smARTplaces: Christian Geiger | Synæsthetic Utopia – Looking for ways to connect art and technology

From March 1st to 2nd, 2018, the conference »smARTplaces | INNOVATION in Culture« took place at the ZKM | Karlsruhe as part of the EU project »smARTplaces«.

Not only is digitization now in art’s DNA, cultural institutions are beginning to embark on disruptive paths in order to facilitate and support innovative processes. The »smARTplaces | INNOVATION in Culture« conference analyzes possibilities, and also necessities, of digital renewal within culture and spotlights audience development.

In this talk we present our perspective on emerging technologies like VR/AR, AI and how they may be used to create artistic expression. We argue that technology is not good or bad per se but needs to be considered in a proper contextual setting. Adapting emerging technologies for artistic expressions might bridge the gap between artist and audience and help to better convey the artistic message thus providing new ways of audience development.

Prof. Dr. Chris Geiger is Professor of »Mixed Reality and Visualization« at University of Applied Sciences, Düsseldorf where he leads an interdisciplinary group of researchers. The MIREVI team works on innovative interfaces to connect people with technology. Chris published over 120 papers in the areas of system design, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, mixed reality and human-computer interaction and served as reviewer and PC member in several conferences. As an active researcher in applied science he works on a number of national and international R&D projects. One important focus of his work is to identify synergies between art, design and technology and to find new ways of working together in multi-disciplinary teams. This includes the participation in EU funded projects like »PS2« (The peoples' smart sculpture), »MOCCA« (Motion Capturing Creative Area) and »MARTA« (Mixed Reality Art Applications). Working with cultural organizations, designers and artists is an important part of the daily work.

Video documentary:

ZKM | Videostudio

Camera: Andy Koch
Live-Editing: Frenz Jordt
Editing: Andy Koch