The Power Station of Art (PSA) and the Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General in Shanghai will jointly present the exhibition Techno worlds — Final sampling from April 25 to June 28, 2026. In addition to music, Techno worlds, a five-year international touring project initiated in 2021 by the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, engages a wide spectrum of issues—including art, media, technology, identity, and space—unfolding through diverse narratives and practices across different temporal and spatial contexts. Following exhibitions in Budapest, Montreal, New York, Portland, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montevideo, Zurich, Dresden, Columbus, Kolkata, and Beijing, the project now arrives at its final stop in Shanghai. Here, Techno worlds will enter into dialogue with Chinese artists, further extending and rearticulating the interpretive dimensions and significance of Techno.

Techno worlds not only defines a particular condition, but also operates as a sample of history and a response to the present. Bringing together 23 groups of works from diverse temporal and spatial contexts, the exhibition illuminates both difference and resonance between humanity and culture, history, and technology, weaving a multi-layered landscape: the post-industrial withdrawal of Detroit, the cross-cultural connections shaped by Berlin’s urban transformation, the historical fabric of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the Afrofuturism. Within the exhibition, voices recede, and language proves insufficient. The dissonance of time and systems emerges through low-frequency pulses and saturated sonic scenes, while digital content is dismantled into physical, tangible forms.

These artistic practices engage a wider constellation of concerns within a broader context. Techno names not only a music genre, but also various resistant practices emerging from conditions of “enforced silence.” It reflects the tension between global narratives and localized reinvention, while tracing how technologies—once imbued with utopian imagination—undergo transformation and are contested by commercial logic, disciplinary pressures, and social inequality. Within this multidimensional field, the relationships between subjectivity, identity, and technology are continuously interrogated, yet never resolved.

This exhibition marks PSA’s first project dedicated entirely to music and its associated cultures. At the same time, as computational technologies—exemplified by AI—continue to evolve, the relationship between human and machine appears to be moving toward an increasingly “smooth” condition, characterized by stability, efficiency, and predictability. Against this tendency, a critical vigilance toward smoothness becomes central to the exhibition. In this light, any moment in which subjectivity emerges constitutes a reflection on, and a response to, the relation between technology and the human body.

On the opening night, the exhibition will also feature a special event, “Final sampling: live sets,” Within a limited timeframe, each artist performs live, developing their performance through the immediate modulation of sound, rhythm, and related media. The emphasis of the overall event lies on process—on what emerges in the moment and within the site itself—so that each set retains both its openness and its singularity, offering an experience that resists repetition. Within this continuously evolving live event, Techno ceases to be a fixed form; it becomes instead an experience that is perpetually perceived and reshaped.