Project

Discipline

interactive and immersive media; artistic research; social and cognitive neuroscience; non-verbal communcation; bodily self-consciousness; art science collaboration

Lead
Zürcher Hochschule der KünsteInstitute for Computer Music and Sound Technology
Lay summary
Das Projekt “Immersive Lab” zeigt einem breiten Publikum das fruchtbare Wechselspiel von Wissenschaft und Kunst im Bereich der interaktiven und immersiven Medien auf. Dabei legt das Projekt den Schwerpunkt auf die Gewinnung neuer Erkenntnisse in der Zusammenarbeit zwischen Kunst und den sozialen und kognitiven Neurowissenschaften. Es unterstreicht dabei die Wichtigkeit dieses Austauschs für die Weiterentwicklung von künstlerischen Anwendung. Als zentrales Element der Vermittlung wird die an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste entwickelte interaktive Audio- und Video-Installation "Immersive Lab" zusammen mit Wissenschaftlern des "Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences" der Universität Genf und des "Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience" der ETH Lausanne zu einer didaktische Experimentierplattform umfunktioniert. Diese ermöglicht es Besuchern und Besucherinnen, sich hautnah mit wissenschaftlichen und künstlerischen Methoden und Inhalten auseinander zu setzen. Zusätzlich verfolgt das Projekt weitere Aktivitäten, welche sich an verschiedene Zielgruppen richten. In Zusammenarbeit mit der Kantonsschule Stadelhofen wird Schülerinnen und Schülern die Möglichkeit geboten, sich in Blockkursen und Matura-Arbeiten praktisch mit der Verbindung in Technologie, Naturwissenschaft und Kunst zu befassen. In Zusammenarbeit mit Migros Kulturprozent können sich junge Erwachsene in Workshops Kompetenzen in immersiven und interaktiven Medien aneignen. Und in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Haus der Elektronischen Künste in Basel werden Künstler und Künstlerinnen im Rahmen von Residenzen eigene Werke für das "Immersive Lab" realisieren. All dieses Tätigkeiten werden der breiten Öffentlichkeit in Ausstellungen, Paneldiskussion, Künstlergesprächen und Laborbesuchen zugänglich gemacht.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 28.03.2017

Natural persons

Number	Title	Start	Funding scheme

The project Immersive Lab aims to communicate to a wide audience how art and science inform each other in the investigation of fundamental experience and communication principles that underlie Immersive and Interactive Media. In particular, the project elucidates how the creation and experience of these media benefit from knowledge and methods of the social and cognitive Neurosciences, and inversely, how Neuroscience can exploit these media as unique means for communication and dissemination. An eponymous multimodal and interactive installation (http://immersivelab.zhdk.ch) forms the central element for all public communication activities of the project. This installation was conceived and developed at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology of the Zurich University of the Arts as an artistic creation platform, intended for the investigation of aesthetic, experiential, educational, and collaborative potentials of Interactive and Immersive Media. In collaboration with the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences of the University of Geneva and the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, this installation will be adapted and transformed into an interactive experimentation space that enables visitors to experience fundamental cognitive phenomena and to participate in their methods of investigation. The installation, in its different custom configurations, will be offered to three different target groups: the General Public, High School Students, and artists from Creative Communities. These target groups are chosen specifically for their different age ranges, background knowledge, and educational motivation, all of which affects their needs and interests to learn about artistic and scientific topics and methods in the context of Interactive and Immersive Media.With the support by experts in public communication from the Haus der elektronischen Künste in Basel and Migros Kulturprozent as well as education professionals from the Kantonsschule Stadelhofen in Zürich, the project will reach out with communicative and educational measures to engage the target audiences through lab visits, exhibitions, panel discussion, block courses, Matura theses, workshops and residencies. These activities strongly emphasise the participative approach of the project. The lab visits provide the opportunity for visitors to test and provide feedback concerning the experiential and educational impact of the collaboratively developed presentations. The exhibitions enable the visitors to become active participants in experimental investigation situations. The teaching formats allow students and artists to acquire a practical understanding of artistic and scientific aspects of working with Interactive and Immersive Media and thus become ambassadors transmitting their newly acquired insights to their own peers. This transdisciplinary communication project provides several unique opportunities. The general public can learn how research informs and drives new developments and commercial opportunities for digital media that will eventually feed back into daily live. High school students receive the opportunity to understand how the science they learn in class relates to digital media, and which education options could open a career for them in this field. Artists from creative communities, finally, are empowered to integrate scientific and artistic research knowledge and investigation methods into their own creative practices.To summarize, the project conveys to the public the crucial role of art-science collaborations for gaining insights and understanding. Experiencing the fundamental aspects that underlie media technologies serves as catalysts for showing new perspectives to future young scientists and for letting artists develop new experiential and educational applications for the general public. These ideas and artistic developments can demonstrate how the limitations of purely entertainment-driven forms of media consumption can be overcome. The Immersive Lab provides all of these benefits in a number of participative activities through exhibitions, lab visits, block classes and Matura projects, workshops and artist residencies.