flying carpet

luminous
largest interactive light installation

FILE 2026

Game Festival  |  Digital Games and AI Games: explore interactivity, rules, and narratives as aesthetic elements.  These works go beyond entertainment, proposing critical, poetic, or experimental experiences. Game mechanics become conceptual devices. Graphic technologies, artificial intelligence, and interactive systems structure the experience. The player is a co-author of the work, actively participating in its construction and interaction.

Applications were open until February 19, 2026. Access  the application form.

FILE 2026 | GENERAL REGULATIONS

Piano
Iwai’s Piano — As Image Media (1995), a later sound work, is related to these early interactive experiments. Here the user, seated at the piano, triggers a flow of images that depress the piano’s keys; a consequence of this action releases yet another flight of images. The resulting interactive installation synthesizes two different aesthetics: sounds (simple melodies), images and a mechanical object (the piano) with digital media. A projected score and computer-generated imagery transform the piano into image media, hence the work’s name. Sound is the triumphant component in these works, for it activates and shapes the visual work. But the visual aspect of Iwai’s installations is lovely. His interactive systems appeal to the creative impulses of adults and children alike with their celebration of animation, computer potential, and the joy of sound.07

FILE 2026

Digital Architecture and AI Festival :  investigates the use of computational technologies in the conception, visualization, and experience of space.  Works may involve virtual environments, simulations, digital facades, interactive architectural installations, and discrete systems. Algorithms and data become design tools. It is a practice that articulates art, architecture, and technology.

Applications were open until February 19, 2026. Access  the application form.

FILE 2026 | GENERAL REGULATIONS

Technosoma — Sensitive Circuits in the Flesh of the Machine

David Da Paz

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – WORKSHOP
Electronic Language International Festival

Tecnosoma — Sensitive Circuits in the Flesh of the Machine – Brazil

In this workshop, participants will explore the fusion of body, technology, and artificial intelligence, creating interactive experiences with capacitive sensors and real-time generative models. Inspired by the concept of the Technosome—the machine as a sensitive, pulsating organism—the workshop explores how human touch can generate electrical signals that trigger audiovisual, auditory, and light responses. Microcontrollers (Arduino and ESP32), generative AI, and sensory interactivity will be covered.

BIO

Artist, researcher, and developer specializing in AI, machine learning, and IoT, he has worked for over 10 years with interactive art, generative systems, and sensory installations. He participated in the Artropocode residency (Spain) and the Spontaneous Combustion Residency (London), exploring cyberurban performances and locative media.

Spiral of Time — Amazonas Brazil — UFAM

Edwin van der Heide

Interact with Spiral of Time — Amazonas Brazil — UFAM via FILE ARCHIVE

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – Installations
Electronic Language International Festival

Spiral of Time — Amazonas Brazil — UFAM – Netherlands

Spiral of Time captures and stages the diverse soundscape of a specific location over the course of several years. By documenting the unique natural, cultural, spatial, and temporal dynamics of a place, the work honors the contributions of all its actors. Every hour, a one-minute recording is made, resulting in a vast sonic archive over time. It is accessible online through a spiral-shaped interface, allowing listeners to explore the cyclical patterns revealed by navigating the material across different time intervals. 

Since July 17th, 2024, the artist has been recording the sounds of the square in front of MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona). It is a very interesting, diverse, and vibrant urban space. The work is accessible online via https://www.macba.cat/en/spiral-of-time-placa-dels-angels/ and will also be presented physically in the museum starting July 10th, 2025.

Edwin is expanding the project to include other recording locations around the world—not only in urban contexts (dominated by humans) but also in areas governed by nature. The artist dedicated himself to a recording site in the Amazon region. Since February 11th, 2025 Spiral of Time has been installed at the Amazon Rainforest surrounding The UFAM (Federal University of Amazonas) in Manaus. It is home to one of the world’s largest urban forest fragments. Completely surrounded by the dense urban matrix of Manaus, this forest has been isolated since the late 1980s. The forest retains rich ecological features, including areas of mature terra-firme forest, late-stage secondary vegetation, and small patches of white-sand forests. This unique setting offers a rare opportunity to study tropical forest dynamics within a metropolitan environment. 

Spiral of Time-UFAM immerses the listeners in the acoustic life of one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. This contrast between the natural rhythms of the forest and the human-made patterns of the city enriches the broader narrative of the Spiral of Time, offering a deeper reflection on coexistence, change, and continuity across different environments.

BIO

Edwin van der Heide is an artist, composer, and researcher focused on sound, space, and interaction. His work pushes the boundaries of musical composition toward spatial, interactive, and interdisciplinary directions. He creates installations, performances, and immersive environments where the audience is placed at the center, encouraged to engage sensorially and investigatively.

Deep Field

Tin&Ed

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – Installations
Electronic Language International Festival

Deep Field – United States

An augmented reality experience where visitors draw fantastical plants that instantly bloom into immersive 3D structures within the space. As people contribute their creations, a collective digital landscape begins to take shape. Layers of recordings of endangered, extinct, and elusive species compose a responsive and evolving soundscape, developed by The Listening Planet.

BIO

Tin & Ed are New York-based artists whose work explores the interconnection of life across biological, geological, and cosmic systems. Through speculative world-building, they reveal connections that transcend human time, spatial boundaries, and sensory thresholds. Their practice spans sculpture, immersive and interactive installations, creating environments that invite audiences to shift perspective and inhabit the world beyond the limits of human perception. Technology is not used as spectacle, but as a perceptual tool that makes the invisible felt and the distant intimately present.

ReCollection

Weidi Zhang & Rodger Luo

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – Installations
Electronic Language International Festival

ReCollection – China | United States

ReCollection is an interactive installation that uses artificial intelligence to construct synthetic collective visual memories from natural language input. The work blurs the line between memory and imagination through experimental visualizations and AI systems, prompting reflection on how narratives of memory are shaped by emerging technologies.

BIO

Weidi Zhang is a new media artist and designer based in Los Angeles and Phoenix. She is an Assistant Professor of Immersive Experience Design at Arizona State University. Her interdisciplinary research explores speculative assemblages at the intersection of immersive media, experimental data visualization, and interactive AI art. Dr. Jieliang (Rodger) Luo is the CEO and Head of Research at Minus AI, a research-driven startup focused on leveraging AI technology to empower the creative industry. He holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has previously served as a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Autodesk AI Lab.

Down with Wrestlers with Systems and Mental Nonadapters!
file festival

“The work of Dmitry Kawarga normally deals a lot with ideas of biomorphism. A term and a small branch in art history that was very much influenced and formed by Hans Arp. Not just remaining in biomorphism, like Arp, Kawarga adds a whole new social and urban dimension to the works that make us think of terms like ”rhizome” developed by the post-structuralists Deleuze and Guattari. For Dada Moscow, Kawarga invented a totally new work, which seems to be quite different from the abstract biomorph works he normally does. It is an interactive installation that brings up a very powerful sense of the machine and technology fascination the society before the WWI had and it also shows the brutal consequence this fascination had. Kawarga creates a machine that brings the ideas of social models totally to the absurd.” Adrian Notz

Realistic and Interactive Robot Gaze
System for lifelike gaze in human-robot interactions using a humanoid Audio-Animatronics® bust. Previous work examining mutual gaze between robots and humans has focused on technical implementation. We present a general architecture that seeks not only to create gaze interactions from a technological standpoint, but also through the lens of character animation where the fidelity and believability of motion is paramount; that is, we seek to create an interaction which demonstrates the illusion of life. A complete system is described that perceives persons in the environment, identifies persons-of-interest based on salient actions, selects an appropriate gaze behavior, and executes high, fidelity motions to respond to the stimuli. We use mechanisms that mimic motor and attention behaviors analogous to those observed in biological systems including attention habituation, saccades, and differences in motion bandwidth for actuators.

Нед Кан
Tornado
A 10-foot tall vortex is formed by air blowers and an ultrasonic fog machine inside a sculpture installed in the atrium adjacent to the Winter Garden. The vortex continually changed shape in response to the surrounding air currents.These fluctuations gave the vortex an erratic and life-like appearance. Viewers were encouraged to alter the shape of the vortex with their hands. The calm, central core of the vortex is clearly evident.
Kahn’s interactive scientific projects leave little doubt about his command of meteorological processes. Through his immense technical ability, he demonstrates the versatility of turbulent systems, such as the vortices of wind and water. He employs diverse mechanical, pneumatic and electrical technologies to design, build and refine his installations. This is how he constructs dazzlingly complex but comprehensible images of nature that respond to viewers, conform to architectural structures, and reveal environmental conditions.

Everything
FILE GAMES 2017
Everything is an interactive experience where everything you see is a thing you can be, from animals to planets to galaxies and beyond. Travel between outer and inner space, and explore a vast, interconnected universe of things without enforced goals, scores, or tasks to complete. Everything is a procedural, AI-driven simulation of the systems of nature, seen from the points of view of everything in the Universe.

Samorost 3
Prague-based Amanita Design, creators of the award-winning Mechinarium, recently released what may be their best game yet: Samorost 3. This deeply immersive puzzle game spans the ecosystems of 9 unusual planets as you encounter strange inhabitants and unlock increasingly complex secrets to advance to the next level. Amanita Design’s approach to creating completely non-verbal/non-textual games relies heavily on intuition, sound design, and symbolism to create environments that are practically interactive artworks.

Theo Watson, Emily Gobeille and Nick Hardeman
Connected Worlds
Connected Worlds is an immersive, interactive ecosystem that was designed for the New York Hall of Science. It’s an installation of six smaller ecosystems, actually—all of which are connected, much like real ecosystems are. The difference here is that the environments only exist on massive screens connected by a 3,000-ft² interactive floor.

Том Беддард
Pyramid

After his PhD, the world of the “dot-com” internet boom was more appealing than academia, so Tom became a web developer specializing in e-commerce content management systems. For the past ten years Tom has worked at a variety of agencies in Scotland and now currently works at Glasgow based 55 Degrees, which specializes in interactive museum exhibits and video production. Tom considers himself to be a ‘creative coder,’ a techie who also has an appreciation for the aesthetics. His site, subblue.com, is where he writes programs and plugins exploring mathematical and generative graphics. Where possible, these experiments are interactive and have the source-code available for download. The exposure of his site and the Photoshop and After Effects plugins he has released have resulted in the creation of book covers, music videos, and stage visuals.

Self Organizing Still Life
Acoustically stimulated Interactive Sculptures
David Fried’s “Self Organizing Still-Life” (SOS) is a series of interactive, sound-stimulated kinetic sculptures, which reveal his exploration into the inherent qualities of networked and emergent systems operating far-from-equilibrium intrinsic to nature, individual psyche, communication and social relationships.