Machine surrounded by people

Fall Term Projects

Over the course of four months the FOUNDING LAB Students have worked on fall term projects that unite various disciplines. These 25 Master and PhD Students from all over the world bring in an immense variety of personal projects and skill sets.

In this eclectic composition and with carefully curated and designed support structures by the Fellows and the FOUNDING LAB Facilitators, the processes took fascinating turns. The final outcomes can be experienced at the Open House at IT:U and at the Ars Electronica Center on January 25, 2024. During the Process Presentations the Students also give insights into their learnings for the University of the 21st century.

For more details see FOUNDING LAB Event!

  • Anamnesis

    Anamnesis

    Luisa do Amaral & Cyan D’Anjou

    This project is an account of methodological discovery and exploration, triggered by an identity crisis that I was navigating around the time when I came to Linz for the Summer School. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called the task of socioanalysis a labour of anamnesis — of bringing to mind one’s own knowledge of the world.

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  • Bimbo Dildo

    Bimbo Dildo

    Mar Osés

    In the realm of gender performance, adopting a hyperfeminine role has been proven to be a sign of resilience against deep-rooted misogynistic prejudice. In this sense, the Bimbo Dildo. Prototyping of penetration technologies (2022-2023) project discusses the self-sexualization and embracing of hyperfeminine codes that take place through the reappropriation of the bimbo stereotype.

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  • Crip Sensorama

    Crip Sensorama

    Puneet Jain

    As a part of the FOUNDING LAB program, I investigated how the technologies of XR (eXtended Reality) could be re-imagined and hacked (in their early stages) to act as a platform of storytelling for (and with) people with disabilities – enabling people with disabilities to shape and share their own future imaginaries.

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  • DinkA

    DinkA

    Qi Chen

    The results of my research during the FOUNDING LAB Fall Term program are a series of tools for collecting genetic fragments and a DNA ink for authentication using human genetic fragments. I made ink by mixing DNA extracted from saliva with melanin extracted from hair and blending the tangible and genetic dimensions of identity condensed…

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  • Flagged in Flux

    Flagged in Flux

    Dorotea Dolinšek

    Return of life to the Moon is becoming increasingly tangible. Removed from the Globe, this natural satellite represents a kind of ‘elsewhere’, an alienated, unclaimed environment that holds a possibility of another geographical frame. Initial dream of space travel however soon became tied to the premise of colonialistic and nationalistic territorial claim along with commercialisation…

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  • Glitching Optimization in a Few Steps: a performance-lecture about robotic failures

    Glitching Optimization in a Few Steps: a performance-lecture about robotic failures

    Julie-Michèle Morin

    The performance Glitching Optimization in a Few Steps: a performance-lecture about robotic failures, dives into the realm of robotic labor. Featuring a diverse array of robots attempting and failing to complete assigned tasks, the performance brings into question how the concept of robotic optimization contributes to maintain neoliberal perceptions of performance.

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  • Mechanical Learning and the Book of Nature

    Mechanical Learning and the Book of Nature

    Nathan Cornish

    This project draws connections between the generation of nonsense from the uncritical plagiarism integral to both knowledge systems. In this context, the results of system combination highlight the way knowledge technologies reproduce the sources they draw from and undermine the idea of AI as a new and futuristic system.

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  • Metalens

    Metalens

    Johanna Einsiedler, Linas Vaštakas

    In a world of information overload, finding information on a certain topic is not a problem. The real challenge is making sense of the available information. In our project, we posed ourselves the question: is it possible to make finding science-based answers easier?

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  • Mirror Mirror

    Mirror Mirror

    Chelsi Goliath

    Our project investigates the vital question of creating unbiased technology, specifically in AI and algorithms, for a more equitable future. We initially aimed to eradicate technological biases but realized the complexity of these issues, leading to an exploratory approach without definitive solutions. Our centerpiece, the “Bias Mirror” installation, serves as a literal and metaphorical reflection.

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  • Mosaic of Memories

    Mosaic of Memories

    Pritha Kundu

    For this semester at FOUNDING LAB, my work was based around the question of how we can facilitate the accessibility of embodied practices and movement arts through the integration of multi-sensory experiences and generative art technologies. The realm of movement arts and somatic practices holds a rich, yet underexplored, internal and somatic dimension.

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  • Shared Futures

    Shared Futures

    Bart Kuipers & Paul Akrofie

    Cultural heritage sites stand as silent witnesses to these atrocities, yet they remain in many cases add odds with the communities they impacted and forced themselves upon. With Shared Futures we aim to collectively reclaim these spaces using community-led XR interventions in order to empower local communities in Elmina and Amsterdam.

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  • Songs for NPCs

    Songs for NPCs

    Claudix Vanesix Figueroa Muro

    Songs for NPCs is an anti-futurist XR concert. It uses videogame culture of “users” and “NPCs” (Non-Playable Character) to talk about power dynamics between post-colonial nations around the globe. Are you a user or are you being used in this game? Can an NPC turn into a user?

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  • Stealth Care: wellness from the algorithm

    Stealth Care: wellness from the algorithm

    Amanda Bennetts

    “Stealth Care: wellness from the algorithm” emerged as a critical exploration of the intersection between personal health data, AI, and artistic research. The project originated from an AI-driven analysis of non-specific symptoms I was experiencing, which intriguingly aligned with a subsequent medical diagnosis of a rare muscle disease.

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  • Streams in the Veins

    Streams in the Veins

    ChiaoChi Chou, Kaito Muramatsu, Youngjun Choi

    “Streams in the Veins” conducts a 15-minute piano ensemble involving a human pianist and plants. During this performance, the transmission of sound from various pianos leads both agents, humans and plants, into a continuous cycle of communicative improvisation.

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  • Stuff Change & After Swallowing

    Stuff Change & After Swallowing

    Lea Luka Sikau

    The Fall Term kicks off an artistic research project of artist-researcher Lea Luka Sikau, funded by S+T+ARTS, that investigates ways to influence gut health and understand gut feeling through sonic approaches. In the Founding Lab showcase, you can experience two of Sikau’s works under the umbrella of multispecies metabolizin

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  • Unknowable Certainty

    Unknowable Certainty

    Cyan D’Anjou & Luisa do Amaral

    In the face of an inevitable end emerges an uncompromising realization: the expansion and weight of the past as the future narrows to an unknowable but certain finite point. To extend time, a cycle of reaching into a database of recollection hopes to yield validation for the cumulative result–the emotional landscape of now.

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  • Urban Oasis

    Urban Oasis

    Sonia Litwin

    Urban Oasis explores the possibility of using the shapes and visual qualities of the forest to create a design language encouraging focus and calmness. This project stands as a “preliminary exploration, a first word not a last word, an attempt to capture ideas and suggest how they might be developed and tested.”

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  • Virtual Dream Reliving

    Virtual Dream Reliving

    Pinyao Liu

    This project introduces the innovative concept of “dreamwork engineering” and presents a generative AI powered VR system that facilitates dream re-experiencing within a virtual reality (VR) environment.

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  • Όσιο

    Όσιο

    Dimitris Mertzos

    Όσιο is a project at the intersection of the digital and biological realms, delving into the process of generating and nurturing a hybrid creature. By merging the digital and biological, it strives to depict the peculiarity of existence within an exclusionary landscape and ultimately creating an entirely new sacred realm where the hybrid can live…

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  • Чули? Чули.

    Чули? Чули.

    Letta Shtohryn

    The project “Чули? Чули.” is a video game demo shown as a live performance, featuring a human protagonist (the player) and a motion-capture dancer. They both navigate the boundaries between the virtual and physical realms, shifting roles and blending identities through embodied interaction.

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If you have questions or require support, reach out to our team: foundinglab@ars.electronica.art