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.
