Festival of Lights 2024

Loved, hated, admired and disappeared: Where the Humboldt Forum stands today was once the Palace of the Republic. 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the CyberRäuber are opening their Palace of Memories to all visitors to the Festival of Lights on the east façade of the Humboldt Forum.

Celebrating Freedom: On 7 October 1989, the leaders of the GDR celebrated the 40th anniversary of the workers‘ and peasants’ state with international guests in the Palace of the Republic. On the other side of the Spree, many citizens protested and demanded more freedom. On 23 August 1990, the first and last freely elected parliament of the GDR passed a resolution in the Volkskammer hall of the palace to ‘accede to the scope of the Basic Law’, in other words to restore German unity. A short time later, the palace was closed due to asbestos contamination and demolished in 2006.

The Palace of the Republic will reappear for the Festival of Lights 2024 – as video art on the east façade of the Humboldt Forum, which has been open on the site of the Palace of the Republic since 2021. The façade opens onto images of a palace, but did it really look like this? What shape was the glass flower in the foyer? How many green plants grew around the columns? Where did the famous globe lights hang? And who celebrated in the Great Hall? The projection Palace of Memory by the media artist duo CyberRäuber is best experienced from the very meadow on the Spree where the citizens protested 35 years ago. It is an extension of the mixed reality experience, which will run until February 2025 alongside the exhibition Blown Away. The Palace of the Republicat the Humboldt Forum until February 2025.

Marcel Karnapke and Björn Lengers have been working together on art in digital space as CyberRäuber since 2016. With an “arguably unique mix of affinity for technology, pioneering spirit, pragmatism and love of theater” (Theater der Zeit), they create productions and projects that are driven by a great curiosity about the creative possibilities of technology and are shown in galleries, municipal theaters and at international festivals.