Ideas Expedition

  • Persistent Time Sink Resonance

    Persistent Time Sink Resonance

    Reality Volumes through Rasterization

    Persistent Time Sink Resonance is an artistic exploration of reality volumes utilizing 3D Gaussian Splatting. This recent rasterization technique supports the digital, spatial reconstruction of real-life objects or even our surroundings in the computer. Persistent Time Sink Resonance is one of the two winning projects of the Ars Electronica Futurelab 2024 internal ideas competition Ideas…

  • Melt This!

    Melt This!

    Radical Dialog on Glacial Melting

    Schmilz, schmilz, Baby! / Melt This! is a thought-provoking campaign on glacier retreat by the activist artist group Aggro Climate, members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab. The initiative is one of the two winning projects of the Ars Electronica Futurelab 2024 internal ideas competition Ideas Expedition.

  • SonoSynthesis

    SonoSynthesis

    Can Machines and Nature Co-Create Music?

    In the new era of creative collaboration, can machines and nature co-create art and music? In the SonoSynthesis project, a team of researchers from the Ars Electronica Futurelab brought together AI, biology, and Deep Space technologies to develop an immersive audio and visual experience.

  • Welcome to Planet B

    Welcome to Planet B

    A Children’s Pop-Up Book About Climate Change

    The Futurelab application Welcome to Planet B brings climate decisions to Deep Space 8K. To translate the project to a child-friendly format for 8- to 12-year-olds, a team at the lab created a matching interactive pop-up book. It is designed to get kids excited about climate protection and to marvel, grasp and understand – and,…

  • Sounding Letters

    Sounding Letters

    When AI Turns Letters Into Music

    Ars Electronica Futurelab and Ars Electronica Center celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2021. As part of the celebrations, Sounding Letters was created: it utilizes the initial letters of the two institutions as a musical theme, which was used to compose a piece of music with the help of the AI system Ricercar.

  • Memo Futurum

    Memo Futurum

    Sharing Future Visions Across Time

    Memo Futurum is an invitation to engage with our personal and collective visions of the future. The public was able to participate via website and submit a voice message until the end of 2021. The contributions were then transferred to vinyl records, which will only be opened again in 25 years, when the cycle begins…

  • Magellan Robot

    Magellan Robot

    On the 6th of March 1521 a small fleet of Spanish ships under the command of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reached the Island of Guam in the Pacific. They were greeted by curious natives, the Chamorro. Some of them came aboard and started to look around. They began to evaluate the many useful items…

  • Biomaterial Art Lab

    Biomaterial Art Lab

    In this project, we explore biological and chemical methods to create materials for art and design. Biological materials based on the natural process and life science are beautiful, versatile, and ecological.

  • OutReach

    OutReach

    Telepresence is a great tool that gives people the ability to be in far away places without having to travel. Telepresence robots like Double Robot are great tools for communication. However, they usually lack ways to interact physically with their environment. This reduces the autonomy and freedom of movement of robot users. This way, telepresence…

  • Ricercar

    Ricercar

    An AI-based Musical Companion

    Ricercar is an interactive AI-based music composition system. The word Ricercar refers to a musical form of the Baroque and Renaissance and means “to search out” in its Italian origin. Composers used this term for pieces in which they experimented with a theme or musical idea and discovered its qualities such as permutation and variation possibilities…

  • Creation of A.I.dam

    Creation of A.I.dam

    With the help of the Multimodal Acoustic Trap Display, small plastic particles can be made to float using audio signals and then be illuminated. This particle is now moved so quickly that the impression of a three-dimensional object in space can be conveyed. An additionally generated sound pressure creates the impression of touch. With this…

  • Spotless

    Spotless

    An Artifact-Bound, Augmented-Reality Powered Social Interface

    Spotless’s goal is to empower users to utilize arbitrary objects as communication channels. The basic concept is to connect objects or “artifacts” by the means of their visual equality.