RE-ANIMATED explores the intersections of extinction, preservation of immortality. It is a re-imagining of ornithologist Douglas H. Pratt’s memories of the now extinct “Kaua’i ʻōʻō” bird, as told to director Jakob Kudsk Steensen. In the work, a vast virtual landscape based on Kaua’i unfolds and transforms into a photorealistic new world for people to explore. 3D-scanned organic material sourced from both field work and the American Museum of Natural History, as well as real archival audio are all remixed together, alongside algorithmic music composed by Michael Riesman, Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble. Plants, moss, and insects respond to the pulse of music generated in real-time, and the audience’s breath and voice organically impact the virtual atmosphere through the VR headset. As a slow-moving, poetic virtual environment, RE-ANIMATED ultimately investigates how we relate to nature irrevocably altered by human activity. It provokes fresh perspectives on our ecological future, which may become unbound by the physical conditions governing our present reality.

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Creator, producer and main developer: Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Composer and Music Director: Michael Riesman
Co-producer: Toke Lykkeberg Nielsen and Tranen Contemporary Art Center
Music technical director and audio programmer: Jerry Smith
Character optimization: Jeremy Thompson, 2Nstudio
Programming assistance and audio interactivity: Todd Bryant
Bird song visualization: Andy Thomas
Research assistance: The American Museum of Natural History, NYC
Studio Manager: Jazia Hammoudi

Made with support from The Danish Arts Council, Bikuben Foundation, Harvestworks, Mana Contemporary and
Artist Alliance.

In cooperation with CPH:DOX festival (Copenhagen)

Kindly supported by Behörde für Kultur und Medien

Denmark/USA, 2018

Our reality is that of a medial and informative overdose. Data needs to be filtered, prioritized and organized. We interpolate connections from information islands. But what if these interpolations are used for an extrapolated reinterpretation?

Tobias Wüstefeld presents images of Hamburg sculptures, broken up into pieces, supplemented by worlds whose structure can be an echo of the environment or the object itself.

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Director: Tobias Wüstefeld
3D Scan: Uwe Zahn
Programming: Tobias Stärk
Music/Sound: Nikolai von Sallwitz

Germany, 2019

In 1883 painter Claude Monet first rented a house in the French town of Giverny. After purchasing the property and adjoining land, the artist transformed an existing small pond into a water garden with water lilies and a Japanese-style bridge from which he could observe the water and the flowers. From 1899 to 1926, Monet painted more than 250 scenes devoted to the water lily theme, which became what he himself called “an obsession.”

Through a dialogue between Claude Monet and his old friend, stateman Georges Clemenceau, this contemplative VR experience invites the user on a sensory journey starting off in Claude Monet’s garden, stopping along the way at the workshop of the artist and ending in the exhibition rooms of the Orangerie Museum. The user is given the opportunity to relive a perpetual renewal of nature, to explore time and space while immersed in the Water lilies paintings.

This experience is the first episode of the Arte Trips collection, an immersive series in major works of art, co-produced by ARTE.

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Regie: Nicolas Thepot
Original music: George Lepauw (International Beethoven project)
French actors: Georges Claisse (Claude Monet), Didier Bénureau (Georges Clémenceau)
English actors: Geoffrey Bateman (Claude Monet), Peter Hudson (Georges Clémenceau)
Executive producer: Chloé Jarry
Graphic creation & development: Hugo Arcier, Studio N°130
Sound design: Thomas Couchard, NOVELAB
Coproducers: ARTE France, Lucid Realities, Camera lucida productions, Musées d’Orsay et de L’Orangerie, Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion
With the support of CNC – Fonds Nouveaux Médias, Fonds Transmédia de la Ville de Paris
Distribution: Lucid Realities

France, 2018

Das totale Tanz Theater

A Virtual Reality Dance Installation for Man and Machine

Who are humans in the age of technology? What role do they play and how do they interact with the machines that surround them? These types of questions were already negotiated at the Bauhaus 100 years ago. Das Totale Tanz Theater frames these questions today in the context of the development of artificial intelligence by staging a virtual reality dance experience.

Using VR headsets, visitors can immerse themselves in a vast virtual stage where they are invited to activate a “Tanzmaschine” (dance machine) and experience a dance choreography over three levels. The lingering question accompanying them on their journey is the extent to which they are truly able to interact with the space and the machine. The entanglement of human choreography, personal intervention and machine algorithms results in new forms of movement and dance in space. The interplay of dance, scenography, costume design and sound design with state-of-the-art digital technology creates a fascinating artistic world of total theater. Inspired by Oskar Schlemmer’s stage experiments and Walter Gropius’ ideas on total theater, DAS TOTALE TANZ THEATER allows visitors to immerse themselves in this world.

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Idea & Story: Diana Schniedermeier und Maya Puig
Lead VR Creators: Maya Puig, Patrik de Jong, Dirk Hoffmann
Lead Technologists: Torsten Sperling, Sebastian Hein
Executive Producer: Diana Schniedermeier
Choreography: Richard Siegal
Composer: Lorenzo Bianchi-Hoesch
Dancers: Margarida Neto, Claudia Ortiz Arraiza, Corey Scott-Gilbert, DiegoTortelli
Voice: Blixa Bargeld
Creative Producer: Maya Puig
Costumes: Dirk Hoffmann, Nico Alexander Taniyama
Concept: Dirk Hoffmann, Patrik de Jong
Art Directors: Dirk Hoffmann, Nico Alexander Taniyama, Robert Werner
3D Artist Lead: Nico Alexander Taniyama
3D Artists: Christian Rambow, Dana Würzburg
Choreography Programming: Torsten Sperling
Technologists: Dennis Timmermann, Hui-Yuan Tienj
Sound Design: Victor Audouze
Installation Architecture: Unit Berlin
Motion Capture Facilitators: Mimic Productions
Project Management: Thorsten Schwarck, Jochen Watral, Kristin Sperling
Co-Producers: Saskia, Kress, Michael Grotenhoff

Germany, 2019

Das Totale Tanz Theater is a project of Interactive Media Foundation and Filmtank, co-created with Artificial Rome, part of the project Bauhaus Spirit, funded by Fonds Bauhaus heute of the Federal Cultural Foundation and the Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg.