Elemental

Minimaforms & DRL Elemental Research Group

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

Elemental – United Kingdom

Within the contemporary condition, new conceptual terrains emerge that raise questions of agency and intelligence within a deep ecology of our environment. The work explored examines environmental phenomena in the service of sustaining life. The following video is an extract from a work-in-progress film produces exploring the technology phenomenon in attempt to expand the conversation on climate matters.. 

BIO

Dr. Theodore Spyropoulos is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Association’s world-renowned Design Research Lab (AADRL) in London and a resident artist at Somerset House. He previously chaired the AA Graduate School and was a Professor of Architecture at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt and a visiting Research Fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. 

Figure Discrete
Esecutori umani incontrano corpi generati dal computer, visualizzazioni calcolate del movimento incontrano droni svolazzanti! L’intelligenza artificiale e le macchine di autoapprendimento fanno apparire questa tavolozza inedita di progetti di movimento, progetti che trascendono di gran lunga i confini dell’articolazione umana, consentendo uno sguardo profondo nel mondo astratto dell’elaborazione dei dati. Il team di Rhizomatiks Research, guidato dall’artista, programmatore, designer dell’interazione e DJ giapponese Daito Manabe, riunisce il potere collettivo con un numero di esperti, tra cui i cinque ballerini ELEVENPLAY del coreografo MIKIKO e dell’artista di programmazione Kyle McDonald. Il risultato è un’immagine mozzafiato, realizzata magnificamente, insomma: visivamente sbalorditiva.

Pavilhão de pesquisa biônica
O Instituto de Design Computacional (ICD) e o Instituto de Estruturas de Edifícios e Design Estrutural (ITKE) da Universidade de Stuttgart construíram outro pavilhão de pesquisa biônica. O projeto faz parte de uma série bem-sucedida de pavilhões de pesquisa que mostram o potencial de novos processos de design, simulação e fabricação em arquitetura. O projeto foi planejado e construído em um ano e meio por alunos e pesquisadores de uma equipe multidisciplinar de arquitetos, engenheiros e biólogos. O foco do projeto é uma estratégia de design de baixo para cima  paralela para a investigação biomimética de cascas de compósitos de fibra natural e o desenvolvimento de novos métodos de fabricação robótica para estruturas de polímero reforçadas com fibra.

Olhar robótico realista e interativo
“Sistema para olhar realista em interações entre humanos e robôs usando um busto humanóide Audio-Animatronics®. Trabalhos anteriores examinando o olhar mútuo entre robôs e humanos enfocaram a implementação técnica. Apresentamos uma arquitetura geral que busca não apenas criar interações de olhar do ponto de vista tecnológico, mas também através das lentes da animação de personagens onde a fidelidade e a credibilidade do movimento são fundamentais; ou seja, procuramos criar uma interação que demonstre a ilusão de vida. É descrito um sistema completo que percebe pessoas no ambiente, identifica pessoas de interesse com base em ações, seleciona um comportamento de olhar apropriado e executa movimentos de alta fidelidade para responder aos estímulos. Usamos mecanismos que imitam comportamentos motores e de atenção análogos aos observados em sistemas biológicos, incluindo habituação de atenção.” Disney Research

24 Drohnen
24 Drohnen ist eine Videodemonstration der unglaublichen Drohnen von Rhizomatiks und ihrer Fähigkeit, sich auf noch nie dagewesene Weise im 3D-Raum zu bewegen. Mit komplizierten Sensorsystemen sowohl an den Drohnen als auch im Raum überprüfen die Drohnen ständig ihre Umgebung und kartieren sie, um sich zu bewegen, ohne miteinander zu kollidieren, oder mit einem Sprecher, der mitten im Drohnenschwarm steht und sie mit Gesten und Bewegungen steuert . Die Bewegung der Drohnen ist nicht nur kontrolliert und sicherer als je zuvor, das Bewusstsein der Drohnen für ihre Umgebung lässt sie bewusst erscheinen und gibt ihnen ein Gefühl der Persönlichkeit.

Up Sticks
‘Up-Sticks’ is an informal turn of phrase dating back to at least the 19th Century to express leaving your home in haste. It is thought to originate from the rough cut, unseasoned timber frame architecture of the Scottish croft designed for temporary occupation. These sticks from which the croft was partly fabricated were of great value and were taken and reused when the household moved on. Up-Sticks is an expressive timber structure that twists and curves using only spruce wood planks and beech wood dowels. No glue or nails were used to hold the planks in space; it is the hygroscopic behaviour of the dowels, which shrink and swell according to their moisture content, and their computationally defined position that lock all planks into position. Up-Sticks was assembled from large elements all prefabricated in the Robotic Fabrication Laboratory at ETH Zurich, the largest of its kind in the world.

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.

discrete figures 2019

Human performers meet computer-generated bodies, calculated visualisations of movement meet flitting drones! Artificial intelligence and self-learning machines make this previously unseen palette of movement designs appear, designs that far transcend the boundaries of human articulateness, allowing for a deep glimpse into the abstract world of data processing. The Rhizomatiks Research team, led by Japanese artist, programmer, interaction designer and DJ Daito Manabe, gathers collective power with a number of experts, among them the five ELEVENPLAY dancers of choreographer MIKIKO as well as from coding artist Kyle McDonald. The result is a breathtaking, implemented beautifully, in short: visually stunning.

World center
Blending computer-assisted design and experimentation with physics, the collective implements a biological paradigm to develop their morpho-ecological design approach to the architectural project. They are able to do this thanks to the computer-generated design methods they have developed for integrating ecological, topological and structural data.more…

涂鸦研究实验室
גרפיטי מעבדת מחקר
グラフィティリサーチラボ
L.A.S.E.R
FILE FESTIVAL

涂鸦研究实验室
גרפיטי מעבדת מחקר
グラフィティリサーチラボ

涂鸦研究实验室小组已开发出一种在建筑物上的大型激光书写系统，称之为激光书写系统，借助激光指示器和功能强大的投影仪，该系统能够实时在建筑物上书写大量信息。 他们吸引了来自鹿特丹的艺术家，他们希望使用自己的平台来传播他们的信息。 您可以通过单击此条目的声明来访问该组的网站。

fly
Aqui, os drones são usados ​​de forma mais cuidadosa: eles são holofotes robóticos. Reconfigurando continuamente sua posição em torno de um único dançarino humano, o conjunto produz um jogo hipnotizante de sombra e luz.É mais do que um truque legal. Em vez de ter drones no palco apenas por tê-los, o clipe mostra como as máquinas podem ser usadas de maneiras mais sutis e expressivas. Ser capaz de coreografar as três fontes de luz que se movem independentemente em torno de um artista, presumivelmente, permite que você crie todos os tipos de efeitos visuais que você simplesmente não conseguiria de outra forma. No início, os drones piscam suas luzes em sequência, projetando um filme de stop motion nas sombras na parede atrás. Depois disso, eles exploram outras configurações ao redor da dançarina: iluminando-a, escondendo-a e revelando-a novamente em silhueta.

BlackCat Aarhus Highres

24 drones
24 Drones is a video demonstration of the incredible drones made by Rhizomatiks and their ability to move around 3d space in ways never before seen. With intricate sensor systems both on the drones and in the room the drones are constantly checking their surroundings and mapping them in order to move without colliding with each other or a speaker who stands in the middle of the swarm of drones directing them with gestures and movements. The movement of the drones is not only controlled and safer than ever, the drones awareness of their surroundings makes them appear conscious and gives them a sense of personality.

dalian house

bionic research pavilion

The Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) of the University of Stuttgart have constructed another bionic research pavilion. The project is part of a successful series of research pavilions which showcase the potential of novel design, simulation and fabrication processes in architecture. The project was planned and constructed within one and a half years by students and researchers within a multi-disciplinary team of architects, engineers and biologists.
The focus of the project is a parallel bottom-up design strategy for the biomimetic investigation of natural fiber composite shells and the development of novel robotic fabrication methods for fiber reinforced polymer structures. The aim was the development of a winding technique for modular, double layered fiber composite structures, which reduces the required formwork to a minimum while maintaining a large degree of geometric freedom. Therefore, functional principles of natural lightweight structures were analyzed and abstracted in cooperation with the University of Tübingen and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Through the development of a custom robotic fabrication method, these principles were transferred into a modular prototype pavilion.

Brett Jones, Hrvoje Benko, Eyal Ofek and Andy Wilson

humanoid robot

Botanicus Interacticus

FILE 2026

Registration is now open for participation in  FILE – Electronic Language International Festival 2026 , one of the most important events dedicated to art and technology. FILE invites Brazilian and international artists , as well as researchers, educators, and creators , to submit original artistic works and educational proposals — lectures, workshops, and training activities — focused on contemporary technological poetics.

Applications are open until February 19, 2026 .

With 26 years of experience , FILE is a non-profit cultural organization dedicated to promoting creation, research, and experimentation in Art and Technology , bringing together artists, scientists, programmers, and thinkers around exhibitions, events, and publications. The selected projects will be part of the FILE 2026 program, scheduled to take place at the FIESP Cultural Center in São Paulo, between August 18 and October 11, 2026,  with the possibility of parallel activities in other Brazilian states.

The call welcomes proposals in a wide variety of languages ​​and formats, intended for indoor or outdoor environments , in which the aesthetic experience emerges from the encounter between interfaces, data, space, and body . FILE 2026 seeks projects that propose new forms of perception, interaction, and critical and poetic reflection , expanding the debate on the aesthetic, cultural, social, and sensory impacts of contemporary technologies.

Access the registration form.

فلوريان هيكر
フロリアン·ヘッカー
Sound Installation

Event, Stream, Object

In his installations, live performances and publications, Florian Hecker deals with specific compositional developments of post-war modernity, electroacoustic music as well as other, non-musical disciplines. He dramatizes space, time and self-perception in his sonic works by isolating specific auditory events in their singularity, thus stretching the boundaries of their materialization.
Their objectual autonomy is exposed while simultaneously evoking sensations, memories and associations in an immersive intensity. Some of his works incorporate psycho-acoustic phenomena, disorienting listeners’ spatial perceptions and expanding their conception about sound. Hecker’s most recent recording, Speculative Solution ( Editions Mego, 2011), brings together Hecker’s sonic practice and psychoacoustic experimentation with philosopher Quentin Meillassoux’s concept of ‘hyperchaos’ – the absolute contingency of the laws of nature.
During his residency at MIT, Florian Hecker will research a new sound piece that takes the concept of the “auditory chimera” as point of departure. Originally developed at MIT by Bertrand Delgutte, senior research scientist at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, the concept of the auditory chimera inspires an exploration of the relationship between pitch perception and sound localization. Hecker will create a text and sound piece that incorporates the recordings of material read by students. Using an anechoic chamber he will work with students to explore the experiential nature of psycho-acoustic practice.

GeoCosmos II during earthquake

The Geo-Cosmos does more than allow visitors to see the ever-changing face of our world; it has screened a variety of content, creating visuals of events happening on the Earth’s surface, so visitors can experience the “world of today.” Together with researchers and creators from Japan and overseas, we have also explored the possibilities of expression by making the best use of this spherical display’s special characteristics .

The Precession 2011
via highlike submit

Judd Morrissey and Mark Jeffery are a collaboration merging live art and digital literary practices. The work, which is visual, textual and choreographic, evolves through context-specific research and practice and always considers the constraints of a given venue or occasion. Site responsive considerations include the performance/exhibition space as well as the local community and online textual activity happening within the locale. A given piece is a body of material that may have no singular fixed form but is alternately presented as internet art, durational live installation, an ongoing activity, or a performance of fixed length.

Boundaries

Memo Akten & Katie Peyton Hofstadter

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

Boundaries – United States

Boundaries is a monumental work that explores the illusion of separation—between self and other, body and environment, matter and mind—and reflects on the interconnectedness of all things, from microorganisms to atoms forged in extinct stars. Created with custom code, AI, computer vision, digital painting, and dance, the work unites technology and bodily expression in an intimate and contemplative experience.

BIO

Memo Akten, a Turkish artist, musician, and researcher based in Los Angeles, creates speculative simulations about the relationship between humans and machines. With a PhD from Goldsmiths, he is a pioneer in the creative use of neural networks under human control. Katie Peyton Hofstadter is an artist, writer, and curator. Her work investigates the intersections between embodiment, technology, and consciousness, exploring how technologies shape cultural narratives and sensory experience.

(Dis)connection

Viviane da Silva Tavares

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

 (Dis)connection – Brazil

The (Dis)connection workshop is an immersive in-person experience that invites participants to explore the impact of technology on their bodies and perceptions. Using high-quality projections and somatic practices, the workshop encourages conscious digital disconnection, offering tools for a healthier and more balanced relationship with technology.

BIO

Viviane Tavares is a researcher and digital wellness expert, focusing on the intersection of the body, technology, and design. With over 10 years of experience in the technology industry developing digital products, she uses contemporary dance and somatic practices to advocate for conscious disconnection in our hyperconnected world.

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.

Digital Origami: Exploring Procedural Animation

John Otero

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

Digital Origami: Exploring Procedural Animation – Brazil

This workshop introduces procedural animation, a technique that uses mathematical parameters to create automated movements. Using the free version of Houdini software, participants will learn how to digitally assemble and animate origami, exploring the software’s features to simulate movements and behaviors. The creative possibilities of this approach will also be discussed, highlighting applications in animation, generative design, and visual effects.

BIO

João Otero is a visual artist, illustrator, animator, teacher, and visual arts graduate student at ECA-USP. He is a member of the Realidades research and outreach group. He holds a scholarship from the CAPES Teaching Initiation Program in the arts field; he also received a PUB scientific initiation scholarship, researching digital techniques applied to comic book production.

Animated Sprites: Frame-by-Frame Animation for Games

Realities Research and Extension Group

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

Animated Sprites: Frame-by-Frame Animation for Games – Brazil

Want to learn how game animations are created? In this workshop, we’ll explore how animated sprites work, and you’ll have the opportunity to create your own! Using free and accessible tools, we’ll transform ideas into animated art and integrate them into the programming of a simple game.

BIO

The Realidades Group (https://realidades.eca.usp.br/), founded in 2010, is a research and extension group at USP that works with art, technology and the concept of reality.

Surfaces

IED Partnership

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

Surfaces – Brazil

Concrete beams, glass, brick walls, cement… Buildings are built to last, to withstand time. LED screens, on the other hand, thrive on the light they emit—they turn on, blend, and fade. They are ephemeral. When a building is clad in LEDs, the permanent and the transient meet, between what already is and what might become. In the iconic FIESP building on Avenida Paulista, surface design transforms architecture into a field of experimentation. There, students from IED SP explore new possibilities for this building’s existence, redefining the structure through animated light and design.

BIO

Students of the Bachelor’s degree in Graphic and Digital Design at the Istituto Europeo Di Design (IED SP) have come together to create a collective work of animations inspired by surface design, its redefinition, and media materialization, seeking to explore language for visual communication projects. IED is an international training and research network in Design, Fashion, Visual Communication, and Creative Management.

Garden

Michael Betancourt

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

Garden – United States

Garden is a generative glitches animation created by deliberately conflicting AI (LoRA) models. Using multiple LoRA models to generate images that evoke flowers in a garden, the work transforms traditional representations of plant life into a fluid and hallucinatory exploration of growth, decay, and metamorphosis. These transformations suggest alternative ways of understanding organic growth, where the boundaries between individual organisms become fluid and permeable.

BIO

Michael Betancourt is a contemporary Cuban-American critical theorist, filmmaker, and artist-researcher known for his pioneering work in the fields of Digital Capitalism, Motion Graphics , and Glitch Art . Since 1990, he has explored the intersection of technology, culture, and aesthetics in a diverse practice unified by a constant concern with the poetic potential of images generated by errors.

XENO: UNDERTOW

Hsujing

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Arte e Tecnologia – Videoart
Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica

XENO: UNDERTOW – China / England

XENO: UNDERTOW is an experimental short film that employs stream-of-consciousness narration and AI-generated surreal visual art to explore the identity struggles and inner turmoil of cross-cultural migrants in mainstream society. Through metaphor, the film depicts a whale forcibly displaced from the boundless azure sea, cast into a desert of shifting sands. This imagery symbolizes the challenges cultural migrants face in adapting to dominant cultures and the profound sense of identity loss.

BIO

Hsujing is a contemporary artist and digital artist & director. His primary research focuses on the integration of technology and art, as well as speculative creative outputs. He is skilled in combining diverse techniques for artistic creation. His works blend elements of classicism with science fiction, not only envisioning future landscapes but also revealing persistent realities.

Meka Talks — Além da carne, o aço

Koral Alvarenga

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

Meka Talks — Além da carne, o aço – Brazil

Meka talks are provocative dialogues between artist Koral Alvarenga and various machines, exploring the future of humanity. In this first encounter, the work reflects on the transition of humanity to a new state of existence, where the physical and biological limitations of the body are overcome by the durability and transformative potential of technology.

BIO

Koral Alvarenga is a digital artist with a degree in Visual Arts and a postgraduate degree from UNESP. Her research explores the intersection between the digital and the physical, using 3D modeling, digitization, virtual reality, and 3D printing. Her works address themes such as identity, post-humanism, and human connections, merging technology and art with a futuristic vision.

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.

SynthPets

Tanja Vujinovica

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

SynthPets – Slovenia

SynthPets is inspired by the evolution of artificial intelligence and robotics, paying tribute to the creator’s robotic vacuum cleaner. These mysterious cyber-organic companions emerge through sketches, digital drawings, 3D sculptures, and AI-generated forms. The work explores humanity’s entanglement with electronic pets and devices that have become integral to everyday life.

BIO

Tanja Vujinovic is a multimedia artist who blends video art, games, music, and research to explore how technology shapes human experience. Her work examines the influence of synthetic environments and electronic devices, often featuring playful small figures—drawing inspiration from dolls, figurines, and talismans—that serve as symbolic guardians and companions.

3D computer graphics, digital sculpting and painting, generated AI, sound: Tanja Vujinovic

Production: Tanja Vujinovic/Ultramono, 2024—ongoing.

Consulting

RonBreIan, Software and Audio Engineer

https://www.tanjav.art/

@tanja_vujinovic_ultramono_

LOKI

Jia-Rey Chang

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

Loki – Taiwan

Loki is an interactive AI artwork inspired by the mischievous Norse god. Unlike obedient AI, Loki responds playfully and unpredictably, reflecting users’ attitudes—arrogance meets sharpness, modesty earns encouragement. It prompts critical thinking about AI’s reliability, biases, and neutrality. By engaging with Loki, users explore whether AI can truly be trusted. Dare to question!

BIO

Jia-Rey Chang is an artist/designer/researcher/educator focusing on immersive spatial interaction design. Received his Ph.D. in interactive architecture at TU Delft and is now a lecturer in the Medialab at Queen’s University Belfast UK investigating Games/Emerging Technologies in his creative research, crossing creative coding, speculative design, AI, and VR.

www.archgary.com

Aquarela de Íons

Arthur Boeira e Gustavo Milward

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Arte e Tecnologia
Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica

Aquarela de Íons – Brazil

Aquarela de Íons is an artwork-device that translates solar flares and magnetic activity cycles into forces within the exhibition space. Inspired by satellites, the sculpture captures real-time data of solar activity, creating a data-driven artwork that reacts to the presence of viewers in an immersive and generative environment. The system translates spatial information into sound, light, and image, establishing an interface between the cosmos and human territory. The piece invites reflection on the impact of space weather—an aurora borealis brought to life, transforming astronomical data into an aesthetic experience.

BIO

Arthur Boeira has been conducting transdisciplinary research since 2015, exploring the philosophy of science and technology as applied to artistic practices. Gustavo Milward (Drawlim) specializes in interactive art and algorithmic narratives, investigating the relationship between body, space, and code.

Veillance

Louis-Philippe Rondeau

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

Veillance – Canada

Inspired by Steve Mann’s research, Veillance explores mutual surveillance between citizens and institutions. While observing digitized portraits of others, visitors also have their image captured and added to the archive. Yet through subtle gestures and changes in appearance, one can evade the scan, effectively hijacking the scanography process.

BIO

Louis-Philippe Rondeau designs playful, unconventional devices that explore self-representation and performance. His research-creation practice prioritizes user-friendly design, concealing complex code behind intuitive physical interfaces.

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.

Embodied Simulation

‘Embodied Simulation’ is a multiscreen video and sound installation that aims to provoke and nurture strong connections to the global ecosystems of which we are a part. The work combines artificial intelligence with dance and research from neuroscience to create an immersive, embodied experience, extending the viewer’s bodily perception beyond the skin, and into the environment.
The cognitive phenomenon of embodied simulation (an evolved and refined version of ‘mirror neurons’ theory) refers to the way we feel and embody the movement of others, as if they are happening in our own bodies. The brain of an observer unconsciously mirrors the movements of others, all the way through to the planning and simulating execution of the movements in their own body. This can even be seen in situations such as embodying and ‘feeling’ the movement of fabric blowing in the wind. As Vittorio Gallese writes, “By means of a shared neural state realized in two different bodies that nevertheless obey to the same functional rules, the ‘objectual other’ becomes ‘another self’.”

Hivemind

Hivemind is a knowledge game for artists to navigate the inner workings of their practice. The game is part of the Serpentine R&D Platform’s continued effort to reimagine how artists and institutions can bring audiences into the research phases of their work. Created by Trust members Calum Bowden, Will Freudenheim and Joanna Pope, the game allows for narrativised walkthroughs by artists of their back-end working environments. The artists approached the creation of Hivemind with this question in mind: how can you build a game that allows artists to archive and share, not only a finished artwork, but the tools, data and experiments they’ve built to bring their work into existence?

Smart Hans

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival
Max Haarich (Project Smart Hans) – Smart Hans – Germany

The Smart Hans project is a synthetic reincarnation of Clever Hans, a horse that became famous in the early 20th century for apparently answering mathematical questions by tapping its hoof. The interactive installation features an animated horse that can guess any number in its mind through posture recognition. At the same time a fun joke and an illustration of why we worry about artificial intelligence.

Bio

Max Haarich is an artistic researcher, ethicist and consultant focusing on artificial intelligence and web3. He studied communication science at RWTH Aachen and critical thinking at the University of the Underground. After his studies, he researched artificial superintelligence at RWTH Aachen and later worked as a communications manager at Europe’s leading startup hub.

Credits

Team: Anja Borowicz Richardson (UK), Bruce Gilchrist (UK), Akshita Gupta (IND), Max Haarich (Artistic Lead/DE), Martina Huynh (NL), Asad Imtiaz (PAK), Muhammad Qasim Khan (PAK), Adrian Ludwig (DE), Pekka Ollikainen (FI), Raphael Pickl (DE).

The Sea

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival

The Sea is an extraction of a complex natural phenomenon, resulting in an artificial emulation that develops a life form of its own. Just like the sea with its endless waves, this artificial system follows the impact of an immersive state, leading to a unique vision of an artificial generator. Despite appearing chaotic, it is capable of generating associations ranging from the movement of waves to science fiction scenarios.

Bio

Paul Gründorfer develops process-related systems and explores variable or unstable conditions in the occurrence of sound when exposed to amplification, feedback, and multiple signal streams. His works focus on processes that evolve in a social space. Leo Peschta is an artist and researcher. During his studies, he worked in various fields of media arts, including sound, installations and software, developing over the years a special interest in robotics and machinery.

Credits

Austrian Embassy

The Cage of Time

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival
Interactive installation that presents a kinetic instrument object and virtual reality glasses, functioning as a device that animates the illusion of the passage of time in virtual space. In the fabric of existence, time weaves a cage around our ephemeral moments, limiting our perceptions of the past, present and future. By embracing this paradox, we may discover that the cage of time becomes the crucible where the alchemy of experience transforms our understanding of existence.

Bio

Anna Vasof is a multi-award-winning artist who focuses on filmmaking, short videos, and time-based sculptures. VRinMotion is an artistic research project based at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences in Austria that investigates how features of stop-motion animation and motion capture can be combined with virtual reality to enrich current artistic discourse.

Credits

VRinMotion Team: Franziska Bruckner, Christoph Schmid, Clemens Gürtler, Matthias Husinsky, Christian Munk, Julian Salhofer, Stefan Nebel, Vrääth Öhner.
Concept by: Anna Vasof.

EGO

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival

The mirror stage in psychology explains how the Ego forms through objectification, where one’s visual appearance comes into conflict with emotional experience, a concept called ‘alienation‘ by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The interactive installation EGO reenacts and reverses this process by distorting the mirror image based on the user’s movements, highlighting the tension between the real and the symbolic, the Ego and the It, subject and object.

Bio

Klaus Obermaier is an interdisciplinary artist, director and composer who creates innovative works in the performing arts, music and installations using new media. Stefano D’Alessio researches social issues induced by the internet and explores how the web and its derivatives influence human behavior and the body. Martina Menegon creates intricate assemblages of physical and virtual elements, exploring the contemporary self and its hybrid corporeality.

Speculative Evolution, Prototype 1

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival
Speculative experiment on a future ecosystem under strict control. The narrative takes place in a simulation, 30 years in the future, where artificial intelligence and synthetic biology collaborate to optimize an environment for cultivated species. An AI-powered simulator helps visitors generate new species to balance the ecosystem. Inspiration comes from the book Under the White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert and artists’ stories about life on a damaged planet.

Bio

Marc Lee is a Swiss artist focused on real-time rendered audiovisual installations, AR, VR and mobile applications, critically exploring creative, cultural, social, ecological, political and speculative themes. His work has been exhibited in important museums and new media art spaces. Shervin Saremi is an Iranian musician and audio engineer specializing in sonic computing, procedural sound design and production. Currently researching immersive audio at UdK Berlin.

Quantum Photography

FILE 2024 | Quantico
International Electronic Language Festival
Gabriela Barreto Lemos – Quantum Photography – Brazil

Quantum photography technique that allows you to record images without light passing through the object.

Typically, a beam of light interacts with an object; In this same beam, the image of that object is formed, which is recorded on a camera, on paper or directly into the eye. This research used two quantumly entangled photon beams. An infrared photon was directed at a silicon wafer engraved with the image of a cat. The other photon, red, was sent on a different trajectory, did not pass through the silicon plate and was detected by an EMCCD (electron-multiplying charge-coupled device – a photographic camera with sensitivity to very low intensity light). The image of the cat engraving was recorded by the camera, which only detected the red light, which did not touch the engraving. It is the first time that an image has been captured in a beam of light that has not interacted with the object that produced the image.

The experiment, led by researcher Gabriela Barreto Lemos, was carried out at the Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation in Vienna, 2014.

The technique has potential for applications in indirect image capture, from medicine to quantum computing.

Bio

Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, whose research focus is on quantum optics, with an emphasis on quantum foundations, quantum images and quantum information. Additionally, she is involved in interdisciplinary creative projects and promoting inclusion and diversity in science.

Credits

Gabriela Barreto Lemos
Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology
Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation
Group of Anton Zeilinger

Sounding Qubits

FILE 2024 | Quantico
International Electronic Language Festival
Eduardo Reck Miranda – Sounding Qubits – Brazil

Although he has learned classical musical instruments since childhood, Eduardo Miranda’s favorite tool for composing is the computer. The researcher has been delving into artificial intelligence and innovative computing methods for compositing for some time, as they offer fresh insights and ideas beyond his own.

A quantum computer deals with information encoded as qubits. A qubit is to a quantum computer what a bit is to a digital one: a basic unit of information. In hardware, qubits exist in the subatomic world. They are subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.

Quantum computers are like super-powered versions of classical digital computers. While a digital computer processes data in a linear, step-by-step fashion, a quantum computer can explore many possibilities at once.

Operating a quantum computer requires different ways of thinking about encoding and processing information. This is where composers can benefit greatly. This technology is destined to facilitate the development of unprecedented ways of creating music.

Bio

Composer who works at the intersection of music, science and new technologies. His background as an artificial intelligence scientist and classical composer with early involvement in avant-garde pop music informs his distinctive music. He has composed for BBC Radio 3, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He is a professor at the University of Plymouth and a research associate at Quantinuum, where he explores music composition with quantum computers.

Кен Рассел
كين راسيل
肯·罗素
켄 러셀
ケン·ラッセル
קן ראסל
Altered States

The character of Dr. Jessup was based on the real life Dr. John Lilly, who invented the isolation tank and experimented with using hallucinogens in combination with it before moving on to research on communicating with dolphins.
Lilly tells the tale of a fellow researcher who took the drug ketamine and believed that he had turned into a “pre-hominid” and was being stalked by a leopard, which was presumably the kernel for the the idea of genetic regression.

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