Category Archives: Workshop
Workshop Poznan – International Days at Collegium Da Vinci
Some memories of our two workshops on 28th and 29th of October for Polish students at Collegium Da Vinci . Among other workshops during their International Days, students could learn programming of generative geometries that shift their shapes with the input of sound with Katrin or build their own parabolic directional speaker robot with Adam. We hope everybody learned something new!
ORF musikprotokoll – Psychophysics Machines
We enjoyed to be part of ORF’s musikprotokoll 2019!
Our psychophysics machines and reactive field line visuals were in the center of our Robotic performance at esc medien kunst labor on Friday 4th October 2019. The next day we gave a robotic workshop and an insight into the different psycho-physics effects that are the foundation of this piece.
ORF’s radio program will feature the concert soon. We are curious how the surround microphones of ORF’s recording team captured the directional sound sculpture we created! We will keep you updated!
Credit:
ORF Musikprotokoll; FR, 04.10.2019; © NICOLAS GALANI












Swarming for 42 hours at Meta Marathon!
Our Empathy Robots and us had a fantastic time at Meta Marathon 2019 – Robotics at NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf last weekend!
Visitors could get into the role of swarm robots to experience being part of an emergent system. In this playful workshop they could learn the rules and parameters that are the foundations of emotional swarm behavior. From this understanding they afterwards could generate and design their own behaviors for the robots in real-time with a custom-made ‘swarm behavior synthesizer’. Thinking about 7 different emotions – happy – sad – neutral – angry – surprised – afraid – disgusted – the behaviors they generated will become part of the data set for the robots emotional responses.
We had a lot of interest, great discussions and nice feedback with and from visitors while exhibiting the Swarm at the IMPAKT zone of the festival.
During all the 42-hours and during our presentation and talk on Sunday with Klaas Werner from medienwerk.nrw and So Kanno we represented the facet of non-humanoid robots of the festivals theme of non-stop living, working, coexisting and cooperating with robots and introduced the idea of movement as means of a mutual language of man and machine based on Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel’s 1944 Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior.
We want to thank medienwerk.nrw and Klaas Werner for inviting us to talk about the project, its backgrounds, the future of robotic empathy and the role that swarm intelligence plays.
Also thanks to IMPAKT who hosted Empathy Swarm in the IMPAKT Zone at the festival.





















































DEX workshop in Bangkok – 9 fantastic days with students!
From learning the basics of programming Arduino and soldering distance sensors, servo motors and RGB-Leds to the micro-controller to developing a kinematic system that can react to the sensor input and is actuated by the motors. – It was a very busy week for the INDA design and architecture students – With a beautiful outcome and the good feeling that some more students are now enabled to become makers and not consumers of technology!
We are also proud that the results of the workshop were part of the Bangkok Design Week!
Thanks to the DEX team! Especially Hadin Charbel! We had a great time!
DEX workshop in Bangkok – we are coming!
We are looking forward to the first weeks of January and our 9-day DEX -Design EXperimentation – workshop with students from Chulalongkorn University. Under the title “Technology sublime – Preventative medicine for a dystopian future.” architectural students learn about the basics of sensors and electronics to create a kind of activated architecture or a little companion that reacts to environmental stimuli from light to CO2 levels, while thinking about the larger picture and a scenario of how sensed data and a creative mechanism can help the world.





















Lecture and Workshop: Machines in the Landscape of PLEMENITAS for Croatian Art students
The past weekend we spent with a group of students and their professors Ines Krasić, Mirjana Vodopija and Iva Ćurić from the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb in the idyllic village of Plemenitaš where they have one week of lectures and workshops on the topic of SOUND from different experts ranging from mathematicians and physicists to composers, musicians and artists. We are situated in the middle of this field of experts and presented our work and Empathy Swarm in the relaxed atmosphere of an outdoor evening lecture and a workshop “Machines in the Landscape of Plemenitaš” with one of our Psychophysics Machines: Megatautophone.
In a first step we sent the students out to record the sounds that express how they experience Plemenitaš, capturing the sounds of the scenery, ranging from cicadas, birds, bells of sheep to the rustling leaves in the wind. Then they could listen to their recordings through the directional speaker and learn how to modify the sound to improve it for the special nature of the directional speaker, applying high-pass and low-pass filters to get into the correct frequency range. To capture the results of the workshop and as a prototype for a series of “Machines in the Landscape”, we put the Megatautophone into the landscape, giving it the transformed sounds of the landscape as a language to communicate with its surroundings. We shot videos from different positions and used Zoom X/Y microphones next to the cameras to record this ‘dialog’ of the machine with the landscape. The videos and sounds need still to be combined and cut. We will present it soon!
You can get an impression of the overall Plemenitaš workshops in the article ” “Zvučni radovi” proizašli iz matematike i fizike” by Marinko Krmpotić.
We had a great time in Plemenitaš! Thanks to all organizers and our host Vesna Osojnički!
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
WORKSHOP: Psychophysics Machines Jam Session on 26. April in Zagreb
The workshop gives an introduction to robotics, directional sound and visual control ranging from working with mechatronic systems to programming in processing and VVVV to cross-communication using open sound control.
We give an insight into our artistic practice and participants have the possibility to engage with 5 robots and use the tools we normally use to have a jam session together. This includes controlling the movements of the robots, the sound that is played and a custom made visual mixer.
When?
26. April
Duration?
~ 4 hours, start 2pm – open end evening
Format?
informal meet-up at the gallery space,
hands-on jam session: control robots + sound + visuals
Where?
Student Center, gallery
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.