Ars Electronica KEPLER's GARDEN Linz

Fulldome / VR & AR Lab

Martin Kusch, Director ǀ Fulldome / VR & AR Lab, Ruth Schnell, Head Department of Digital Arts, University of Applied Arts Vienna (AT)

Fri Sep 11, 2020, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Sat Sep 12, 2020, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Sat Sep 12, 2020, 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Sat Sep 12, 2020, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Sun Sep 13, 2020, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
All times are given in Central European Summer Time (CEST / UTC +2).
Fulldome at JKU campus, Keplergebäude

The Fulldome/VR & AR Lab at the Digital Arts Department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna is a platform for new creative processes with a focus on digital applications for fulldome, VR, and AR environments. Experimental research projects are carried out through interdisciplinary exchange among students, teachers, and researchers working to develop new artistic grammars while questioning the influence of immersive devices. The dome at Ars Electronica is part of the Lab’s infrastructure.

University Research Infrastructure Environment

Since its inception in 2013, the Fulldome / VR & AR Lab at the Department of Digital Arts in Vienna directs and participates in an ensemble of artistic research projects, with a particular focus on the research and development of new digital applications for Fulldome, virtual reality, and augmented reality environments. Blurring the boundary between the physical and virtual worlds and allowing users to experience a sense of immersion, these media environments have become increasingly pervasive and influential in our daily lives. Questions and experiments on holistic audiovisual spatial experiences and on topics that are decisive for the future development of our society are central to the research lab.

Since the inauguration of the Fulldome / VR & AR Lab, students, teachers, and researchers from many disciplines have been benefitting from the interdisciplinary exchange and knowledge-sharing around these new methods of capturing, synthesizing, and re-envisioning our world.

The dome installed at Ars Electronica is part of the Lab´s infrastructure.

Applications and usage examples:

  • Development of new artistic grammars in the field of immersion
  • Research of new narrative image and audio concepts
  • New concepts and formats in the fields of virtual reality, interactivity, artificial intelligence, gaming, online communities and social networks
  • Interdisciplinary platform for new creative processes
  • Interactive 360˚ virtual walkthrough to produce a new quality of physical experience
  • Research and practical experiments in perceptual research

Screenings

Liminal Spaces / 360˚ Film Screening / Collaboration Projects Alliance Angewandte & JKU / Future Room

 

Fulldome
Fulldome
Credit: Peter Kainz (AT)
Fulldome
Fulldome
Credit: Patryk Senwicki (AT)
Fulldome
Fulldome
Credit: Lena Kohlmayr (AT)

Timetable

Program

Virtual Anatomy – Preview of the JKU MedSPACE
Interactive multisensory environment, 2020

The Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU) is currently constructing a modern, future-oriented multi-purpose learning space at the JKU Faculty of Medicine’s new medical education and research building. Scheduled to open in 2021, the space will not only be used as a virtual lecture hall for anatomy courses, but will also provide live surgery broadcasts from operating rooms to improve student education and post-graduate educational courses.

site-inflexion
Fulldome / VR & AR Lab

The immersive installation site-inflexion invites visitors to take part in a site-specific virtual and acoustic journey. The scenery and soundscapes of the JKU campus are the main actors in the work, alluding to Johannes Kepler’s activity as a landscape mathematician. A laser-scanned topographic survey of Kepler’s gardens becomes an audio-visual environment transfigured by the everyday sounds that inhabit them. Oscillating between urban pollution and phantasmagoria, structures and lawns bend and curve under the effect of sound waves, reaching their inflection point by tipping towards the unknown.

Cross Perception  – work in progress
Fulldome / VR & AR Lab

A limitless space. Everything moves—light, shapes and colors. Human and machine let their sight wander and try to recognize something. The human beings search for orientation, the device calculates.

Future Room  and  Liminal Spaces (re-edited) 360˚ film screening
Fulldome / VR & AR Lab

The Fulldome Program of the Digital Arts Department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna presents experimental immersive works, collaborations between the Department and the University’s Science Visualization Lab, Trans-Media Academie Hellerau, and the transdisciplinary performance company, kondition pluriel. Future Room and Liminal Spaces (re-edited) reveal the artistic potential of the fulldome, as does the 360˚ film screening selection of works by researchers, teachers, and students.

BR41N.IO Hackathon – The Brain-Computer Interface Designers Hackathon

The BR41N.IO Hackathon brings together programmers, engineers, designers, artists and/or enthusiasts, who collaborate intensively as an interdisciplinary team. Each team must design and build a unique, playful and wearable headpiece that can measure useful EEG signals in real-time to create any sort of interaction. The hacking projects use EEG electrodes and amplifiers, and challenge programmers to code an interface that enables them to control devices, robots or applications, post messages on social media, make paintings, or enact a myriad of other applications only with their thoughts. BR41N.IO also challenges creative minds to design a BCI headset with 3D printers, handcrafted materials and sewing machines.

Project Credits / Acknowledgements

E / M / D / L (European Mobile Dome lab for Artistic Research).

Project leader: Martin Kusch and Ruth Schnell. Partners: Department of Digital Arts, University of Applied Arts Vienna (A), i-DAT / Institute of Digital Art and Technology, University of Plymouth (UK), Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau (GER), UoA NTLab (GR), Society for Arts and Technology [SAT] (CA), kondition pluriel (CA).

SAVATAP (Socially Aligned Visual Arts Technology and Perception),

Project leaders: Gerald Bast, Martin Kusch and Ruth Schnell.

Partners: Department of Digital Arts, University of Applied Arts Vienna (A), Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence /OFAI (A), Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna (A).

Other ongoing collaborations: Spon On MozART Project, with Mozarteum Salzburg / TRANSFORM Project, with Johannes Kepler University and Danube University Krems / Le-Fo Project, with University for Art and Design, Department of Interface Cultures and Danube University Krems; all supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research

Biographies

Martin Kusch is an interdisciplinary artist, artistic researcher, assistant professor and director of the Fulldome / VR & AR Research Lab at the Department of Digital Arts, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. He is the founder and artistic co-director of the media performance group kondition pluriel. Martin is particularly interested in the transformation processes of electronic media within performative contexts and how digital technologies influence our perception of the body and space. He studied art history, philosophy and painting in Berlin; and media arts in Vienna (www.konditionpluriel.org).

Ruth Schnell is a media artist based in Vienna. She is head of the Digital Arts Department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her corpus of work includes video installations, interactive video environments, and light installations. She is an expert in dynamic projection and has done pioneering work by investigating the spatial implications of after-image phenomena using LED light sticks. In 1995, she represented Austria at the 46th Biennale di Venezia. Since then, her work has been widely acclaimed and exhibited internationally. ruthschnell.org