms of life and creativity could emerge in the future?
How might ecosystems evolve beyond Earth?
What stories will humanity leave behind for generations to come?

The Berggruen Institute's collection will continue to grow. We invite you to check back soon. We hope it is an enduring space for you to reflect on life’s multifarious unfolding futures.

Future Wunderkammer is part of a global movement to explore humanity’s evolving relationship with life, identity, and the cosmos. By blending speculative art, visionary science, and cutting-edge storytelling, it serves as both a platform for inquiry and a source of inspiration for audiences seeking to understand—and shape—the futures of our world.

Enter the Future Wunderkammer

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Performance by Sougwen Chung, April 2022, Los Angeles

Origins of What Will Life Become?

What Will Life Become? began as a two-day workshop in April 2022, hosted in collaboration with the USC Dornsife Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life. The gathering brought together visionary scholars, scientists, and artists. Each offered visions about the profound transformations presently shaping the future of life.

Set in the iconic Bradbury Building, the workshop featured leading practitioners on the Futures of Life, Mind, and Outer Space. Insights from AI engineers, synthetic biologists, historians of science, astrobiologists, and philosophers generated ideas about what life will become.

Liam Young’s lecture-performance envisioned the future of cities through planetary and multispecies frameworks. The Berggruen Institute was proud to premiere three art commissions: Sougwen Chung painted with embodied machines, Nancy Baker Cahill debuted a multispecies AR sculpture, and REEPS100 demonstrated his AI-inflected voice backdropped by three new glittering Voice Gems. Workshop participants took part in futures exercises, writing a letter to the world in 2049.

In the Future Wunderkammer, you’ll explore how the Workshop’s initial discussions and creative explorations developed — and we invite you to take part in writing a letter to your future, too.

The Future Humans program aims to not only witness but inspire emerging forms of life—biological, technological, and hybrid—that are reshaping how we think about existence, creativity, and humanity’s place in the cosmos.