REFRESH #2

Speakers

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  Thomas Oberender

  Curator & Artistic Director of the Berliner Festspiele

  Immersive Strategies in the Context of Digital Change

  In his talk, Thomas Oberender takes Allan Kaprow’s idea, “Go in instead of look at” as a leitmotiv and looks closely at immersive strategies in the arts that dismantle the classical model of opposing work and visitor, stage and auditorium. The Artistic and Managing Director of the Berliner Festspiele, who launched the high-profile program series Immersion with pioneering creative positions in 2016, discusses immersive strategies in the context of digital change and assesses the potential development of this rapidly growing phenomenon.

  About Thomas Oberender

  Thomas Oberender is the curator and artistic director…

  Immersive Strategies in the Context of Digital Change

  In his talk, Thomas Oberender takes Allan Kaprow’s idea, “Go in instead of look at” as a leitmotiv and looks closely at immersive strategies in the arts that dismantle the classical model of opposing work and visitor, stage and auditorium. The Artistic and Managing Director of the Berliner Festspiele, who launched the high-profile program series Immersion with pioneering creative positions in 2016, discusses immersive strategies in the context of digital change and assesses the potential development of this rapidly growing phenomenon.

  About Thomas Oberender

  Thomas Oberender is the curator and artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele. The unique and internationally acclaimed cultural organization simultaneously implements contemporary exhibitions at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, as well as performances at its festivals, academy programs and guest production series at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. In 2016, Thomas Oberender initiated the high profile program series Immersion with pioneering creative positions that dismantle the classical model of opposing work and visitor, stage and auditorium, object and observer, with Allan Kaprow’s idea “Go in instead of look at” as a leitmotiv.

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  Yasaman Sheri

  Design Direction Augmentation & Sensing

  ALT-SENSE

  In her talk Yasaman Sheri explores the notion of sensing and perception, looking at history and challenging us to diversity how we think about sensing in more radical forms. Her most recent work with the leading synthetic biology lab Ginkgo Bioworks supported her research in designing biological sensors and expanding living micro-organisms sense of perception. Simulations, métaphores and mental models of sensing remain anthropocentric. Sheri discusses alternative ways of sensing, expanding the notion of perception beyond a singular body and asks us to re examine body-forms, networked culture and the entangled interactions of technology and ecology.

  About Yasaman Sheri

  …

  ALT-SENSE

  In her talk Yasaman Sheri explores the notion of sensing and perception, looking at history and challenging us to diversity how we think about sensing in more radical forms. Her most recent work with the leading synthetic biology lab Ginkgo Bioworks supported her research in designing biological sensors and expanding living micro-organisms sense of perception. Simulations, métaphores and mental models of sensing remain anthropocentric. Sheri discusses alternative ways of sensing, expanding the notion of perception beyond a singular body and asks us to re examine body-forms, networked culture and the entangled interactions of technology and ecology.

  About Yasaman Sheri

  Yasaman Sheri is a designer and creative director who works in the field of sensing and perception. She is passionate about networks, humans and machines, and explores design beyond the visual interface. She has led design interactions at Microsoft Hololens Operating System team for 5 years designing interfaces from ground up to shipping two software updates using gesture, machine vision and spatial interactions. Her work with Augmented Reality has inspired her to expand sensory interactions, designing for the «other senses» in various collaborations exploring augmentation, machine sensing, and sensory expansion which challenge and redefine notions of autonomy, human-machine interaction and the role of emerging technologies in designing multiplicity of futures. Yasaman is also an educator, teaching Sensory Design at Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design (CIID) and Graduate Industrial Design at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She is frequent visiting lecturer and faculty at Art Center College of Design, Columbia GSAPP, Cooper Union and Stanford and continues to advocate for education in sensing.
  Yasaman is currently working with various companies and organizations as design director and facilitator, bringing her expertise in AR/VR/MR, Gesture and Voice Interfaces, Perception, Sensing and emerging areas of design interactions such as biology, food and smell interfaces.

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  Gayatri Parameswaran

  Immersive storytelling for VR documentaries

  How can creators use virtual reality to immerse audiences in real stories? Gayatri Parameswaran, co-founder of NowHere Media, shares her experience of directing Home After War -- an award-winning VR installation that takes audiences to a post-conflict scenario in Fallujah, Iraq. Learn about implementing a complex workflow -- using photogrammetry, stereo capture and 360 videos -- from a war-affected environment to achieve impact.

  About Gayatri Parameswaran

  Gayatri Parameswaran is an award winning immersive journalist and creator from India. She is currently based in Berlin, where she co-founded NowHere Media -- a storytelling studio that views…

  Immersive storytelling for VR documentaries

  How can creators use virtual reality to immerse audiences in real stories? Gayatri Parameswaran, co-founder of NowHere Media, shares her experience of directing Home After War -- an award-winning VR installation that takes audiences to a post-conflict scenario in Fallujah, Iraq. Learn about implementing a complex workflow -- using photogrammetry, stereo capture and 360 videos -- from a war-affected environment to achieve impact.

  About Gayatri Parameswaran

  Gayatri Parameswaran is an award winning immersive journalist and creator from India. She is currently based in Berlin, where she co-founded NowHere Media -- a storytelling studio that views contemporary issues through a critical lens. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice International Film Festival, SXSW, United Nations, HotDocs, Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, and have won the ‘Best Use of Immersive Arts’ at SXSW 2019 among other accolades. She likes to explore taboo topics such as war, peace, intimate partner violence and abortion using virtual and augmented reality. Gayatri is most excited about using VR as a medium to create realities for a desirable future. She has researched and worked from over 30 countries, including Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Myanmar, India, Mexico, Nicaragua and the United States.

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  Joëlle Bitton

  De-evangelising Technologies

  Forms of autocratic and reactionary governance, with colonial undertones and driven by racist tropes and old stereotypes have resurged in democracies globally in the last decade. In parallel, we have seen techno-centric solutions becoming answers to all the world’s problems propelled from the Silicon Valley by monopolistic infrastructures and countless start-ups under the guise of philanthropy no less: «changing the world for the better» in a quasi-like evangelistic mode of operation. While actually, they have been supporting reinforced modes of surveillance, control and oppression and depleting natural resources.

  In this over-entangled context, she wants to address the challenge…

  De-evangelising Technologies

  Forms of autocratic and reactionary governance, with colonial undertones and driven by racist tropes and old stereotypes have resurged in democracies globally in the last decade. In parallel, we have seen techno-centric solutions becoming answers to all the world’s problems propelled from the Silicon Valley by monopolistic infrastructures and countless start-ups under the guise of philanthropy no less: «changing the world for the better» in a quasi-like evangelistic mode of operation. While actually, they have been supporting reinforced modes of surveillance, control and oppression and depleting natural resources.

  In this over-entangled context, she wants to address the challenge that researchers, designers and artists face, particularly those working with technologies, sometimes creating them, or mediating them. The «RAW» project created in 2003, then revisited in 2011 will offer a look into possible tactics of counteracting prescriptive uses of technologies. This project realised in research labs that have been at the forefront of techno-centric advocacy can also offer an opportunity of critical examination. Other examples will be mentioned from classes that I teach and address this very notion of values and responsibilities.

  About Joëlle Bitton

  About Joëlle Bitton is an artist and a human-computer interaction researcher. She currently teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts in Interaction Design.With her works, Joëlle explores a sense of intimacy and personal geography with machines and systems that are usually considered cold or unfriendly. She likes most to entangle strangeness and familiarity together. As such, in her doctoral thesis at Harvard Graduate School of Design, she created interactive fabrication processes with personal data as a way for individuals to have an intuitive control of machines.
  At MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin, she explored the mediation of technologies in human relationships and their potential social impact, notably with the projects "RAW" and «Passages». She also conducted similar research studies on the creative uses of technologies at Culture Lab, Newcastle University. She graduated from Université Paris Sorbonne with a dissertation in history on the 19th-century rise of nations correlated with the development of networks and technologies. She advocates in her practice for open and inclusive conversations about technologies in order to facilitate access and disruption.

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  Sarah Ellis

  Director of Digital Development, Royal Shakespeare Company

  Cinematic Environments In Real Time

  When staging a contemporary production of The Tempest in 2017, the Royal Shakespeare Company asked two technology companies to join in, exploring the technology to render cinematic environments in real time. For the first time ever, virtual animated character could be seen live on the RSC stage, using innovative projection and performance capture technology by Intel and Imaginarium studios.
  There is vast potential for creative collaboration between technology companies and theatre, and the research and development carried out for such productions allows both theatre and technology sectors to learn new skills, developed new tools, and…

  Cinematic Environments In Real Time

  When staging a contemporary production of The Tempest in 2017, the Royal Shakespeare Company asked two technology companies to join in, exploring the technology to render cinematic environments in real time. For the first time ever, virtual animated character could be seen live on the RSC stage, using innovative projection and performance capture technology by Intel and Imaginarium studios.
  There is vast potential for creative collaboration between technology companies and theatre, and the research and development carried out for such productions allows both theatre and technology sectors to learn new skills, developed new tools, and explore new ways of working. And, such collaborations bring new audiences to Shakespeare.
  In her talk, Sarah Ellis will explore how theatre continues to impact the future of entertainment by pushing the boundaries of technology further still while maintaining a creative focus. The Royal Shakespeare Company engages in research and development across virtual, augmented and mixed reality, and is looking for ways to bring the very best live experience to our audiences and amplify that in new and digitally ways.

  About Sarah Ellis

  Sarah Ellis is an award winning producer currently exploring new artistic initiatives as Director of Digital Development for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). She has been listed in the top 100 most influential people working in Gaming and Technology by The Hospital Club and Guardian Culture Professionals. During her time RSC she has continued exploration into the future of theater innovation in collaborations with tech giants like Google, Magic Leap and Intel.

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  Takeshi Yamada

  teamLab

  Relationships Among People

  Traditional artworks do not change in relation to the presence of viewers or their behavior. Digital art, however, has the ability to change due to the presence or behavior of viewers. Thus, the boundaries between artwork and viewers to become blurred and the viewers become part of the artwork itself. Furthermore, digital art has the ability to change the relationships among people who are present within the same space. If the interaction of other people with an artwork creates change that we feel is beautiful, then the presence of others can in itself become a positive element.…

  Relationships Among People

  Traditional artworks do not change in relation to the presence of viewers or their behavior. Digital art, however, has the ability to change due to the presence or behavior of viewers. Thus, the boundaries between artwork and viewers to become blurred and the viewers become part of the artwork itself. Furthermore, digital art has the ability to change the relationships among people who are present within the same space. If the interaction of other people with an artwork creates change that we feel is beautiful, then the presence of others can in itself become a positive element.

  About Takeshi Yamad

  Takeshi Yamada of teamLab will show what kind of technologies and methods the Japan based global art collective applies in order to artistically explore new relationships between people as well as between humans and nature. The interdisciplinary group of ultra-technologists believes strongly that the digital domain expands the capacities of art and that digital art allows our bodies to become more immersed in the artwork than ever before. In addition, Takeshi Yamada will explain the workflow of several teamLab projects and the structure of the international known art collective.
  Takeshi Yamada has been working for teamLab's management team in Tokyo, Japan,since 2017. Before joining teamLab, he worked as a marketeer for a tourist industry at Zurich. teamLab is an art collective, whose collaborative and interdisciplinary practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, design and the natural world. Various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects form teamLab. The artwork of the collective has been the subject of numerous exhibitions at venues worldwide and is also in permanent collections of art galleries and museums all around the globe.

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  Daniel Bisig

  Senior Researcher at ICST

  Sounding Feet

  The project «Sounding Feet» explores how small postural changes of a dancer can be used to control music. From an artistic point of view, this interactive relationship links the musical outcome of interaction to the proprioceptive awareness of a dancer and it exposes to an audience through the auditory modality a dancer’s minute movements that might be visually hidden. The project follows an approach that combines musical ideation, dance improvisation, interaction design, and engineering. Through this combination the development and design decisions can be informed by artistic criteria.

  About Daniel Bisig

  Daniel Bisig holds a PhD degree in…

  Sounding Feet

  The project «Sounding Feet» explores how small postural changes of a dancer can be used to control music. From an artistic point of view, this interactive relationship links the musical outcome of interaction to the proprioceptive awareness of a dancer and it exposes to an audience through the auditory modality a dancer’s minute movements that might be visually hidden. The project follows an approach that combines musical ideation, dance improvisation, interaction design, and engineering. Through this combination the development and design decisions can be informed by artistic criteria.

  About Daniel Bisig

  Daniel Bisig holds a PhD degree in Natural Sciences. He is a senior researcher at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology of the Zurich University of the Arts. His current research revolves around the «Immersive Lab», a touch-sensitive sound and video space that allows visitors to influence media content through hand gesture.

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  Léa Pereyre

  Drone Costume Designer at Verity Studios

  Léa Pereyre is a drone costume designer at Verity Studios, the world-leading provider of indoor drone shows. At Verity, Léa is responsible for the creative exploration of drone costumes and other payloads to enhance the presence of autonomous indoor drones in a show setting. Her work has contributed to shows at CCTV’s 2019 New Year’s Gala, the 2019 USI Conference, and the 2018 London Design Festival. In addition, she has founded a product design studio called Claire+Léa in cooperation with Claire Pondard.

  Verity is the global leader in autonomous indoor drone systems and a leading provider of drone failsafe technology.…

  Léa Pereyre is a drone costume designer at Verity Studios, the world-leading provider of indoor drone shows. At Verity, Léa is responsible for the creative exploration of drone costumes and other payloads to enhance the presence of autonomous indoor drones in a show setting. Her work has contributed to shows at CCTV’s 2019 New Year’s Gala, the 2019 USI Conference, and the 2018 London Design Festival. In addition, she has founded a product design studio called Claire+Léa in cooperation with Claire Pondard.

  Verity is the global leader in autonomous indoor drone systems and a leading provider of drone failsafe technology. Founded in 2014, Verity's drones have completed more than 150,000 autonomous flights safely above people, in more than 100 facilities in 20 countries worldwide. Verity’s drones have been used by some of the world’s biggest names in entertainment, including Cirque du Soleil and Madison Square Garden, and in global tours of major artists including Drake and Metallica.

  Verity provides customization services for its Lucie® micro drones. One aspect of this service are bespoke, flight-tested costumes. A drone costume can provide additional layers to a drone show: not only does it contribute visually but it also enables a more complex narrative.

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  Andreas Refsgaard

  Artist & Creative Coder

  In Algorithms We Trust

  In his talk, Andreas Refsgaard will describe, how machine learning has become an integrated part of the practice. By enabling people to decide upon, and train their own unique controls for a system, the creative power shifts from the designer of the system to the person interacting with it. The talk will include several of his playful projects, where he actively seeks out unconventional connections between inputs and outputs using simple machine learning techniques. Games are controlled by making silly sounds, music is composed by drawing instruments on paper and algorithms are trained to decide what…

  In Algorithms We Trust

  In his talk, Andreas Refsgaard will describe, how machine learning has become an integrated part of the practice. By enabling people to decide upon, and train their own unique controls for a system, the creative power shifts from the designer of the system to the person interacting with it. The talk will include several of his playful projects, where he actively seeks out unconventional connections between inputs and outputs using simple machine learning techniques. Games are controlled by making silly sounds, music is composed by drawing instruments on paper and algorithms are trained to decide what is funny, funky or boring. More recently Andreas has been experimenting with using machine learning to create new text and images based on large amounts of training data. Amongst other things, he will take about his new project Booksby.ai - an online bookstore which sells science fiction novels generated by an artificial intelligence.

  About Andreas Refsgaard

  Andreas Refsgaard is an artist and creative coder based in Copenhagen. He uses algorithms and machine learning to allows people to play music using only eye movement and facial gestures, control games by making silly sounds or transform drawings of musical instruments on paper into real compositions.

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  Galit Ariel

  Digital Hippie

  THE REAL FAKE ME: REALNESS & IDENTITY IN AN AUGMENTED ERA

  Our identity is already a fluid concept. But what happens when we use digital tools to alter our presence in the real world, in real-time?

  ABOUT GALIT ARIEL

  Galit Ariel is a TechnoFuturist and an immersive space explorer. She defines herself as a ‘Digital Hippie’, since she is passionate about a future that will integrate technology into our everyday lives, but not control it. Galit is considered a thought leader within the field of immersive tech, delivering notable talks, summits and seminars exploring the topic across the globe.
  Her…

  THE REAL FAKE ME: REALNESS & IDENTITY IN AN AUGMENTED ERA

  Our identity is already a fluid concept. But what happens when we use digital tools to alter our presence in the real world, in real-time?

  ABOUT GALIT ARIEL

  Galit Ariel is a TechnoFuturist and an immersive space explorer. She defines herself as a ‘Digital Hippie’, since she is passionate about a future that will integrate technology into our everyday lives, but not control it. Galit is considered a thought leader within the field of immersive tech, delivering notable talks, summits and seminars exploring the topic across the globe.
  Her book ‘Augmenting Alice -The Future of Identity, Experience and Reality’ explores the way Augmented Reality’s diffusion will shift cultural and functional paradigms and redefine core concepts related to culture, space, experience and ethics. The book integrates an augmented layer, allowing an additional experiential value, and the chance to update content and data layer. Through her spatial innovation lab ‘Wondarlands’ Galit helps organizations and commercial clients shape their augmented futures, explore immersive narratives, interaction tools, brand touch-points and experience creation.
  Galit’s goal is to bridge the gap between digital, physical, and mental spaces to create tools & platforms that help people experience these worlds in new ways. She is currently located in Toronto, where she works with international collaborators and bodies on creating Tech For Human(ity) impact hubs and projects.

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  Aksel Køie

  Digital Innovator & Storyteller

  «Step In Books» is a multi-award winning company that explores spatiality in relation to narratives. We make books on mobile devices that the reader can «step into». By taking advantage of the unique features of tablets and phones, we are able to create an interactive way of telling stories. You still read your book, but at any time you can «Step into» the story. Our projects include Wuwu & Co. – a magical picture book, Mur – a step in book, Seven Minutes in the Warsaw Ghetto app.

  «Step In Books» was founded in March 2014 by Aksel Køie. The…

  «Step In Books» is a multi-award winning company that explores spatiality in relation to narratives. We make books on mobile devices that the reader can «step into». By taking advantage of the unique features of tablets and phones, we are able to create an interactive way of telling stories. You still read your book, but at any time you can «Step into» the story. Our projects include Wuwu & Co. – a magical picture book, Mur – a step in book, Seven Minutes in the Warsaw Ghetto app.

  «Step In Books» was founded in March 2014 by Aksel Køie. The idea was to build a platform to create step in books as a new way of experiencing digital books. In a step in book one can always read normally as we are used to from books, but if you put your tablet or phone in an upright position the picture changes and the storyworld opens up to the reader. At any given moment the reader can lay the device down and continue reading. Tablets especially are mostly used in the same way as we have been using books for centuries, but there are actually so many more opportunities for tablets, mostly due to the amount of sensors. One is the accelerometer which we have found interesting in our approach to digital literature. Depending on which story and author we are working with, the story changes according to the actions taken in the storyworld. It’s our take on augmented literature.

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  Erika Marthins

  Designer & Artrebel

  Erika Marthins talk aims to explore and question the intersection of food and technology.

  About Erika Marthins

  Erika Marthins is a designer seeking to reconsider our relationship with new technology. She is particularly interested in creating bridges between distinct areas like for example food and cutting edge technology, memories and social networks.

  Erika Marthins talk aims to explore and question the intersection of food and technology.

  About Erika Marthins

  Erika Marthins is a designer seeking to reconsider our relationship with new technology. She is particularly interested in creating bridges between distinct areas like for example food and cutting edge technology, memories and social networks.

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  Maike Thies

  Research Fellow

  About Maike Thies

  Maike Thies is a Research Fellow at the Bachelor Specialization of the Subject Area in Game Design. Among other things she is responsible for communications & public relations, events, workshops and exhibitions. She curates and coordinates the interdisciplinary lecture series Kein Kino at the Toni Kino. Her research activities focus on interactive theatre, narrative spaces and installations (Dramaturgy, Screenplay/Script).
  She studied Media Studies and German Literature at the University of Trier, Germany and graduated in October 2010. In her master thesis she discussed and revealed contemporary tendencies in the field of animated documentaries. During an exchange year…

  About Maike Thies

  Maike Thies is a Research Fellow at the Bachelor Specialization of the Subject Area in Game Design. Among other things she is responsible for communications & public relations, events, workshops and exhibitions. She curates and coordinates the interdisciplinary lecture series Kein Kino at the Toni Kino. Her research activities focus on interactive theatre, narrative spaces and installations (Dramaturgy, Screenplay/Script).
  She studied Media Studies and German Literature at the University of Trier, Germany and graduated in October 2010. In her master thesis she discussed and revealed contemporary tendencies in the field of animated documentaries. During an exchange year (2008/2009) she studied at the Department of Film Studies at the University of Zurich.
  
  Urbanoutinteractive

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  Prof. Christian Iseli

  Professor at the Institute for Performing Arts and Film

  About Christian Iseli

  Christian Iseli lehrt und forscht seit 1995 an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK. Er ist Leiter des Forschungsschwerpunkts Film am Institute for the Performing Arts and Film und Leiter des Immersive Arts Space. Zudem unterrichtet Iseli in der Fachrichtung Film. Seit dem Studium der Geschichte, Germanistik und Anglistik an der Universität Bern ist Iseli als Regisseur von Dokumentarfilmen tätig und arbeitet in den Bereichen Schnitt und Kamera bei Spiel- und Dokumentarfilmen.

  About Christian Iseli

  Christian Iseli lehrt und forscht seit 1995 an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK. Er ist Leiter des Forschungsschwerpunkts Film am Institute for the Performing Arts and Film und Leiter des Immersive Arts Space. Zudem unterrichtet Iseli in der Fachrichtung Film. Seit dem Studium der Geschichte, Germanistik und Anglistik an der Universität Bern ist Iseli als Regisseur von Dokumentarfilmen tätig und arbeitet in den Bereichen Schnitt und Kamera bei Spiel- und Dokumentarfilmen.

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  Dancing Digital

  «Dancing Digital» is an exploratory workshop connecting real dancers and virtual characters, as well as stage objects and virtual set elements. The interplay of presence and absence requires a set design that allows the dancers to be invisible, while their avatars are fully present, and it requires a tracking space that also covers non-visible areas of the stage.
  Together with visual artist Tobias Gremmler, choreographer Nadav Zelner and set designer Mariana Vieira Gruenig, five students of the Contemporary Dance program at the Zurich University of the Arts will explore a modular stage design that allows for a high degree of…

  «Dancing Digital» is an exploratory workshop connecting real dancers and virtual characters, as well as stage objects and virtual set elements. The interplay of presence and absence requires a set design that allows the dancers to be invisible, while their avatars are fully present, and it requires a tracking space that also covers non-visible areas of the stage.
  Together with visual artist Tobias Gremmler, choreographer Nadav Zelner and set designer Mariana Vieira Gruenig, five students of the Contemporary Dance program at the Zurich University of the Arts will explore a modular stage design that allows for a high degree of artistic versatility.
  The workshop will culminate in a prototype presentation during REFRESH #2.
  Event Location: ZHdK, Immersive Arts Space, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, 8005 Zürich, Raum 1.J30 (Level 1.

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