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DOCUMENTATION OF AN EXHIBITION PROJECTGerald Bast, Alexander Damianisch, Romana Schuler (Eds.)

GrAB — Growing As Building (2013—16) PAGE 26

Quantum Cinema — A Digital Vision (2010—13) PAGE 30

Interacct (2013—15) PAGE 34

DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA (2013—16) PAGE 35

Choreo-graphic Figures. Deviations from the Line (2014—17) PAGE 38

Liquid Things (2012—15) PAGE 42

Expansion and Development THIS BABY DOLL WILL BE A JUNKIE [TBDWBAJ] (2013—16) PAGE 44

Robotic Woodcraft (2014—17) PAGE 46

Eden’s Edge (2011—14) PAGE 50

Visuality & Mathematics (2012—14) PAGE 52

Breaking the Wall — Playful Interfaces for Audience Participation and Artistic Expression in Musical Live Performances (2015—17) PAGE 54

E/M/D/L — European Mobile Dome Lab for Artistic Research (2013—15) PAGE 56

AN AUDIO-VISUAL DOCUMENTATION PAGE 60

IMPRINT AND DETAILS PAGE 61

INTRODUCTION PAGE 4

PROJECTS ON ARTISTIC RESEARCH PAGE 6

n.formations — An Atlas of Experiments in Materialized Information (2015—17) PAGE 8

Artist Philosophers. Philosophy as Arts-Based Research (2014—17) PAGE 12

BIORNAMETICS — Architecture Defined By Natural Patterns (2010—13) PAGE 14

Empowerment in the Practice of Art and the Social Sciences (2010—13) PAGE 16

Transpositions [TP]: Artistic Data Exploration (2014—17) PAGE 18

Stitching Worlds (2014—16) PAGE 20

Artistic Technology Research (2012—16) PAGE 22

NO ISBN — The Privatization of Publication (2012—15) PAGE 24

TABLE OF

In the 1960s, the term “visual research” was introduced into certain fields instead of the term “art”. The term

“artistic research”, which has become increasingly relevant in recent decades, continues this development. Research characterizes an understanding that is gaining more and more validity in art while having an innovative impact.

In the exhibition “CONTEMPORARY CODE — ARTISTIC RESEARCH”, artistic research is being internationally positioned as part of the new academic guiding model of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Five years ago, President Gerald Bast co-initiated the PEEK Research Program in Austria, with the aim of promoting an interdisciplinary approach in the arts and sciences. Today, PEEK is one of Austria’s key contributions to the international developments in the field of artistic and research driven activities.

On the basis of 20 sample projects that focus on the artistic research activities at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the exhibition offers an overview of the progress of the ambitious research program and illuminates current artistic and scientific strategies. A special perspec-tive has been provided concerning the participating projects as all of them have not only passed the internal institutional quality check but also succeeded in an international peer review following the high standards of funding agencies like the Austrian Science Funds and its international renowned PEEK Program.

Against this background, old rules are dissolving across all disciplines and being redefined — as are the boundaries between art and science, which can no longer be viewed as consolidated, separate ways of discovering the world. Gerald Bast, Alexander Damianisch, Romana Schuler

INTRODUCTION CONTEMPORARY CODE — ARTISTIC RESEARCH

As with ideas or concept designs, which are still very open, both art and science can be understood as experimental systems, as described by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger in his writings from the 1990s onwards. In innovative processes, the clearly defined scope of disciplines requires an opening of borders and creation of new spaces — a phenomenon every research process is subject to.

The artist’s path, as presented in artistic research, seeks opportunities for art and scientific research to open up a common space in which to gain insights.

The history of science and art shows that new terminology motivates further innovative approaches. In addition to detecting blurry border-lines, thought should be given to a transformation of concepts and a capacity for multilingualism. Can what we understand as an innovative process only be achieved using new terms?

A central objective of this exhibition lies in documenting the process of artistic research at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and at the same time introducing a mode of overlaps, multi-track paths and the use of common spaces as style characteristics in artistic research.

STRUCTUREThe research is presented on the basis of image and text materials provided by the project teams. At the same time, the team of curators has commissioned videos that include interviews with the researchers and provide insights into their practice. By means of projections, screens and prints, this content will be shown in the exhibition.

CONTEMPORARY CODE —

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INTRODUCTION PROJECTS ON ARTISTIC RESEARCH

The projects appear in the order of the presentation in the exhibition. Text and material in the exhibition and in the booklet follow the logic of the individual project, therefore the content and way of the presentation may vary according to the individual style of each project.

PROJECTS

PROJECTS ON ARTISTIC RESEARCH

n.formations — An Atlas of Experiments in Materialized Information

Artist Philosophers. Philosophy as Arts-Based Research

BIORNAMETICS — Architecture Defined By Natural Patterns

Empowerment in the Practice of Art and the Social Sciences

Transpositions[TP]: Artistic Data Exploration

StitchingWorlds

Artistic TechnologyResearch

NO ISBN — The Privatization of Publication

Breaking the Wall — Playful Interfaces for Audience Participation and Artistic Expression inMusical Live Performances

GrAB — Growing As Building

Quantum Cinema — A Digital Vision

Interacct

DIGITALSYNESTHESIA

Choreo-graphic Figures. Deviations from the Line

Introduction to CONTEMPORARY CODE — Artistic Research

Liquid Things

Robotic Woodcraft

Eden’s Edge

Visuality & Mathematics

E/M/D/L — European Mobile Dome Lab for Artistic Research

Audio-Visual Documentation

Project Partners

Funding Partners

Expansion and Development THISBABY DOLL WILL BE AJUNKIE [TBDWBAJ]

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INTERACCT (2013—15)

Design–based Artistic Research on Avatars. Interacct describes a current research project about co-designing an interactive game for pediatric patients after cancer treatment with HSCT (hematopoietic stem cell transplantation) in after care.

It is a research project funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), involving at least five institutions: Uni-versity of Applied Arts Vienna; Children Cancer Research Institute (CCRI); University of Vienna; T-Systems Austria (T-Systems is a German global IT services and consult-ing company) and several schools in Vienna (Schulschiff Bertha von Suttner). The objective of this complex project

is to substitute paper diaries by developing a game with motivational elements. This mobile client will foster communication between patients and clinicians and en-courage motivation through gaming entertainment. This tool has been co-developed with an interdisciplinary team: medical caregivers, artists, designers, psychologists,

FFG Ruth Mateus-Berr, Fares Kayali, Jens Kuczwara, Andrea ReithoferArt, Design, Textile Didactics

INTERACCT (2013—15)

children and IT experts. The important elements for the medical team were defined and the motivational pref-erences of content and avatar designs for children were evaluated. Patients after HSCT treatment may suffer from a multitude of problems, and it is of great importance to communicate data about their wellbeing, bodily functions and activity levels to the doctors. For at least several months these children live in isolation because of low im-munity and high risk. Computers provide a connection for these children to the outside world. HSCT treated chil-dren get tired very quickly, show small tolerance for failure and cannot be involved in the complete co-design from the beginning, but will be integrated within the testing phase that begins in June 2015. On account of this, impor-tant key elements were co-developed with the research team and 415 healthy children and young adults of Vienna, aged between 8 and 19. Design-based research is equiv-alent to artistic research processes, as the figure design-rhizom by Ruth Mateus-Berr documents. Usually designers talk and reflect about the products they design, rather than the process, which leads them to innovative solutions. This process is interactive, interdisciplinary, iterative, flexible and integrative because the researchers need to integrate a variety of research methods and approaches from both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms, and de-pends on the needs of the patient group. Researchers who conduct design-based research try to characterize a com-plex situation through iterative and flexible revisions of the research design. This research involves social interactions because it is conducted in a real world context and has to meet the needs of a special patient group. The researcher in this case reverts to co-developed avatars and modifies them for a game, designed for the target group of pediatric patients after cancer treatment with HSCT.

The designer Jens Kucwara has been carefully selecting avatars designed by the children and young adults, and has documented his inspiration and modification. The se-lection of the cat-like figures, for example, is based on the visually pleasing model of a 17 year old girl, Lena Glieber, and its proportions for further applications within the game were humanlike posture and four limbs; this allows the possibility of designing a two-legged animal for further animation. He tried to use the same coloring scheme of the original and strengthened the expression of the face. The extended arms and tail revitalize the figure in animation.

Upper drawing: © Lena Glieber, Schulschiff Bertha von SuttnerPencil drawing and lower model: Jens Kuczwara.

DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA (2013—16)

The DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA project expands the range of scientific synesthesia research by introducing the possibilities of digital technologies as artistic research media. While science hopes to find answers to unresolved questions in memory and per- ceptual research by means of specially induced stimuli that the sense organs and human brain process to impressions, artists have contributed to an artistic evolution informed by digital art in the field of exper-imental perceptual art that, in addition to its potential in the area of knowledge and aesthetics, also sheds light on the acceler-ated pace of technological evolution.

Unlike synesthesia in traditional artistic media, digital art is distin-guished by specific characteristics that set it apart from other artistic works: due to the fact that digital artworks are simultaneously based on multimedia and technology, they principally permit the artistic production of “objecti- fiable” synesthetic perception processes.

Past scientific research has barely concerned itself with the perceptive characteristics of digital artworks in relation to synesthetic factors. Due to its innovative approach to research, the DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA project fills this gap.

The objective of the research project is to provide an ex-perimentation platform for the presentation of synesthetic mechanisms in the perception of digital artworks. This ex-perimentation platform is organized by using communica-tive and aesthetic feedback loops in the form of a project website, two transdisciplinary workshops, research inter-views, an interdisciplinary conference, and exhibitions in Vienna (March 2016) and Hong Kong (May 2016).

The experimentation structure is configured jointly by the artists, scholars and scientists at the interfaces of percep-tual and aesthetic research and digital art production. The artists research the synesthetic moment in the perception of digital artworks in consideration of the current state of knowledge in the neurosciences and cognitive sciences. This allows for the development of new scientific knowledge in the field of synesthesia research. In the form of inter- active, multimedia digital artworks, the artists produce an experimental arrangement that enables the study of per-ception of synesthetics in recipients.

A comprehensive publication in English (Eds. Katharina Gsöllpointner, Ruth Schnell, Romana Schuler. Edition Ange- wandte. Basel/Berlin/Boston/Beijing: De Gruyter) will be published in spring 2016 and collects the findings and re-sults of the project. It represents, for the first time, a com-prehensive compendium of this new concept of digital art in the 21st century.

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PEEK / FWF Ruth Schnell, Katharina Gsöllpointner, Romana Schuler

Cooperation partners School of Creative Media, City University Hong Kong (Prof. Jeffrey Shaw), ZKM Center of Art and Media Technologies Karlsruhe, D (Prof. Peter Weibel)

Participating artists Anke Eckardt (D), Tina Frank (A),Karl Heinz Jeron (D), Karen Lancel/Hermen Maat (NL), Martin Kusch/Marie-Claude Poulin (kondition pluriel, CAN/A), Alan Kwan (CHN/USA), Marcello Mercado (ARG/D), Ulla Rauter (A), Ruth Schnell (A), Jeffrey Shaw (AUS/CHN), David Strang/Vincent Van Uffelen (UK/D), Tamiko Thiel/Christoph Reiserer (USA/D), Peter Weibel (A/D)

Participating scientists / scholars: Katharina Gsöllpointner (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Aleksandra Mroczko-Wasowicz (Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang Ming University, Taiwan), Danko Nikolic (Department of Neurophysiology at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frank-furt Institute for Advanced Studies), Romana Schuler (University of Applied Arts Vienna).

1 Floating Signes 2, Ruth Schnell, 2011, Photo: Peter Kainz.2 E.E.G. KISS, Karen Lancel/Hermen Maat, 2014.3 Fractured Visions, 2014, Tamiko Thiel collaboration with Dr. Dominic Ffytche commissioned by the AXNS Collective. Two augmented reality installations inspired by palinopsia.4 The Golden Calf, Jeffrey Shaw, 1994.5 Data Music. Musical Exploration in Databanks,

Peter Weibel, 2012. Photo: Moritz Büchner (ZKM).

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DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA (2013—16)PAGE 36 PAGE 37

E/M/D/L — EUROPEAN MOBILE DOME LAB FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH (2013—15)

The project E/M/D/L — European Mobile Dome Lab for Artistic Research — supports an interdisciplinary collaborative process, which foregrounds embodied immersive experiences. The project lies within the research and development area of new digital applications for 360˚ dome-shaped projections and aims to generate a diversity of artistic dramaturgies for this media.

EUROPEAN MOBILE DOME LAB FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH (2013—15) E/M/D/L

E/M/D/L is tailored around the pro- cess of collaboratively creating im- mersive artworks and experiences for a dome environment. These immersive mediated environments involve real- time visualization (and sonification) software, ubiquitous computing, sensor networks, tracking technologies, pre- rendered audio-visual material, mobile or locative techno- logies.

Participants in this project are artists, scientists and theo-reticians from Canada and EU who are active in creating art or pursuing innovative interdisciplinary research and who collaborate in order to create (interactive) fulldome media artworks.

The word “fulldome” refers to immersive dome-based video projection environments. The dome, horizontal or tilted, is filled with real-time (interactive) or pre-ren-dered (linear) computer animation, live captured images, or composited environments. Although the current technology emerged in the early-to-mid 1990s, full-dome environments have evolved from numerous in-fluences, including immersive art and storytelling, with technological roots in domed architecture, planetariums, multi-projector film environments, flight simulation, and virtual reality. The fulldome experience is one of the most immersive and engaging ways of supporting the interac-tive (or passive) synchronous presentation of 3D graph-ical environmental representations to relatively large groups of people, with a limitless scope of applications, including education, arts, games and wellness.

E/M/D/L takes as a premise that in the context of an im-mersive dome environment, the impact of immersion can be described as a physical, sensorial and emotional experience, through which the participants experience the very vivid illusion of playing an integral part in the image.

The project is expected to produce via the creation of a series of immersive media artworks, new aesthetics and technological paradigms. Interdisciplinary research and creation were facilitated by:

→ a continuous collaboration between the partners;

→ workshops for artists and researchers→ creative production and technical residencies

for artists and researchers→ engaging wider audiences through public

presentations and performances→ touring of a mobile architectural Dome

structure equipped with specialized technology (soft- and hardware) for live dome visualization

The workshops, symposium and the artistic laboratories in the form of explorative creation residencies took place in four different European cities and in Montreal, Canada. In the workshops and the symposium, the participants were provided with necessary technical, theoretical and curatorial support and aided in starting and developing their collaboration. During six artistic creation residen-cies the participants developed their concepts, under-took explorative artistic experiments with the necessary technological platform and produced the artworks.

At the conclusion of the project, a book on E/M/D/L will be published (by Edition Angewandte), comprising contri-butions by the participants and by eminent international researchers who specialize in the subject of immersion in the arts. A cross between a fanzine and a scientific text, besides documenting the research process developed in the E/M/D/L, this publication will also survey current ap-proaches and creation methods in immersive artistic pro-duction.

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CREATIVE EUROPE / EU Ruth Schnell, Martin KuschDepartment of Digital Art

Cooperation partners Department of Digital Art, University of Applied Arts Vienna (coordination) NTLab, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens i-DAT of Plymouth Uni- versity Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau, Dresden SAT (Society for Arts and Technology), Montreal Lantiss (Laboratoire des Nouvelles Technologies de l’Image, du Son et de la Scène), of Laval University Quebec kondition pluriel, Montreal

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1 M. Phillips, D. Charitos, Murmuration, performance at IX Symposion, SAT, Montreal, 2015, photo: Sebastien Roy, courtesy: E/M/D/L.

2 M. Kusch, R. Schnell, M.C. Poulin, Liminal Spaces, performance at IX Symposion, SAT, Montreal, 2015, photo: Bruno Colpron, courtesy: E/M/D/L.

3 L.P. St-Arnault, J. Ranger, O. Rhéaume, Dream Collider, performance at IX Symposion, SAT, Montreal, 2015, photo: Sebastien Roy, courtesy: E/M/D/L.

4 M. Kusch, R. Schnell, M.C. Poulin, Liminal Spaces, performance at IX Symposion, SAT, Montreal, 2015, photo: Jean Ranger, courtesy: E/M/D/L.

5 M. Philips, D. Charitos, Murmuration, performance at IX Symposion, SAT, Montreal, 2015, photo: Sebastien Roy, courtesy: E/M/D/L.

EUROPEAN MOBILE DOME LAB FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH (2013—15)

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