SHARESPACE

Foolish Flame / Leon Butler (IE), Peter Power (IE) - Photo: Leon Butler, Peter Power

Open Futurelab EXHIBITION / Futurelab Night / For Innovators

Exhibit

SHARESPACE

How Do We Explore Future Spaces Where Humans and Avatars Collaborate?

SHARESPACE Consortium (EU), Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT), Leon Butler (IE), Peter Power (IE)

SHARESPACE is a cutting-edge XR research project funded under EU’s Horizon Europe program, bringing together 14 cross-Europe partners including the Ars Electronica Futurelab. Its mission: to explore hybrid spaces where humans and avatars engage in real-time, embodied collaboration.

At the Ars Electronica Festival, visitors can enjoy the results of the project, which are multi-user interactive artworks for Deep Space 8K where humans and avatars collaborate. These include Deep Sync Connect, focusing on social connectedness through shared physiological states and movements; Converge 2, a multiplayer puzzle experience; and Foolish Flame, an interactive piece about climate change and memory.

Furthermore, SHARESPACE operates in sports and health. In sport, a VR training tool for improving cycling performance was featured at the 2024 Olympic Games. In health, researchers are trialing XR therapy for treating lower-back pain.

POSTCITY, First Floor, Open Futurelab

  • Converge 2

    Patrick Berger (AT), Victor Petro (AT), Daniel Rammer (AT), Johannes Pöll (AT)

    Converge 2 is the next step in exploring collaborative multiplayer experiences in Deep Space 8K. Extending the original Converge, this iteration expands the concept with refined scenes and experiments with technologies from the SHARESPACE project, aiming to deepen shared presence and collaboration.

  • Foolish Flame

    Leon Butler (IE), Peter Power (IE)

    Foolish Flame is a transdisciplinary piece that explores the impact we have on the fraught frontiers of climate change. Through collective experience, visitors become avatars in an evolving landscape of environmental narratives and inherited cultural trauma—confronting the grief associated with a changing natural world.

  • Artistic Exploration of XR Shared Hybrid Spaces

    Patrick Berger (AT), Leon Butler (IE), Susanne Kiesenhofer (AT), Peter Power (IE), Anna Weiss (DE/AT), Cyntha Wieringa (NL)

    This panel discussion brings together artists who have collaborated within the EU XR project SHARESPACE. Each of them has developed projects exploring collaboration between humans and avatars in shared hybrid spaces. The conversation will center on XR art and the artistic concepts behind their work.

  • Good Enough Ethics in XR Shared Spaces

    Kathleen Richardson (GB), Kathleen Bryson (GB)

    Explore the latest results from our Good Enough Ethics (GEE) study, where SHARESPACE researchers tackle real-world AI and XR dilemmas using GEE values that are critical of ethical perfectionism. GEE is an new approach for ethical reasoning and emotional responsibility in emerging technology.

  • Photo: Bettina Gangl

    Ars Electronica Futurelab

    The Futurelab is the Ars Electronica’s artistic R&D laboratory and atelier. Together with worldwide partners, the Futurelab strives to create works that reveal the transformative force that emerges when art, technology, and society converge. The goal is to use these works as a catalyst for future innovation and societal change. The outcomes build on the Futurelab’s Art Thinking method, Art Science Research, and Future Impact Creation for experimental, exploratory future prototyping.

  • Peter Power

    Peter Power

    Peter Power is a transdisciplinary writer, visual artist, composer, sound designer and director from Waterford, Ireland. He holds a degree in biochemistry and a master’s in composition. He is Artistic Director of the award-winning Sparsile Collective, creating post-disciplinary works. He is an Associate Artist of BETA festival and outgoing Artist-in-Residence of Cork Midsummer Festival, National Sculpture Factory and other international residencies.

  • Leon Butler

    Leon Butler

    Leon Butler is an artist working at the intersection of art and technology. His work has been recognised by the Type Directors Club, 100 Archive, Digital Media Awards, and more. Recent projects include Imagined Islands, Dwelling, Performance Surveillance, and Emperor 101. He has shown work nationally and internationally, receiving commissions from Arts Council, European Media Arts Platform, and Science Gallery.

Credits

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Roland Haring, Daniel Rammer, Cyntha Wieringa, Patrick Berger, Susanne Kiesenhofer, Anna Weiss Collaborating Artists: Leon Butler, Peter Power PARTNERS: 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 program under grant agreement No. 10192889.