SHARESPACE

How could humans use digital avatars in the near future? How can we engage in social situations that include both human and automated avatars? And what technology do we need to explore these ‘hybrid’ spaces together? This is the focus of the European R&D project SHARESPACE.

SHARESPACE is a European R&D consortium consisting of 14 partners, including the Ars Electronica Futurelab. The three-year long research project runs from January 2023 until December 2025. In 2025, three artworks developed for Deep Space 8K are showcased at the Ars Electronica Festival: Two by researchers from the Futurelab, and one by a collaborating artist team invited through an open call. 

The main goal of the project is to bring extended reality (XR) to a radically, ethically sound, new level of presence and sociality by furthering the possibilities of interaction in a virtual space using avatars. In total, two university hospitals, three universities, five research institutes, and four companies from eight different countries participate.

Shared Hybrid Spaces for humans and avatars

The backbone of the SHARESPACE project is the development of so-called Shared Hybrid Spaces (SHS). These are spaces that are shared by humans and avatars where both are engaged in embodied collaborative tasks. This is made possible by transparently capturing social sensorimotor primitives through mobile connected innovative sensors, and then reconstructing them using novel XR technology. During this research project the developed technology is applied in three real-world scenarios (sport, health & art) and presented during high-profile events such as the Olympic Games 2024 and the Ars Electronica Festival 2024 & 2025.

SHARESPACE and Art

The role of the Futurelab within the SHARESPACE project is to engage in an artistic exploration of the possibilities of the SHARESPACE technology. Through the creation of multiple artworks, the team aims to research what new additions this technology can make to the media arts. The Ars Electronica Festival serves as the backdrop for the real-world art scenario of the SHARESPACE project. Multiple artist have been working hard to create multi-user, hybrid, interactive art performances that leverage embodied interaction between people and different types of Virtual Humans.

SHARESPACE at the Ars Electronica Festival 2025

At this year’s Ars Electronica Festival, visitors can explore three artworks developed for Deep Space 8K within SHARESPACE:

Deep Sync Connect

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Susanne Kiesenhofer, Anna Weiss, Daniel Rammer

The work explores the feeling of social connectedness and shared presence in hybrid spaces by combining synchronized movement with biodata, specifically heart rate, as the primary form of avatar expression. The experience brings together seven local participants and one remote user in a motion capture suit, reflecting on real-life encounters. They communicate through their shared physiological states and movements only. The participants’ heartbeats are sonified and visualized inside glass body avatars, turning inaudible and invisible signals into shared emotional cues. 

Converge 2

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Patrick Berger 

This new multiplayer experience in Deep Space 8K centers on collaborative puzzle solving. Converge 2 builds on the first version presented last year, with fresh ways to interact, using new tech from the SHARESPACE project. Up to eight local players and one remote player in a motion-capture suit can join in. Through verbal and physical communication, the piece explores how people can connect and work together in both real and virtual worlds. 

Foolish Flame 

Peter Power and Leon Butler 

This transdisciplinary installation, developed by Irish artists Peter Power and Leon Butler, explores climate change and inherited trauma, where visitors become avatars in a shifting digital landscape shaped by collective memory. Through real-time interaction and a responsive environment, the experience explores our impact on nature and each other. Overlooked by an ethereal “Foolish Flame”, the space pulses with an original score on Uilleann pipes, electronics, and voice, bridging myth, movement, and environmental reckoning. 

SHARESPACE at the Ars Electronica Festival 2024

Between 2023 and 2024, three Deep Space artworks were developed – two by researchers and developers at the Ars Electronica Futurelab, and one by a selected artist team through the SHARESPACE Open Call for Artists 2023. Converge, *falcon heavy und State of Play:شهر بازی were presented in the Deep Space 8K during the festival happening from 4th to 8th September 2024.

Converge, conceptualized by Patrick Berger (Ars Electronica Futurelab), is an exploratory piece where decentralized interaction and collaboration between humans and avatars plays a central role.

*falcon heavy, conceptualized by Johannes Pöll (Ars Electronica Futurelab), is an audiovisual application where synchronizing with others is key for the ultimate collective experience.

State of Play: شهربازی, created by artists Tara Habibzadeh, Harriet Davey, and Mati Bratkowski is an interpretation of the Last Labour of Rostam’s 7 Labours in “Shahnameh” as a deconstructed video game boss fight.

All artists involved in the project were engaged in an artistic panel discussion to discuss their concepts, processes, and what SHARESPACE concepts inspired them for their conceptualization. Furthermore, SHARESPACE partner DeMontfort University presented their policy plan ‘Ethics By Design: A Roadmap to Good Enough Ethics’ in a keynote lecture during the Festival.

This project was part of the Open Futurelab at the Ars Electronica Festival 2024.

Credits

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Roland Haring, Ali Nikrang, Daniel Rammer, Cyntha Wieringa
PARTNER: German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI); Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise; CRdC Nuove Tecnologie per le Attività Produttive Scarl; Cyens Center of Excellence; Golaem S.A.; Hospital Vall d’Hebron; Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique; Lightspace Technologies SIA; Ricoh Europe; Universitat Jaume I De Castellon; University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE); University of Montpellier; De Montfort University

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 10192889.