Robotron. Working Class and Intelligentsia

Image: Nadja Buttendorf, Robotron – A Tech Opera (Detail), since 2018. Microscope image Silizium, Sedao (2009), CC BY-SA 3.0. Design: Wolfgang Schwärzler.

The rapid rise of computers and microelectronics since the 1960s is often described as the ‘third industrial revolution’. In East Germany, the name Robotron became closely associated with this transformative technology, which reshaped every sector of the economy. Revisiting the history of this state-owned enterprise highlights not only the technical possibilities and societal hopes it carried, but also the political and economic contradictions that ultimately contributed to the collapse of East Germany.  

Bringing together works by more than 20 artists; the exhibition explores the transformation of the industrial landscape in East Germany. It addresses themes such as cybernetics and bureaucracy, espionage and reverse engineering, the promises of automation and labour in ‘real existing socialism’, cleanrooms and environmental destruction, the decline of once-significant production sites, and the re-industrialisation of the Dresden region as ‘Silicon Saxony’. The photographs, films, installations, and graphic works – some of them created in the GDR – reflect the diverse intellectual and aesthetic impulses that continue to resonate from this period. The exhibition not only sheds light on a chapter of East German industrial history that has remained relatively unknown in the West but also explores possible parallels in the development of the Ruhr region and West Germany.

An essay unfolds along the walls of the exhibition space, framing questions that speak not only to the history of Robotron but are also relevant for understanding our present, shaped as it is by technology. It traces the connections between geopolitics and global markets, the crisis-ridden planned economy of the GDR, and the role of international trade embargoes. In doing so, it challenges conventional ideas that have solidified in the narrative of a ‘socialist’ past.

The exhibition title refers to the monumental mural of the same name, Working Class and Intelligentsia, by Werner Tübke (1973), which can be seen at Leipzig University. Among other things, it depicts the head of the computer center at the former Karl Marx University and an R 300 mainframe computer from Robotron.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund and the GfZK – Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig. The exhibition will be presented at the HMKV from 14 March to 26 July 2026. A publication accompanying the exhibition will be released by Spector Books in March 2026.

The project Robotron. Working Class and Intelligentsia is a collaboration between the HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund and the GfZK Leipzig. Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media). Funded by Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung with Sparkasse Leipzig. knowbotiq is supported by Pro Helvetia. Sandra Schäfer is supported Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.