Despite its ambiguity, the term ‘hybrid’ has achieved an astonishing profile over the course of the twentieth century. In biology, Gregor Mendel established the concept of plant hybridisation in the middle of the nineteenth century with his theory of heredity. He used the term to describe the process of mutual genetic interbreeding. The higher resilience and efficiency of hybrid varieties come at a price: the plants may be sterile or not breed true. Their characteristics are not passed on to the next generation; hybridisation thus marks the end of a genealogical line. The term goes back to the Latin hybrida, which can be translated as ‘mongrel’. However, it is also thought to be linked to the Greek hybris, which is translated as ‘arrogance’ and ‘haughtiness’. Did the hybrid represent man's overconfidence? Today, the uncertainty about intervening in a supposed divine order has long been overcome. Rather, the hybrid is the driving force behind various future designs: hybrid vehicles, hybrid materials, hybrid algorithms or hybrid warfare. The hybrid is also a place where biopolitical fictions take shape: species blend, evolve or reinvent themselves, strict divisions between man and machine are undermined. Here, hybridity is not a threat but an experimental or playfully humorous form of possibility for encountering the challenges of surviving and thriving.
The overlapping of digital and analogue spaces, which shape our present as a hybrid habitat, is the thematic focal point of the exhibition’s fifth hiking station. It looks at the worlds of digital games, but also at the digital logging of living environments and at the question: who owns such data? who is looking at whom here and why?