wro presents an artist talk discussing their research on the semiotics of texture, shape and movement in digital intra-action and how it constantly mutates to find new ways of expression. What sort of emotions are awoken by using creative technologies while exploring the concept of identity in flux, its magic and intensities? wro shares their exploration of how the digital is personal via creating sci-fi storytelling and exploration of ‘bodily’ narrative.

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In this talk, director and designer Jonny-Bix Bongers will share some insights into his work on performing arts practices under the influence of digital personas, such as avatars. He will discuss the history of self-representation in stage performances and analyze how avatars are staged, interact, and perform in theater. Lastly, Jonny will walk us through his current research, namely the idea of transindividualism in relation to singular self-presentation in art.

un.thai.tled is a collective that brings together artists and creatives from Thailand and those with a Thai diasporic background. The collective curates cinema and cultural events in which stereotypes concerning Thailand and Southeast Asia are broken. They will speak about how they use new media technologies in their theatrical work "Defrost" to translate already rigid colonial forms of Southeast Asian storytelling into the “new” possible contemporary. un.thai.tled asks: how can this translation into an international context take place without reproducing cultural self-exoticism?

Parallel Processing is a project that explores the possibilities of audio manipulation. What new sounds can be obtained by tearing a piece of audio apart? Deconstruction = Creation.

In this talk, the artist discusses research behind his project, “The Sound of Digitalised Languages”. The focus is on languages from around the world and their musical properties. Like rhythm, tonality, and pace of speech.

The artist designs complex effect units that transform language into sounds. The properties of the language will collaborate with the device to produce a piece of music. He calls it “Sound painting”. In other words, the artists create an instrument, and the language plays it.

-  Your language becomes the music conductor of an experimental music piece -

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“Fliegen oder Fallen” (Fly or Fall) by m!co is the first chapter of his new EP “Vogelkäfig” (Birdcage), which will be released in 2023. Filmmaker Paul Cybulska developed together with the artist the world’s first interactive music video with 3D-Sound. With the help of object-based sound production, an immersive sound experience was created.

During this talk, Paul will introduce the project and discuss his process. Paul will discuss the potentials of the interactive music video form and Dolby Atmos, as well as the hurdles that exist with this technology today.

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A collective of queer-feminist superhero*ines make use of their different identities, backgrounds and experiences to fight back against sexual and gender-based violence – a fusion of science, technology, magic, and ritual. Clashes and conflicts arise as they negotiate and try to come to consensus in their aim of disrupting toxic hierarchies.

Transnational interdisciplinary artist and sound designer Juli Saragosa will discuss their process and research behind the Audio-Film, "Reasons to Scream!". In the collective writing of a script for an imageless film, the collaborators attempt to deconstruct some hierarchies of filmmaking that enable sexual violence – the image-sound relationship and its part in the Gaze, as well as those of film production itself.

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Waylon D'Mello recently completed his M.A. in New Media Design. During his time in this program he explored ideas of how we as humans are making sense of the balance between data, technology, and our existence in human form, resulting in "Jubilant Presumption," a video installation on view at the exhibition. Waylon will discuss his research behind the work, calling attention to the inherent violence of the gaze through objectification and the incoherence of the virtual identity. Waylon explores a new gaze that has grown out of social media content production in contrast to the dominant male gaze. This new structure of looking has altered how identity is shaped irl because of the ability to create a virtual identity that can be reviewed and retouched before consumption.

Sasha Pas is an artist and theatre producer, and co-founder of Playtronica. Pas artistic research focuses on haptics and biofeedback in conjunction with interactive sound and music environments. Experiences created in a playful museum context as a performance or installation where audience is always involved as an active element in exploring their own bodily potential.

Playtronica is a creative technology studio that develops toolkits to bring interactivity to the everyday world. It uses the conductive properties of objects to detect human touch and turn it into sound. Playronica has developed TouchMe, a MIDI controller that can be used in music, education, artistic practice, therapy and human perception research. 

Pas will discuss the role of touch and cross-modal  experiences through the overview of Playtronica projects and collaborations in art, education, theatre, therapy and cognitive science. Presenting Playtronica community and its contributors of a wide range of musicians, developers, and educators, all with the ambition to break new ground for sensory experiences and culture.

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How to manage media projects in digital media industry and what challenges creative producers face while working in this interdisciplinary field? 

How to make a creative concept while working as a producer? The talk is dedicated to conception and production management and reveals some insight from immersive media-driven projects. 

Ekaterina Petrova is a creative producer from Berlin, currently working at flora&faunavisions. She produces interdisciplinary projects in the sphere of design, scenography and performing arts. Migrating from Russia to Germany in 2012 she has been working in the field of non-profit art mediation for over seven years and gives lectures about creative production at universities in Germany and France.

Vivid App merges virtual space creation and mental wellbeing. Designer Vishal Rajai conceptualizes a smartphone app that provides an affordable and immersive VR experience on the smartphone where users can create their own 3D virtual space with the help of keywords. Users get to describe the space they would like to create and Vivid AI does the rest. Vivid is an attempt to provide a seamless process to create a metaverse space for any user and also push mental wellbeing in the metaverse, along the way. Vishal will discuss his process and research in designing Vivid.

fairlix has his roots in the demoscene (nerdy computer graphics hacking). As an artist with a background in Business and IT, fairlix has made his way now towards the Web3 scene. fairlix will speak about "Spacies," a WebGl generative 3D art experience for the browser which utilizes smart contracts for minting on the Ethereum blockchain. This talk will discuss WebGl, shaders, and also writing and deploying smart contracts.

Working towards skill acquisition through Virtual Reality.  What changes when we can touch the virtual?

What data can we collect from this interaction? And how can we make use of it? 

Fadi Numan is at the intersection between traditional medical education and virtual reality simulation. Fadi specialises in Medical and Surgical VR Education Design, 3D Modelling and Animation, and Medical Image Processing.

Mae is the first geosocial network application for contemporary artists, art organizations, and art lovers that enable everyone to join the art conversation and connect everywhere with local art scenes. Hacking AI, neuroaesthetic and human emotions, Mae offers a hyper-personalized social art experience where you're empowered to connect deeply with your inner self and with artists and art lovers that match your intellectual and emotional levels. In this paradigm shift that society is currently living in, we believe that art has an even more crucial role to help people to find themselves and build a better future. That is why by supporting people to get a deeper engagement with art and living artists to make a living from their art, we aim to elevate world consciousness.

Pasquale will talk about the research process that merges art and neuroaesthetic and his journey in building Mae.

Step into the captivating realm of art, technology, and surveillance in contemporary China, where each strand is woven together to create a complex tapestry of intrigue. This presentation takes you on a journey through the interconnections between these entangled elements, revealing the hidden links and subtle intricacies. 

This talk looks at the pulse of its social and political observance, shed light on the realities of cutting-edge technological advancements and the power of surveillance. This is not just a talk, but an invitation to step into a realm of intrigue and discover the critical observations that define this ever-evolving landscape.

Jingling Yu is a Berlin-based exhibition designer with an MA in Interaction Design from the University of the Arts Bremen. In this talk, Jingling shares her conceptual project, "Hidden Choice," an interactive urban AR exhibition based on the global problem of over- and undernutrition. In her AR project, Jingling integrates presentation, content and environment into a narrative through urban space; namely in the form of a city walk in Berlin.

As a way of escaping cyberspace, Rahel Rudolf developed a ritual of walks, exploring semi-public places, parks and streets of Berlin. It slowly developed into a performative project called Reversed Escapism: both a critique and satire of new digital realities.

"Reversed Escapism" is a performative experiment stretching our religious belief in the power of technology that promises salvation and refuge, virtual utopias from our undesired realities with the help of virtual environments and encounters. Paradoxically the experiment involves around a set of devices, which “help” participants get immersed in the biggest immersive playground, called physical reality. Often, we are so fascinated (or blinded) by the technological mediation of such realms that we don’t see the irony occurred by the gap between the majestic promise and the poor result of the experiment. The installation aims to point out the risk of losing our sense and need for such simple yet crucial things as human touch, or the wonder of uncontrollable power of nature.

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