Florence Gaub is in a good mood when she thinks about the future – despite the impending climate catastrophe, AI apocalypse and a possible end to NATO and democracy. The future researcher, political scientist, military expert and author is not actually asking herself whether she glances optimistically into the future of Germany or the world. But: to what extent can I imagine being capable of influencing the future myself? Because, to her, the future »does not mean fortune telling – it means the capacity to act and self-efficacy.«
In her keynote address opening the 2025 Hamburg International Music Festival on the theme of »Future«, she pleaded for more calm and a less negative narrative. »The future is not the moment that occurs in a few minutes and years and days and weeks, but what you think and feel about it here and now«, she emphasised. Fact-based and yet playfully, she presented what is needed to shape the future – and invited the audience to challenge their own assumptions.
