A HIDDEN VARIABLE
Open call for
Death? YES/ NO / MAYBE
Let's explore new horizons of existence together.
A HIDDEN VARIABLE
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Death? Yes/ No/ Maybe
Let's explore new horizons of existence together.
The exhibition Death? Yes/ No/ Maybe explores humanity’s enduring pursuit of immortality through the intersecting fields of contemporary art, scientific research, and speculative practice. Bringing together visual artworks, live performances, immersive environments, and participatory experiences, the exhibition examines how the desire to transcend biological limits is reshaping culture, identity, and the future of the human body.
Alongside the artworks, the exhibition will host a series of panel talks and public discussions featuring artists, scientists, researchers, and theorists working in fields related to aging, life extension, and biotechnology. These conversations aim to contextualize the artistic works within current scientific debates, addressing ethical, social, and philosophical questions surrounding radical longevity, access to life-extending technologies, and the redefinition of mortality.
Vernissage: 20 March 2026 17:00 – 23:00
Exhibition: 21 – 25 March 2026 13:00 – 20:00
registration required for the Sunday 22: register on Luma
Culterim Space Rossman, Gesundbrunnen
Brunnenstraße 105-109, 13355 Berlin
Vernissage: 20 March 2026 17:00 – 23:00
Exhibition: 21 – 25 March 2026 13:00 – 20:00
registration required for the Sunday 22: register on Luma
Culterim Space Rossman, Gesundbrunnen
Brunnenstraße 105-109, 13355 Berlin
ABOUT
Who We Are
A Hidden Variable is a Berlin-based community where art and science meet and take an inspiration in one another. We’re a group of artists, researchers, and curious people who believe creativity and discovery come from a same impulse, the desire to understand and to imagine. We’re drawn to the spaces where ideas take shape, where scientific thinking sparks artistic vision, and where art helps us see science in a new light.
Our Goals
Our goal is to build a community that connects people across disciplines and ways of thinking. We want to bring artists and scientists into conversation, to create room for shared curiosity and collaboration. We support artists whose work is guided by research and experimentation, and we give collectors and audiences a chance to discover art that engages the mind as much as the senses. Above all, we believe in the power of dialogue, in the idea that creativity grows when different perspectives meet.
Our Format
Each edition of A Hidden Variable explores a chosen scientific theme through an exhibition and a public talk. The exhibition presents artworks inspired by that theme, while the panel brings together scientists, artists, and thinkers to discuss it from different angles. This format allows ideas to move freely between art and science, opening new ways of looking at the world and at ourselves.
LATEST EXHIBITION
Design Me!
International Art+Science exhibition
Join artists from around the world as they explore what it means to be human in a time when DNA can be edited, minds simulated, and bodies reshaped by code.
Set as an urban intervention in a train station, the exhibition inhabits a space of constant transition, reflecting its themes of fluid, evolving identities.
Discover works inspired by gene editing, posthuman futures, AI identity, and the designed self, alongside hands-on VR experiences and a real-time PCR machine that brings the biology of the exhibition to life.
Connect with creators, researchers, and curious minds while enjoying a drink and deep conversations.
Let’s imagine who we can become together.
Vernissage: 19 Dec. 2025 18:00 – 22:00
Exhibition: 19 – 26 Dec. 2025 11:00 – 19:00
Culterim Space Alexanderplatz train station, ground floor
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Vernissage: 19 Dec. 2025 18:00 – 22:00
Exhibition: 19 – 26 Dec. 2025 11:00 – 19:00
Culterim Space Alexanderplatz train station, ground floor
THE TEAM
HANNA BORBOLA
Visual artist, Designer, curator
Hanna Borbola is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary visual artist, designer and partner. Rooted in a lifelong journey through traditional and digital art education, her work weaves together the disciplines of illustration, animation, and generative art to explore the shifting boundaries between the natural and the digital. Her creative process is intuitive yet deeply informed by structure — drawing from organic forms and the transformative force of nature. Whether painting by hand or composing with digital tools, she strives to create spaces where perception is fluid, time is non-linear, and identity unfolds beyond the surface.
ALA LERESTEUX
co-founder, curator
Ala Leresteux is a visual artist and curator with a Master’s degree in Philosophy.
Her practice draws from scientific and theoretical fields such as physics, linguistics, psychology, and biology. Working primarily with ink pointillism, drawing, and mixed media, she explores themes of perception, language, and cognition.
Her philosophical background informs a deep interest in the relationship between conceptual thought and sensory experience, a connection she brings into both her artistic work and the exhibitions she curates.
Dr. Lucas Fabian Olivero - Lufo
Curator, Scientific advisor, Partner
Lucas Fabian Olivero (b. 1985, Córdoba, Argentina) is a contemporary artist, PhD student in Digital Media Art, PhD in Design and Innovation, Architect and Building Engineer-Architect, based in Berlin since 2021.
Lufo's artistic realm builds from academic research, music, life experiences, books and travels. He blends all his background in hybrid (analogical/digital) art and using parallel, conical, fully immersive spherical and cubical perspectives, etc.
Lufo’s art invites viewers to experience multidimensional spaces through his unique style mixing architecture, mathematics, scientific illustration, digital art and interactive installations. Much of his art-practice-based research focuses on paradigms of perception which he materialises in dynamic, fluent, relative and never-ending artworks, right as he perceives that reality could be (and worth living).
Dr. Li Töppe - Li Anna
Author, Curator
Li Anna is an author, artist, philosopher, and art historian based in Berlin. She holds a doctorate in art history with a focus on cultural studies.
Her research explores how artistic depictions of reality compare and contrast with scientific ones, viewing reality as something that is not self-evident, but culturally determined. This theme also shapes her creative work: inspired by philosophy, metaphysics, and spirituality, she sees her texts, novels, drawings and paintings as stages in an ongoing exploration of reality and unreality, of the world behind the world, of the possible and impossible.
Her publications include the text collection Im Grünen Salon. Begegnung, and the novel Die magische Kraft der vier Elemente.
Subversive Intellect - Sub
Brand manager, Designer
Sub is a student of life, passing through a human phase on Earth.
They develop into a multidisciplinary upcycling artist, using mind & plotter as weapons and any surface as their medium - clothing, street art, digital designs, canvas - their creations have no limit.
They explore systems, flirt with quantum physics, shift patterns, challenge norms, accelerate dynamics and love to play with the subconscious of the human race.
Their home frequency is hosted beneath a hoodie.
Their star sign a middle finger.
Dr. Alexandra Vasilyeva - avasciart
Science communicator, Scientific community manager
Alexandra is a scientist and artist based in Berlin. She holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering from the University of Oxford and has a decade of experience in medical research and drug development.
In her current work, she splits her time between creating science-inspired art and supporting life science start-ups and academics with science strategy and communication.
In visual art, she enjoys blending different techniques, such as linoprinting, watercolour and 3D-printing, creating mixed media pieces and digital collages to celebrate nature, medicine, science and life.
Alexandra is a passionate believer in the importance of collaboration between arts and sciences. In her role at A Hidden Variable, she serves as a bridge between scientific and artistic communities in Berlin and beyond.
Jeremy Leresteux
IT manager, Logistics operator, Show technician
Jeremy is a programmer with an M.Sc. in Electronics and Computer Science from France.
In recent years, he has entered the gaming industry and has taken on the creation of Virtual Reality experiences based on analog artworks, in collaboration with artists, bringing them to a new level of immersiveness and interaction.
Jeremy is also a multidisciplinary professional with knowledge of different technically demanding tasks.
