We’re pleased to announce the Interactive Architecture Lab returns to Linz, Austria for its second time exhibiting at the legendary Ars Electronica Festival.

“Look only at the movements – and they will bring you to matter.” SIX MOVEMENTS showcases six student projects centred around different types of movement. The work takes a critical stance and reflects on past and current developments across art, science, and technology to spearhead thinking on emergent themes of the 21st century. The work presented are physical and virtual prototypes that enact cybernetic and performative approaches to the design of immersive and interactive environments. In the spirit of Cybernetics we take an ‘Antidisciplinary’ attitude to our research, breaking boundaries between art and science, particularly between fields of architecture, performance, interaction, and psychology. The breaking of these classical enclosures of specialised practice reveals rich new territories of practice to address our changing social, ecological and technological landscape.

Curators: Fiona Zisch, Michael Wagner, Dr Ruairi Glynn

Project Preview

CuGo is a board game with human – reconfiguring modular robot (H-RMR) interaction. As a platform for people and robots to collaborate, CuGo not only encourages players to observe and understand how the multi-axis RMR robots behave, but also how they might be utilized. CuGo also opens up questions about the role of humans within environments populated by autonomous agents.
Designers: Kongpyung Moon, Peng Gao

In Rhythmic Fragments is a biophilic spatial installation that translates mensurated motions into kinetic architectural boundaries. Inspired by the rhythmic flows of liveliness observed at varied scales in the natural environment, the installation aims to engage our mind with contemplative content to evoke the sense of being mesmerized.
Designers: Saria Ghaziri, Dalia Todary-Michael

Sovar is an active soft wearable, which maps certain architectural elements on the wearer’s body. The cross-modal mapping of the space on the user’s back raises their attention to the surroundings and increases their sense of presence within a space. Sovar can be used as a tool for navigation, a choreographic device for networked performances and a tactile amplifier for VR spaces.
Designer: Ava Aghakouchak

Sounds, and sweet airs: Natural soundscapes provide a tremendous range of auditory cues about the state of the environment and its inhabitants. The technological environment has not evolved to create a comparably symbiotic system where humans and other inhabitants coexist to use a range of communication channels to synchronise. This sensory design project reflects on natural sound ecologies to create a synthetic environment around human-technology interaction to rethink our relationship with the environment.
Designers: Kornbongkoch Harnpinijsak, Weichen Tang, Nong Hua Lim

Lumina is an interactive installation that aims to generate a sense of presence by exploring the personal and peripersonal space of the user. The instrument reflects interactive boundaries of light drawn by our bodies. The intensity, colour, and shape of the boundary is modified when the user extends or retracts their arms. The aim of Lumina is to explore the mental and physical boundaries that the human body creates in physical reality, seeking to explore how these boundaries shape individual behaviour.
Designers: Danniella Vizcarra, Claudia Cortes

The Entangled Eye is an exploration of visual perception through robotic motion. Luna and Laika are two robotic creatures with curious and animate behaviour programmed to elicit your attention. As the whimsical creatures chase your eyes with unique kinematic expressions, the direction of your gaze orchestrates a conversation. The indeterminacy of attention coupled with the animacy of kinetic movement constitutes the basis for our attempt at reconfiguring and understanding the perceptual experience of behavioural artefacts and animism.
Designers: Anne-Héloise Dautel, Irem Bugdayci, Robert Wuss