Critters and all their data

Prof. Nieves de la Fuente, Jiha Jeon
Di, 14:30–17:30 Uhr
Raum 201

The seminar explores the relationship between physical objects, virtual environments and non-human perspectives. Starting from questions around multispecies relations, animal perception, technological mediation and the increasing transformation of living beings into data, we will investigate how sculpture can become an interface between physical and computational space.
Animals today are not only represented through digital media. Through tracking technologies, sensors, machine vision and other forms of data collection, their bodies, movements and behaviours become datasets: measurable and computationally readable. In this process, the animal can simultaneously be a living body, a source of data and a model within a technological system. Bolinski describes this shift from Tierdaten to Datentieren, in which animals themselves become generators of data and information rather than merely objects of media representation. The seminar takes this unstable relationship between body, object and data as a starting point.
Students will develop 3D-printed, laser-cut or otherwise digitally fabricated sculptural objects that function as physical interfaces for an additional augmented-reality layer. Using for example, AR tools in game engines such as Unity as well as WebXR approaches, these objects can be extended, transformed or contradicted through virtual elements, animation, sound, data and interaction. We will research the idea of “augmentation” to approach it as a possibility to add layers of meaning and not exclusively intended as AR.
The sculptures may act as specimens, sensors, prostheses, traces, or communication devices, while their virtual layers reveal hidden scales, behaviours, movements, or data.
Mandatory part of the seminar is a block workshop (2SWS) with the artist Jiha Jeon, with WebXR as a framework for spatializing and experiencing a personal archive produced during the workshop.