WARNING: Liveblogging. Prone to error, inaccuracy and howling crimes against grammar and syntax. Story will be improved over the next 48 hours.

Matthias Schrader: For all the talk about AR and VR, the real blockbuster is the smartphone. We reach for it 100, maybe 200, times a day. Screens are getting smaller and smaller – from the desktop PC via phones down to devices like the Amazon Echo with no screens at all. And as the screen get smaller, the intelligence behind them needs to get better.

Volker Martens: With your mobile you leave a digital footprint, which builds up a digital ego every day. And maybe, in the future, this will become a customer of corporates and brands.

MS: So we ask ourselves, how will this look for the user? What will be the relationship between man and machine? It’s an interesting question – and it’s not yet answered. So, we’ve adopted a poetic model to explore it.

VM: We have four blocks:

1. Customer behaviour
2. Design – because almost everything is design
3. Platforms – corporates will have to have them
4. Artificial Intelligence – because devices will need it

And there’s much, much. The experience of NEXT is only complete when you combine it with art and music. That’s why we’re part of the Reeperbahn Festival.