Tag Archives: #art&science





















































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!












Impressions of Empathy Swarm at Machines are not alone, device_art, MSU Zagreb
Emotional swarm robots of Empathy Swarm interact with the guests of Zagreb’s Museum of Contemporary Art and proof that Machines are not alone.
The robots and us experienced exciting days: from the robot’s first contact to strangers at the opening on Tuesday to a vivid discussion on ‘Autonomous relations: actions, reactions & tangled sovereign systems’ with artists Luiz Zanotello and Ralf Becker on Thursday and our final goodbye to the robots on Friday, who will now stay till 3. February 2019 all by themselves. Crazy to see the little ones grow up and become independent 🙂
We also want to thank KONTEJNER again for their hospitality and precious help setting up! We always feel very welcome in Zagreb and like part of the big Kontejner famiiy! ♥
Empathy Swarm will be at Device Art – Machines are not alone from 18. December 2018 – 3. February 2019.
(pictures © Kontejner, Sanjin Kastelan, Dragan Matić / HANZA MEDIA, Hochschuh&Donovan)
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
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.





device_art OPENING tomorrow 18. December 2018, 19:00
A little preview on our shiny swarm robots! And a warm invitation to tomorrows opening!
@ Museum of Contemporary Art, Avenija Dubrovnik 17, Zagreb – 19:00!







Empathy Swarm – setting up for Device Art – MACHINES ARE NOT ALONE – at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb
It is fantastic to be back in Zagreb! After our EMAP/EMARE residency with Kontejner this summer, we are now presenting Empathy Swarm at Device Art – Machines are not alone!
“Everywhere it is machines and machines are not alone.” (curator ZHANG Ga)
The major exhibition concept fits perfectly to a swarm of empathetic robots that are waiting to interact with the visitors swarming through the exhibition.
At the moment still busy setting up and fine tuning our work to the space of the museum, but looking forward to a fantastic opening @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Avenija Dubrovnik 17, Zagreb – 19:00!
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
These robots by artists Katrin Hochschuh and Adam Donovan are the most endearing work in the small exhibition at Impakt, center for media culture in Utrecht. The Empathy Swarm consists of a group of small robots on wheels. They form formations, draw towards each other, tapping gently against your shoe. It seems like they want to make contact. Or are those feelings of affection no more than human projection? [...] It is striking that the Empathy Swarm shows how little is needed to generate empathy for an inanimate object. It raises the question why people sometimes have such bad care for their natural environment.
Review of Empathy Swarm in ‘A world without us’ at Impakt
translated from Dutch article “De zieleroerselen van een ‘slimme’ koelkast” by Thomas van Huut for NRC Handelsblad, the Netherlands’ most influential newspaper.











A world without us – Impressions of Empathy Swarm at Impakt
An intense week setting up Empathy Swarm for the very first time, with a great outcome 🙂
The swarm is keeping the memories of what it means to be human and its interpretation of human feelings and social behaviours, alive in – A world without us.
After a fantastic opening on Friday, we joined a panel discussion on Saturday with the other EMAP/EMARE artists Taavi Suisalu, Anna Dumitriu and Alex May, discussing how our works take part in a future scenario that we try to avoid.
Thanks IMPAKT for hospitality, support and intriguing ideas!
(pictures © Impakt Foundation, Pieter Kers)
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Empathy Swarm at IMPAKT from 24 November 2018
Only a week and then the first of the EMAP/EMARE group shows starts for us.
We are happy to be part of ‘A world without us’ at Impakt, Utrecht, Netherlands.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Curious Tautophone on Australia tour – next stop: ROCKHAMPTON ART GALLERY: 13 October – 2 December, 2018
Soon it is the fifth time that Curious Tautophone shows. This time in Rockhampton, Central Queensland at the Rockhampton Art Gallery.
Opening event: Saturday, 13 October 2018 | 06:00 PM to 08:00 PM
And who wouldn’t want to go after such a nice introduction at Australia’s “WIN News” and “9News Central Queensland” both featuring the Curious Tautophone.
“It’s the sights and sounds of a whole new world. – A world of mesmerizing modern media art.”
– reporter Alexandra Cullen at Australia’s “9News Central Queensland”







Making of: Dissection of the robots
We just wanted to share some more impressions of the scale of this state of the project: 10 robots – that’s a lot of parts!!! And even some of the SMD parts are still in boxes as they would just get lost with a size of half a millimeter x a millimeter!!
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
























Open-Studio swarming with our guests
Some impressions of a busy night, full of emotions, enjoying the robots and explaining the backgrounds to our guests.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
OPEN-STUDIO this Friday 31.08.2018 6 PM
Hey everyone!
We would like to invite you to our open-studio in Zagreb at the Academy of Fine Arts at Ilica 85.
Starting from 6 pm we invite you to check out our nice studio that we spent our EMARE residency with KONTEJNER at.
Electronics, etching, 3D-printing, camera tracking, emotion recognition — of course a lot of ROBOTS and FUN 🙂
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.




First steps of Robert and Robertina
Our two omni-wheeled robot prototypes are doing their first steps on the way to create “Empathy swarm” with 100 members for Robotronica at QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia in 2019
From stereo, multidirectional sound, to a sound beam of precision. Adam Donovan and Katrin Hochschuh offer a visual manifestation of what we hear, or as Gail Priest encourages us to question, sounds we may see and visuals we may hear. This brings the rare opportunity to sit with a precise point of sound as it moves through space. The Curious Tautophone robot is controlling the inputs here. I am mesmerized with the fine silver lines that form curves in constant motion, evolving in their formations. Some dancing toward the center, others away from it. Gliding and sliding as the sound too circulates, as I move in and out of conscious awareness of it. Both eyes and ears are invited to follow. Is my latent memory darting out before me, as I see spiders’ legs or feel fingers upon my skull? Lines flipping and flicking to create new shapes. Lines splaying from center to periphery or creating rings. The reflection of the metal robotic head running across the fine lines as circles dancing into and out of swirls. What Priest offered in her meditative voiceover tones I feel here in the constant flows of these fine lines.
Curious Tautophone mentioned in Experimenta Make Sense review in CLOT Magazine
“Experimenta Make Sense” by Lika Posamari in CLOT Magazine
There are some [...] robots that either respond to your presence or condition you to move, like the Curious Tautophone by Adam Donovan and Katrin Hochschuh. This shiny spider of sound and light emits waves in unusually focused webs, making you twist your neck to angle the ears – a bit like a dog whose spatial orientation shifts to make sense of those noisy striations in the air.
Curious Tautophone mentioned in Experimenta Make Sense review in The Sydney Morning Harald
“Experimenta Make Sense review: In the future, the past gets its revenge” by Robert Nelson in The Sydney Morning Herald