Atmospheric Forest VR Experience

You are kindly invited to the opening reception of Atmospheric Forest by artists Rasa Smite and Raitis Smite  (RIXC Center for New Media Culture Riga, Latvia), featuring an immersive screening and VR experience, and apéro, taking place on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 18:15–20.30
in the Immersive Arts Space.

Along with an immersive screening, two headsets will be available for VR experience:
VR1 – for VR short-episodes (ca 5 min) – no registration needed.
VR2 – for VR full-experience (ca 15 min) – please make booking HERE

The VR Experience event is following the public lecture by Rasa Smite On Atmospheric Forest taking place a day before – on Tuesday, March 7th 2023, 17:15-18:30


Kamituga | Digital Gold @ Zurich meets Berlin

Beneath the surface of the global tech industry

Screenshot from the scan of a artisanal mine in Kamituga

The exhibition Kamituga | Digital Gold which was originally created for the exhibition Planet Digital at the Museum für Gestaltung (February to June 2022) will be showcased in an adapted version during the Festival Zurich meets Berlin. From November 3rd to 7th 2022 projects from ETH, University of Zurich, ZHdK and ZHAW will be displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde in the heart of Berlin!

Furthermore, a panel discussion with Gabriel Kamundala (PhD student, Department of Geography UZH) and Florian Bruggisser (Research Associate, ZHdK) hosted by Gayatri Parameswaran (KUSUNDA, NowHere Media) will take place on Saturday, November 4th. During the panel the experts will give insights into the creation of the exhibition and try to give outlooks on what can be done to create a more sustainable, more transparent and social chain of trade and consumption.

For more info go to
www.digital-gold.ch | Zurich meets Berlin | Berlin Science Week


Designing Enactive Co-Presence with Humanlike Characters in Cinematic Contexts

Talk by Pia Tikka (Enactive Virtuality Lab, Tallinn University)
Tuesday, 18th October 2022 @ Research Academy

The scope of technologies available to filmmakers is expanding and apparently opening new avenues of storytelling. My focus is on the application of new findings in the fields of psychophysiological tracking and machine learning in order to create virtual characters, whose behavior resembles that of humans in the most natural ways. 

In this talk Pia Tikka will share some recent updates in this fast developing domain and discuss their possible applications to the co-presence of human participants and humanlike virtual characters in narrative contexts. This  implies a range of multidisciplinary challenges. The core research question is what types of roles can the filmmaker give to machine learning and psycho-physiological tracking in the process of creating humanlike behaviors in narrative settings. The discussion draws from the holistic embodied approach to the mind,  which in my view provides useful explanatory frames for my claims. The talk aims to inspire discussions related to the use of adaptive artificial characters in the future of virtual storytelling.

Pia Tikka is a filmmaker and EU Mobilitas+ Research Professor at the Baltic Film, Media, and Arts School (BFM), Tallinn University. Her filmography includes international film productions, feature films, and interactive VR installations. The founder of the NeuroCine research group and Enactive Virtuality Lab, she has published on the topics of neurocinematics and enactive media, and written the book Enactive Cinema: Simulatorium Eisensteinense (2008). She is Adjunct Professor of New Narrative Media at University of Lapland, fellow in the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image, and member of the European Film Academy. Currently, she focuses on biosensor-driven virtual storytelling.

Lab Insights

Shifting realities and hands-on experiences in the Immersive Arts Space. (Norbert Kottmann © ZHdK 2022)

On June 29th and 30th, the Immersive Arts Space presented new developments from current projects. Visitors were invited to experience shifting realities with or without Virtual Reality goggles and to learn more about digital gold in our smartphones.
More about the featured research project Shifting Realities.
More about Kamituga | Digital Gold.


Book Launch: Conflict Minerals INC.

Thursday, June 30th, 2022, 16:30 | Immersive Arts Space, ZHdK

The term “conflict minerals” regroups artisanal tin, tantalum (coltan), tungsten and gold originating from war zones in Central Africa. In his book, Christoph N. Vogel tells the story of how well-intended efforts to solve a global problem have led to white-washing and abetting the continued exploitation of Congo’s resource wealth.

Conflict Minerals INC focuses on a topic that is also addressed by a a joint production of the Immersive Arts Space and the Department of Geography of the University of Zurich. The exhibition Kamituga | Digital Gold allows insights behind the shiny surface of the mobile tech industry and invites the visitors to engage with the concrete challenges and living conditions of artisanal gold miners in the region of Kamituga (Democratic Republic of Congo). [more]

No registration is needed. | Location: Immersive Arts Space, 1.J30, entrance via gate to film studio. > See map here.

Immediately after the book launch, visitors can take part in the LabInsights: The Immersive Arts Space presents new developments from current projects. [more]


Public Lecture Series (Spring 2023)

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

Public Lecture Series (Autumn 2022)

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