March 22nd, 2022 | 17:15- 18:30h | Cinema Toni, ZHdK | live-stream
CHALLENGING THE INDIVIDUAL – PERCEPTUAL CON/FUSIONS IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Christina Zimmermann is an artist/filmmaker and senior researcher at Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences. She also works as a film curator for the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival. Her research interests focus on experimental film narration, dramaturgy, theories of perception, and film philosophy.
March 16th | Marcus Maeder 17:15- 18:30h
AMBIENT: FROM IMMERSION TO IMMANENCE
April 13th | Felix Stalder | 17:15- 18:30h
IMMERSION AS ESCAPISM, CONTROL, OR CO-EXISTENCE
April 27th | Maike Thies | 17:15- 18:30h
ENTANGLED IN ARTIFICIAL WORLDS
May 4th | Hannah Walter | 17:15-18:30h
BECOMING WITH TECHNOLOGY. BECOMING CYBORG
May 11th | Christian Iseli | 17:15-18:30h
EXPANDED ILLUSIONS: CINEMATIC CONCEPTS OF IMMERSION
Marcus Maeder, Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology
Since its creation by the musician Brian Eno in 1976, the term ambient has undergone significant change. The musical style has developed into a framework of reception and terminology within which computer/digital music as well as visual art are conceived and received. The term ambient opens up a context of artistic and social practices reflecting a reality that is increasingly created by and transported via media technologies. Modern constructions of immanence are examined by using biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt, which he postulates as a world-generating context of body, cognition and environment. Accordingly, ambient can be understood as a sort of mimetic ceremony, producing extremely complex yet coherent images of the world. In the talk, a phenomenology of the sounds found in current digital music as well as associations and meanings elicited by them are presented.
Ambient is a compound of spaces in which a reflection of the world takes place, created through artistic, social, geographical and increasingly virtual devices. The idea of space as the expansion of thought, enclosing its infinite movements as an absolute horizon is implied by the concept of immanence proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In Ambient, a soundtrack of immanence is created, a polyphonic sound of the environment as we experience it, which makes the world in its diversity imaginable and possible to experience. In this, the possible, the utopian, is constitutive of immanence: Prototypically, experimentally and as a projection, it is created by the participants of a mimetic ceremony, of an ambient situation, by the artists and their audience.
Marcus Maeder is a sound artist, researcher and composer of electronic music. As an author, Maeder has written on a number of topics in the fields of sound art, artistic research and digital media. Maeder studied Fine Arts in Lucerne/Switzerland, Philosophy in Hagen/Germany and currently pursues his PhD in Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich. He runs the music label domizil, which he founded in 1996. Maeder has worked as an editor and producer for the Swiss radio station SRF and has been working as a researcher at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) of the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK since 2005. On an invitation by French President François Hollande, Maeder presented his sound art installation/trees: Pinus sylvestris/at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP21. In 2017 he presented his installation “Espirito da Floresta” at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC – the same year in which he and Roman Zweifel received an honorable mention for ”treelab” at the STARTS Prize, which was offered by the European Commission at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz/Austria.
Felix Stalder, Department of Fine Arts, Digital Culture
Immersion is not necessarily a technical issue, but rather can be seen as a type of relation to the world. This relation – quite distinct from the “critical distance” championed by enlightenment thinkers – can have three different qualities: escapism, control, or co-existence. Escapism allows one to immerse oneself in an experience that is fully self-contained and aims to have no consequences beyond it. The ride on a rollercoaster would be an example of such an immersion. Control goes two ways: Either immersion allows an actor to control his/her environment to a much higher degree than it would be possible outside the immersion, or, the actor becomes subject to an unprecedented degree of control by those setting the parameters of the environment. Both types of control can, of course, co-exist at the same time, as they do in racing simulators. The third quality of immersive relationship enables the expression of a deeper relationship with an environment, in which the actors exist within a world that is so large and complex that no ‘outside’ view is possible. It expresses a condition of partial, situated experience and action, allowing the experience of mediated immersion to stand for existential co-existence with multiple others itself. Many immersive installations in contemporary art, for example, by Ilja Kabakov or Christoph Büchel, aim to produce this kind of quality.
These different qualities are not mutually exclusive. How all three of them shape the overall quality of the work is a question of the intention driving the design of the immersive situation.
Felix Stalder is professor for Digital Culture in the Department Fine Arts of the Zurich University of the Arts. His work focuses on the intersections of cultural, political and technological dynamics, in particular on commons, control society, copyright and transformation of subjectivity. He not only works as an academic but also as a cultural producer, being a moderator of the mailing list and a member of the World Information Institute as well as the Technopolitics Working Group (both in Vienna). Among his recent publications are «Digital Solidarity» (PML & Mute 2014) and «The Digital Condition» (Polity Press, 2018).
Maike Thies, Department of Design, Game Design
The constant presence of technology in our daily lives triggers our expectations and hunger for immersive experiences. Even established cultural institutions can no longer ignore the fundamental digital shift to stay relevant. Of course, this tendency is not without significant impact on Zurich University of the Arts’ curricula and the creative economy.
Science fiction literature, theatre, films, museums and games, in particular, have shaped our idea about immersion. While it seems that the desire for total immersion and a rush into virtual spheres is increasing on the user’s side, the quality and degree of the immersion cannot live up to the demand. It becomes apparent that an immersive experience cannot be created by technical know-how and state-of-the-art infrastructure alone.
The media artist Ed Atkins once said that “Immersion is not a warm bath”. In my lecture, I would like to follow this thought. By presenting a selection of international artists’ projects I want to highlight the way the arts and design can develop meaningful immersive experiences and call for more interdisciplinary cooperation.
Maike Thies is a research fellow in the field of game design at Zurich University of the Arts. Her research activities focus on interactive theatre, narrative spaces, immersive arts and speculative design. She is interested in the curation and development of interdisciplinary formats, dealing with the potential of digitization for arts and design. On behalf of the Bachelor Design, Maike curates and heads the interdisciplinary lecture series Kein Kino at the Toni Kino, focusing on “new realities and diverse futures”. She is also responsible for REFRESH, an interdisciplinary, international festival initiated by the department of design and the Immersive Arts Space. Maike is a member of Digitalrat ZHdK.
Further information about Maike’s research interests may be found at maikethies.com, refresh.zhdk.ch, and gamedesign.zhdk.ch.
Hannah Walter, Department of Cultural Analysis, Transdisciplinary Studies
I coupled myself with a violin,
I charged myself with a battery,
I infused myself with electricity,
I incorporated a machine
ohm-i-am
wired-violin-skin
I become vyborg
We are a creature of reality
We are a creature of fiction
We are a porous corpus caring for capricious circuitry
We create us anew again and again
Here and There
We beam us up into a hole in space
we touch and we breath
we send and receive
we perceive
we repeat we delete
we bend we experiment
we listen we cite
we host we write
we improvise we fantasize
We present
… the practice-based PhD project “Becoming Vyborg. Sonic Cyborg Fictions in Sympoietic Telematic Systems“, which refers to notions of embodiment in relation to technologically mediated environments.
It approaches its research questions in the framework of the research group of the SNFS-funded project “Dis/continuities in Telematic Space” which focuses on spatial and bodily interactions between remote stages.
„By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.“ (Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto”)
We investigate
… immersion through the figuration of the “cyborg”.
Hannah Walter is a violinist/violist. She is becoming a vyborg.
HannaH holds numerous scholarships and has won prizes at national and international competitions. She is a founding member and the artistic director of the transdisciplinary Collective Mycelium. In their productions they experiment with collective working processes and new concert formats.
Currently HannaH works as an academic assistant in the Master in Transdisciplinarity and as doctoral student in the SNFS-funded project “Dis/continuities in Telematic Space” and the Research Focus Transdisciplinarity of the Zurich University of the Arts.
Christian Iseli, Immersive Arts Space
Since the 1990s, the term immersion has been primarily used in connection with game theory, virtual reality and other technology-supported art forms. Yet it also refers to a long tradition in art history of creating illusions. As manufacturers of illusions and dreams, the producers of films have continually aimed to improve the immersive quality of cinema for their audiences.
Larger screens, stereoscopic 3D-images, surround sound and sensory experiences with shaking chairs or odors were commercially oriented but short lived extravagances of the analog era. Experimental filmmakers also sought to perfect the illusionist quality of their craft. Under the term Expanded Cinema, they fostered ideas of spatial narration and holographic representation. Later, digitalization brought along a whole range of innovations: the rebirth of stereoscopic 3D, higher frame rates, high dynamic range and 3D audio all fed into a new era, advertised as immersive cinema. In recent years, practically all international festivals have introduced sections for virtual or mixed reality experiences. Even though these emerging formats necessitate different ways of storytelling, they promise to bring Andre Bazin’s idea of ‘total cinema’ to reality.
Christian Iseli has been teaching and researching at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK since 1995. He holds a professorship for Immersive Arts, heads the Immersive Arts Space and teaches in the MA Film program. After studying history, German and English literature at the University of Bern, Iseli was a director of documentary films and worked in editing and cinematography on feature films and documentaries.
March 8th, 2022 | 17:15- 18:30h | Cinema Toni, ZHdK | live-stream
IMMERSE IN THE CLOUD – VISUALIZING WITH POINT CLOUDS
Matthias Vollmer is an architect and research associate in the MediaLab at the ETH Zurich. After completing his degree in film studies at the Zurich University of Arts (ZHdK), he pursued a bachelor’s and master’s degree in architecture at the ETH. His research examines the relationship between architecture and landscape through visual media, including laser scan technology, film and analog photography.
April 5th, 2022 | 17:15- 18:30h | Cinema Toni, ZHdK | live-stream
Lars Ebert has been working since 2007 in the field of forensic medicine and is Co-head of the 3D Center Zurich. He studied computer science in Oldenburg (Germany) and has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Institute of Surgical Technologies and Biomechanics and the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bern.
Till Sieberth, PhD is an engineer at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Deputy Co-Head of the 3D Center Zurich at the University of Zurich. He graduated from Loughborough University (UK) in 2016 with a PhD in geomatics. Since 2016 he has been working in the Virtopsy team as an expert in 3D documentation, forensic virtual reality, visualisation and imaging.
In this series, guest lecturers from the Swiss Institute of Technology ETHZ, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences HSLU, the University of Zurich UZH shared their specific views along with lecturers from the ZHdK. The topics covered Architecture, Virtual Reality, Virtual Forensics, Game Aspects in Theatre and Extended Reality.
Matthias Vollmer | Recording from March 8th, 2022
IMMERSE IN THE CLOUD – VISUALIZING WITH POINT CLOUDS
Christina Zimmermann | Recording from March 22nd, 2022
CHALLENGING THE INDIVIDUAL – PERCEPTUAL CON/FUSIONS IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Lars Ebert | Recording from April 5th, 2022
FORENSICS ON THE HOLODECK
Réjane Dreifuss | Recording from April 19th, 2022
LUDIFICATION IN THEATRE: THE EXAMPLE OF “GAME-THEATRES”
Christian Iseli | Recording from May 3rd, 2022
SHIFTING REALITIES, OR: WHAT ARE IMMERSIVE ARTS ANYWAY?
Matthias Vollmer, MediaLab, ETH Zurich
Laser scanning and photogrammetry have become prevalent technologies over the last decade for recording spaces and are capable of depicting spaces in a very precise, detailed and legible manner. The resulting data, a point cloud, can be categorized as a metrically accurate, measured model but beside its geometric precision, the point cloud has another, greater potential. The visual representation of a point cloud is exceptional, oscillating between the realistic and the surreal, while its appearance is elusive. Its base is a point, a fundamental notion that describes a precise location in space and has no length, width, or thickness.
However, the point cloud is capable of representing spatial complexity like no other geometry. Shape and space is described pixel by pixel, always incomplete yet surprisingly detailed. Impenetrable rocks become translucent, expose their inner tubular system and layers of landscape are put in a new relation. The digital void is filled with notes of delicate leaf structures and our own imagination completes the arrangement of a garden. As we move through the point cloud, we are immersed in an alternative aesthetic paradigm that conveys our surroundings in impossible, expanding, and enchanting ways.
Matthias Vollmer is an architect and research associate in the MediaLab at the ETH Zurich. After completing his degree in film studies at the Zurich University of Arts (ZHdK), he pursued a bachelor’s and master’s degree in architecture at the ETH. His research examines the relationship between architecture and landscape through visual media, including laser scan technology, film and analog photography. He is also co-founder and co-director of SCANVISION, an ETH Spin-off in the field of 3D-measurement and visualization and co-founder of the architectural office Atelier Schweizer Vollmer.
Christina Zimmermann, HSLU
Immersion is a variously shaped and fragile state of mind that is easily lost due to sensual input that ´the “I” may experience as unfitting, disturbing, improper, alien, surprising, strange, unfamiliar, errant, etc. Sometimes, irritating triggers are incorporated into the design of the user experience of a VR-world. Sometimes they originate (un)intendedly in the real world and remind us of our divided corporal condition.
In this lecture, I will comment on a selection of alienating situations that I experienced in recent VR pieces. The transformative impetus of VR on our self-concept is mind-opening and encourages speculation on the ontology of the perceptive and/or ludic self and the supposedly formative influences of media on our cognitive or even behavioral capacities. I will trace these experiences back to a model of perception derived from the field of cognitive psychology and process philosophy. Once having established a preliminary inventory of the complex perceptual situation in VR, I will switch to practical considerations concerning VR conceptualization and writing: How can spatial and interactive experiences be translated into a linear reading setup? After a short deviation into the history of scriptwriting and its condensation into a conventional format, I will share aesthetic and formal solutions for scriptwriting in VR, found during a previsualization experiment for the interactive VR-Film “The True Film” (in development) performed at the Immersive Arts Space, ZHdK.
Christina Zimmermann (PhD in Fine Arts, Art & Design and Media Art) is an artist/filmmaker and senior researcher at Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences. She also works as a film curator for the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival. Her research interests focus on experimental film narration, dramaturgy, theories of perception, and film philosophy. Since her graduation from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, she has been lecturing and coaching film in different academic contexts: Bauhaus-University Weimar (2005-2010), FHNW Basel (2017) and since 2017 in the Master Film programme at Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences. Christina’s work has been screened internationally and she has received various grants and awards (including from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, the Research Association Marbach, Weimar, the Wolfenbüttel “Digital Humanities” and the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF).
Lars Ebert, 3D Center, University of Zurich
The degree of digitalisation in forensics gradually increases in line with technical innovation. Recently, different applications for Virtual Reality have been developed for technical forensics and forensic medicine. This includes teaching and education in forensics, but also advanced crime scene visits for investigation purposes and the support of court procedures. However, to fulfil this purpose, the digitisation of a forensic incident is necessary – including the scene, the people involved and any relevant objects.
A variety of 3D documentation and visualisation methods and their use in forensic investigations will be presented. First medical imaging methods, such as Computer Tomography Magnetic Resonance Imaging, will be introduced to explain how they are used by forensic pathologists for documenting evidence, preparing autopsies, and reconstructing incidents. In addition to medical imaging, optical surface scanning methods are used in all forensic areas, from the documentation of deceased and living persons to crime scene and object documentation. The data gathered by these methods can then be used by 3D experts in conjunction with the findings made by other forensic experts to reconstruct the incident in 3D and visualise the findings and interpretation of the evidence.
Lars Ebert has been working since 2007 in the field of forensic medicine and is Co-head of the 3D Center Zurich. He studied computer science in Oldenburg (Germany) and has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Institute of Surgical Technologies and Biomechanics and the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bern. His main focus in research is the application of methods from computer science and imaging to solve problems in forensic medicine. He is a founding member of the International Society of Forensic Radiology and Imaging and a member of the editorial board for the journal Forensic Imaging.
Réjane Dreifuss, Department of Performing Arts and Film, ZHdK
For the last fifteen years, theatre has been using more methods and tools from interactive digital media and computer games. This has led to the rise of new forms of narration and also new relationships that occur with the audience. So called “game theatres” make use of the logic of computer games and rely on their performative and rule-guided storytelling – an adaptation from a digital to an analogue setting. Leading to the creation of larger ‘dramaturgical experience spaces’, “game-theatres” are no longer bound to a specific place and time – as was the case in traditional theatre – and often make use of entire buildings or industrial wastelands. In these theatrical forms, there are hardly any spectators, as the passive observation shifts to an active participation in the performance. In this perspective, “game-theaters” involve a radical transformation of what was previously a largely untouched triangle made up of “theatre”, “production” and “audience”. Instead, it is moving towards a form of reciprocal co-creativity that takes all participants out of their traditional roles and turns them into collaborators or co-activists, equally participating in the creation of ‘performative events’.
The concepts of participation and immersion which are characteristic of virtual worlds are of particular relevance for “game-theatres”, as the two case studies included in this lecture will demonstrate.
Réjane Dreifuss has worked as a dramaturge and project manager for the theatre company sonimage. Together with the author and director Igor Bauersima, she has written and directed theatre plays under the pseudonym Réjane Desvignes, in which digital technologies played a crucial role in the creation of narratives. Réjane Dreifuss has been working at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK since 2016, teaching and researching the influence of digitalization on theatre, with a particular focus on the generation of new narrative forms.
Christian Iseli and team members of the Immersive Arts Space, ZHdK
The Immersive Arts Space and the associated professorship have existed at the ZHdK for almost three years. Based on the current artistic research project Shifting Realities, this lecture will review the development to date of multifaceted practices and positions. Taking stock of the first three years is also an opportunity to ask about definitions and the practicing of immersive artforms in an international context.
The lecture will include dialogues with individual members of the research team. It also signals a change in personnel. Towards the end of the semester, Christian Iseli will hand over the professorship and the affiliated art/tech lab to his successor, Chris Salter.
Christian Iseli has been teaching and researching at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK since 1995. He holds a professorship for Immersive Arts, heads the Immersive Arts Space and teaches in the MA Film program. After studying history, German and English literature at the University of Bern, Iseli was a director of documentary films and worked in editing and cinematography on feature films and documentaries.
Immersive Arts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
This lecture series investigates questions of immersion from perspectives outside of the immersive arts. Guest lecturers come from curating, computer music and DIYelectronics, embodied human-computer interaction, animation and theater and scenography. Topics will include composing interactive systems, new concepts of extended animation, curating immersive experiences, disability and human computer interaction and new concepts of XR-based performative scenography in urban contexts.
Dr. Marije Baalman | September 26th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
COMPOSING AN INTERACTION: A PRIMER ON BUILDING EXPRESSIVE INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS
José Luis de Vicente | October 10th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
DRAMATURGIES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE: RHETORICS OF IMMERSION, PARTICIPATION AND AGENCY IN CONTEMPORARY ARTS
Livia Nolasco-Rózsás | October 24th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
BRAINS IMMERSED IN A VAT. UNMASKING THE POLITICS OF IMMERSION
Dr. Katta Spiel | November 21st, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
LEISURE IMPOSSIBLE – PLAYING WHILE DISABLED
Dr. Shauna Janssen | December 5th 2023 | 17:15-18:30
AUGMENTED SCENOGRAPHIES AND PERFORMATIVE URBANISM: LESSONS FROM THE FIELD
Dr. Marije Baalman is an artist, researcher and co-founder/co-director of Instrument Inventors Initiative (Den Haag/NL)
José Luis de Vicente is curator and cultural researcher. Most famously, he is the director of Disseny Hub / Design Museum in Barcelona.
Livia Nolasco-Rózsás is curator and researcher at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (Karlsruhe/DE) and University College London (UK).
Dr. Katta Spiel is an assistant Professor in Critical Access in Embodied Computing, Human Computer Interaction Group, Technische Universität Wien (Vienna, AT).
Dr. Shauna Janssen is an associate Professor and research chair in Performative Urbanism at Concordia University (Montreal/CAN).
This lecture series investigates the concept of immersion in art and design from aesthetic, historical and political perspectives. Guest lecturers come from digital arts, curating, media studies, and the histories of science and technology from the ZHdK, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York), Haus der Elektronischen Künste (HEK, Basel) and the Technical University in Dresden. Topics will include contemporary artistic practices in multi-sensory immersion, extended reality and history of VR and the arts, and art and artificial intelligence.
Christopher Salter | September 27th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
THE ARTS OF IMMERSION: SENSING, BODIES AND RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Kristof Timmerman | October 11th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
BREAKING THE FIFTH WALL: IMMERSION BETWEEN LIVE PERFORMANCE AND VIRTUAL SPACES
Sabine Himmelsbach | October 25th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
VIRTUAL WORLDS-INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS: ART AS AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
Michael Century | November 8th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
CONTESTING A “NEW MEDIUM”: VIRTUAL REALITY AS CULTURAL PROBE
Orit Halpern | November 22nd, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
THE SMARTNESS MANDATE: AI AND UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING`S IMPACT ON ART AND DESIGN
In this series, guest lecturers from the Swiss Institute of Technology ETHZ, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences HSLU, the University of Zurich UZH shared their specific views along with lecturers from the ZHdK. The topics covered Architecture, Virtual Reality, Virtual Forensics, Game Aspects in Theatre and Extended Reality.
Matthias Vollmer | Recording from March 8th, 2022
IMMERSE IN THE CLOUD – VISUALIZING WITH POINT CLOUDS
Christina Zimmermann | Recording from March 22nd, 2022
CHALLENGING THE INDIVIDUAL – PERCEPTUAL CON/FUSIONS IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Lars Ebert | Recording from April 5th, 2022
FORENSICS ON THE HOLODECK
Réjane Dreifuss | Recording from April 19th, 2022
LUDIFICATION IN THEATRE: THE EXAMPLE OF “GAME-THEATRES”
Christian Iseli | Recording from May 3rd, 2022
SHIFTING REALITIES, OR: WHAT ARE IMMERSIVE ARTS ANYWAY?
The Immersive Arts Space hosts every semester a public lecture series with national and international guest lecturers. The lecture series aims to address artistic as well as theoretical aspects of immersion.
The current lectures are available via live stream.
Immersive Arts: Performative Perspectives on Immersion
This lecture series investigates questions of immersion from the perspectives of the performing arts including dance, theater and even real time animation. Our exciting list of five guest lecturers includes a world renowned choreographer and collaborating dance artist working with real time motion capture, the head of the theater program at the ZHdK and an expert in contemporary performance and digitality, a journalist and long-time editor of tanz, the most important dance magazine in the German speaking world, the head of the Ars Electronica animation jury and an Egyptian born, Greek computer scientist and dancer working on digital performance in Virtual Reality.
Prof. Juergen Hagler | March 5th, 2024 | 17:15-18:30
THE ART OF PERFORMANCE AND EXTENDED ANIMATION
Arnd Wesemann | March 19th, 2024 | 17:15-18.15
PLAYFUL SIMULATIONS
Corinne Soland | April 2nd, 2024 | 17:15-18:30
PERFORMING 3D CHARACTERS FOR DIFFERENT MEDIA FORMATS
Prof. Dr. Chris Salter | April 16th, 2024 | 17:15-18:30
IMMERSION: FOUR MODELS FROM ART HISTORY, INDUSTRY, MEDIA ARTS AND COMPUTING
Gilles Jobin and Susana Panadés Diaz | April 30th, 2024 | 17:15-18:30
COSMOGONY: NEW AVENUES BETWEEN XR AND DANCE
The Autumn Semester 2023 lecture series investigates questions of immersion from perspectives outside of the immersive arts. Guest lecturers come from curating, computer music and DIYelectronics, embodied human-computer interaction, animation and theater and scenography. Topics will include composing interactive systems, new concepts of extended animation, curating immersive experiences, disability and human computer interaction and new concepts of XR-based performative scenography in urban contexts.
Dr. Marije Baalman | September 26th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
COMPOSING AN INTERACTION: A PRIMER ON BUILDING EXPRESSIVE INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS
José Luis de Vicente | October 10th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
DRAMATURGIES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE: RHETORICS OF IMMERSION, PARTICIPATION AND AGENCY IN CONTEMPORARY ARTS
Livia Nolasco-Rózsás | October 24th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
BRAINS IMMERSED IN A VAT. UNMASKING THE POLITICS OF IMMERSION
Dr. Katta Spiel | November 21st, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
LEISURE IMPOSSIBLE – PLAYING WHILE DISABLED
Dr. Shauna Janssen | December 5th 2023 | 17:15-18:30
AUGMENTED SCENOGRAPHIES AND PERFORMATIVE URBANISM: LESSONS FROM THE FIELD
The Immersive Arts Lecture Series for spring semester 2023 investigates artistic and design experiences in which humans, media and architectural spaces shape one another within the context of the built environment. Guest lecturers who come from the fields of digital arts, architecture, theater studies and the visual arts, will focus on specific artistic works from their practice, as way to open up critical discussion around emerging paradigms of bodily experience in spatial computing environments, human-machine interactions in architectural spaces, and immersive experiences between human, technical and natural systems.
Rasa Smite | March 7th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
ON ATMOSPHERIC FOREST
Christopher Salter | March 21st, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
ON ANIMATE
Daniela Mitterberger | April 4th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
ON DEGREES OF LIFE
Selena Savic | April 18th, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
A DATA-DRIVEN DRAMA
Kurt Hentschläger | May, 2nd, 2023 | 17:15-18:30
THE AMBIVALENT PRACTICE OF IMMERSIVE INSTALLATIONS AND PERFORMANCES
This lecture series investigates the concept of immersion in art and design from aesthetic, historical and political perspectives. Guest lecturers come from digital arts, curating, media studies, and the histories of science and technology from the ZHdK, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York), Haus der Elektronischen Künste (HEK, Basel) and the Technical University in Dresden. Topics will include contemporary artistic practices in multi-sensory immersion, extended reality and history of VR and the arts, and art and artificial intelligence.
Christopher Salter | September 27th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
THE ARTS OF IMMERSION: SENSING, BODIES AND RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Kristof Timmerman | October 11th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
BREAKING THE FIFTH WALL: IMMERSION BETWEEN LIVE PERFORMANCE AND VIRTUAL SPACES
Sabine Himmelsbach | October 25th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
VIRTUAL WORLDS-INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS: ART AS AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
Michael Century | November 8th, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
CONTESTING A “NEW MEDIUM”: VIRTUAL REALITY AS CULTURAL PROBE
Orit Halpern | November 22nd, 2022 | 17:15-18:30
THE SMARTNESS MANDATE: AI AND UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING`S IMPACT ON ART AND DESIGN
In this series, guest lecturers from the Swiss Institute of Technology ETHZ, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences HSLU, the University of Zurich UZH shared their specific views along with lecturers from the ZHdK. The topics covered Architecture, Virtual Reality, Virtual Forensics, Game Aspects in Theatre and Extended Reality.
Matthias Vollmer | Recording from March 8th, 2022
IMMERSE IN THE CLOUD – VISUALIZING WITH POINT CLOUDS
Christina Zimmermann | Recording from March 22nd, 2022
CHALLENGING THE INDIVIDUAL – PERCEPTUAL CON/FUSIONS IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Lars Ebert | Recording from April 5th, 2022
FORENSICS ON THE HOLODECK
Réjane Dreifuss | Recording from April 19th, 2022
LUDIFICATION IN THEATRE: THE EXAMPLE OF “GAME-THEATRES”
Christian Iseli | Recording from May 3rd, 2022
SHIFTING REALITIES, OR: WHAT ARE IMMERSIVE ARTS ANYWAY?
In this series, concepts of immersion as well as embodiment were explored from the different perspectives of fine arts, design, film, performing arts and music, with concrete examples of artistic practices and research projects.
Christian Iseli | Recording from October 12th, 2021
DOUBLE TROUBLE: DIGITAL AVATARS ON STAGE
Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken | Recording from October 19th, 2021
EXPLORING BODY-CENTERED DESIGN APPROACHES IN MIXED REALITY SPORTS
Olav Lervik | Recording from October 26th, 2021
GAMES IN CONCERT: LESSONS FROM MUSIC IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Marie-France Rafael | Recording from November 23rd, 2021
POST-DIGITAL RELATIONALITY – EMBODIED EXPERIENCES
Melody Chua | Recording from December 7th, 2021
BLACK BOX FADING: (DIS)EMBODIMENT WITH AN IMMERSIVE IMPROVISATION MACHINE
Marcus Maeder | March 16th, 2021
AMBIENT: FROM IMMERSION TO IMMANENCE
Felix Stalder | April 13th, 2021
IMMERSION AS ESCAPISM, CONTROL, OR CO-EXISTENCE
Maike Thies | April 27th, 2021
ENTANGLED IN ARTIFICIAL WORLDS
Hannah Walter | May 4th, 2021
BECOMING WITH TECHNOLOGY. BECOMING CYBORG
Christian Iseli | May 11th, 2021
EXPANDED ILLUSIONS: CINEMATIC CONCEPTS OF IMMERSION
Melody Chua, Master of Arts in Transdisciplinary Studies
Public Lecture Series
DECEMBER 7th, 17:15 -18:30 | Kino Toni, ZHdK | Live stream
The improvisation machine is an elusive figure. It has no universally agreed-upon form but is instead in a state of continuous fluidity of audiovisual representations. Throughout the performance, it shifts between being treated as a distinct musical agent to being regarded as an embodied posthuman extension to its human counterpart. It is always in tension between the attempt to recognize it as a distinctly encapsulated entity and at the same time as a synergy of independent entities, the fluctuations between which are shaped through immersive representations of itself and the performance environment.
The development of and performance with an improvisation machine can, with careful reflection, serve as a practical method upon which to be relinquished from our traditional understandings of embodiment. The form of the improvisation machine—fragmented through spatially separated electronic devices and mediums—is inherently discombobulated. Indeed, the fragmentation of the improvisation machine reflects a mindbody conceptualization offered by media artist and researcher Lisa Blackman: “We are never a singular body, but are multiple bodies that are brought into being and held together through complex practices of self-production.”
In this lecture, I reflect upon the facets of immersion and embodiment as they manifest in the field of improvised music performance between human and nonhuman agents, using my work black box fading as a case study. How do immersive representations of and experiences between such agents on both audio and visual levels instigate different considerations of what embodiment can be? How can these reflect our biases concerning control, (dis)orientation, and vulnerability in immersive environments?
Melody Chua is an interdisciplinary artist working with interactive technologies in improvisation settings as both vehicles of narrative expression and as opportunities to destabilize the normatives present in one’s relationship with such technologies. The aesthetics of her work gravitate towards immersive futuristic fictions with undertones of nostalgia and introspection, pulling audiences into intimate worlds. Awarded a Fulbright-Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship for the development of a sensor-augmented flute (Chaosflöte), Melody has performed and guest-lectured internationally at festivals and institutions such as the Swiss Digital Day, Network Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival Future Music Lab, La Côte Flute Festival, Performing Media Festival, Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, New Interfaces for Music Expression (NIME) Conference, University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, University of South Florida, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, among others.
