On 27 September, we are part of the awesome festival Transferale in Berlin to present and discuss »from hostile to hospitable«, the interactive WebAR application for inclusive urban spaces that we developed in close collaboration with the artist Martin Binder! The experience explores discriminatory design in urban public spaces and visualizes (mostly) utopian alternatives.
Transferale is the first transfer and science festival with a focus on climate and health, organised by our HTW Berlin in cooperation with four other universities of applied sciences in Berlin. In over 70 events with more than 150 scientists from different disciplines, you can experience the diversity of applied research.
Link to the event: https://zukunftstadt.berlin/transferale (last access: 25.09.2024).
A deep insight into the technologies of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) was once again provided in the XR BASICS on 16/17 and 23/24 September 2024! The training at HTW Berlin focused on digital media production with Blender and the development of AR and VR applications with Unity.
Based on the XR tutorials, the participants learnt the basics of the necessary software, animations, how to create user interfaces and build an application on a smartphone or VR glasses.
The groups of art and culture professionals from the independent scene in Berlin were highly motivated, open-minded and engaged in close dialogue with each other as well as with the four trainers from the AURORA XR School for Artists team. The course was once again a lot of fun and inspiring for us AURORAs – we are looking forward to the next one!
Our third and last XR OPEN CALL within the HERA project funding is online!
We are looking for a strong artistic concept in connection with augmented, mixed and/or virtual reality. Thematically, we are eager to hear your ideas and topics!
We are delighted that a contribution from the HERA project with the AURORA XR School for Artists has been published in Atlas der Datenkörper 2 – and another by Dagmar Schürrer in her role as XR artist!
The interdisciplinary anthology is published by Dr Marlene Bart and Johannes Breuer at transcript Verlag and is available Open Access at this link.
»Bodies and Embodiment in Immersive Art« by HERA project coordinator and art historian Maja Stark combines knowledge from computer science and cognitive science with immersive art: It deals with the production and use of digital bodies in immersive art and two types of embodiment – embodied simulation and virtual embodiment – that can unfold in this art and influence our perception.
In »Dreaming is the Mind Left to Itself«, a text by Vanina Saracino is dedicated to the artistic work of the same name by Dagmar Schürrer, which is present in the volume through images, lyrics and augmented reality. Perception and presence here refer to different constructs of reality that can be evoked by XR technologies or dreams, for example.
Contribution by Dagmar Schürrer, starting on p. 224.
What an amazing XR ART & NETWORKING at HTW Berlin on 26.06.2024! A big thank you to all art and culture experts, researchers, and technolog experts for their awesome contributions and support.
Here comes a a short summary!
After a short introduction by Maja Stark and Prof. Habakuk Israel, we started our program with two excellent talks:
TALK 1: »The Artist’s Book as a Multimedia Encyclopaedia – Artistic Research Meets Virtual Reality« by artist and researcher Dr. Marlene Bart.
TALK 2: »Autonomous Avatars – From Believable Characters to Socially Interactive Agents« by Xenia Klinge and Dr. Tanja Schneeberger from German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, DFKI.
… continuing with an introduction into our project HERA/AURORA XR School for Artists, the announcement of our next XR OPEN CALL and a presentation of our new artistic fellow Jens Isensee’ s mixed reality concept »Tauchgang« (with Oculus Quest 3) which we are developing in close collaboration at HTW Berlin. This was followed by pitches of the XR art projects and two open discussions offered within the framework program and presented at the exhibition after the talks.
DISCUSSION 1: »Autonomous Avatars in XR Art & Culture« with Xenia Klinge and Dr. Tanja Schneeberger from DFKI
The discussion revolved around topics like approaches to involve AI-connected avatars in art & culture, the interpretation of the players’ emotions and the difficulty for AI to interpret them correctly, ethical considerations such as the carbon footprint of AI-driven cultural solutions (smaller sidequests included), and the trend towards smaller, more specific models with a lower engery consumption.
DISCUSSION 2: »Analog Haptics« with the XR artists Nadine Kolodziey and Jens Isensee as well as with XR expert Sebastian Keppler from HTW Berlin.
This workshop started with an introduction of Nadine Kolodziey into her augmented reality work »Netsuke 2.0 – Phygitale Skulpturen« and of Jens Isensee into our joint research on potential analog haptics in the mixed reality project »Tauchgang«.
All experts and participants agreed on the importance of the haptic sense for the satisfying perception of the »real« – still, Sebastian Keppler pointed out that most XR applications and reserach focus on the substituion of haptic feedback, e.g. through the visus or auditory sense. The perception of the own body and embodiment were also discussed.
Artistic projects such as »XBPMMM – A Travelogue of Morphing bodies« (artistic director: Janne Kummer; dev.: HTW Berlin) or »Am Ende der Welt« (artistic director: Nora Krahl, dev.: HTW Berlin) gave inspiration for creative and interdisciplinary approaches in the future.
Save the date! On June 26, there will be the 5th XR ART & NETWORKING in our EU-funded projects’ series.
The focus lies on three topics and we are very pleased that we could win excellent speakers for two of them:
Artistic Research – In this context, Dr. Marlene Bart will give a talk and also present her VR work Theatrum Radix as part of her artistic research.
Analogue Haptics – The haptic sense has so far been little integrated into XR experiences. Based on initial ideas, we would like to reflect with you on the possibilities of integrating haptic perception in mixed reality.
Autonomous avatars – Interactions with avatars start with verbal communication, but is there more to it? Xenia Klinge and Tanja Simeonovski from DFKI will give a presentation on this topic.
We are also planning a 1-hour workshop with our colleagues from DFKI to discuss and brainstorm about autonomous avatars in cultural formats, information booths with artistic XR experiences and, as always, a coffee van by the Spree!
For the detailed programme, please visit this link.
You can already register by sending an email to aurora@htw-berlin.de – if you are interested, please also mention your binding registration for the workshop with DFKI (directly after the talks at around 3.15 pm).
Congratulations to our new Artistic Fellow Jens Isensee, who convinced our expert jury with his mixed reality project »Tauchgang« (wt) with Oculus Quest 3! In the interactive installation, he combines digital content with analogue objects made of disposable materials and sends users on a journey into the time after the Anthropocene. We are looking forward to the collaboration!
From now on regularly! Every year, we offer two or three one-day XR Maker Spaces for creatives with previous knowledge. The first Maker Space at the end of 2023 was on the development of multiplayer projects in virtual reality, the second one will be on augmented reality in public space!
After each XR Maker Space, there will be an open access video tutorial published on our website, on Youtube and by our cooperation partner nachtkritik.plus.
The next two XR Maker Spaces will take place in autumn 2024!
Since 15 February 2024, our second XR OPEN CALL within the HERA project funding is online!
We are looking for a strong artistic concept in connection with augmented, mixed and/or virtual reality. Thematically, we are eager to hear your ideas and topics!
This is amazing! Our preceding project XR_Unites (2020-23), which was also funded by the ERDF, was included in the “Fourth State Report on the Implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in and by Germany”.
