Welcome at the Interface Culture program website.
Acting as creative artists and researchers, students learn how to advance the state of the art of current interface technologies and applications. Through interdisciplinary research and team work, they also develop new aspects of interface design including its cultural and social applications. The themes elaborated under the Master's programme in relation to interactive technologies include Interactive Environments, Interactive Art, Ubiquitous Computing, game design, VR and MR environments, Sound Art, Media Art, Web-Art, Software Art, HCI research and interaction design.
The Interface Culture program at the Linz University of Arts Department of Media was founded in 2004 by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. The program teaches students of human-machine interaction to develop innovative interfaces that harness new interface technologies at the confluence of art, research, application and design, and to investigate the cultural and social possibilities of implementing them.
The term "interface" is omnipresent nowadays. Basically, it describes an intersection or linkage between different computer systems that makes use of hardware components and software programs to enable the exchange and transmission of digital information via communications protocols.
However, an interface also describes the hook-up between human and machine, whereby the human qua user undertakes interaction as a means of operating and influencing the software and hardware components of a digital system. An interface thus enables human beings to communicate with digital technologies as well as to generate, receive and exchange data. Examples of interfaces in very widespread use are the mouse-keyboard interface and graphical user interfaces (i.e. desktop metaphors). In recent years, though, we have witnessed rapid developments in the direction of more intuitive and more seamless interface designs; the fields of research that have emerged include ubiquitous computing, intelligent environments, tangible user interfaces, auditory interfaces, VR-based and MR-based interaction, multi-modal interaction (camera-based interaction, voice-driven interaction, gesture-based interaction), robotic interfaces, natural interfaces and artistic and metaphoric interfaces.
Artists in the field of interactive art have been conducting research on human-machine interaction for a number of years now. By means of artistic, intuitive, conceptual, social and critical forms of interaction design, they have shown how digital processes can become essential elements of the artistic process.
Ars Electronica and in particular the Prix Ars Electronica's Interactive Art category launched in 1991 has had a powerful impact on this dialog and played an active role in promoting ongoing development in this field of research.
The Interface Cultures program is based upon this know-how. It is an artistic-scientific course of study to give budding media artists and media theoreticians solid training in creative and innovative interface design. Artistic design in these areas includes interactive art, netart, software art, robotic art, soundart, noiseart, games & storytelling and mobile art, as well as new hybrid fields like genetic art, bioart, spaceart and nanoart.
It is precisely this combination of technical know-how, interdisciplinary research and a creative artistic-scientific approach to a task that makes it possible to develop new, creative interfaces that engender progressive and innovative artistic-creative applications for media art, media design, media research and communication.
CALL for artistic proposals: Laboratorio Laguna PhD on Sail
Conceived in a moment of profound uncertainty and territorial fragility, Laboratorio Laguna attempts to address spatial, ecological and social issues through immersion in the lagoon environment of Venice. In interaction with different media and intervention scales it intends to advocate, document, and produce work. Artists, architects, researchers, and scholars develop new ways contemporary arts interact with the sciences and society. As a collaboration of several collectives, we navigate with an open fleet of boats in the critical zone of the Venetian lagoon. We want to explore pre-Renaissance engineering and forms of interaction between democratic societies and precarious environments; as a practice that might be the future.
Laboratorio Laguna is a project of Biennale Urbana, U5 and Florian Dombois. It is carried out in cooperation with the partner universities Universität der Künste Berlin, Kunstuniversität Linz and the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.
We seek pronounced positions from the visual, performative, film, literary, sound, spatial, and environmental arts including (historical) composition and architecture, who wish to complete an artistic doctorate in this context. There are two PhD positions open, and one would be preferably given to a project, that connects architecture / space and music / sound in broad sense.
We expect:
- The willingness to open up your practice in the making ("sharing")
- The desire to contribute to your field and to enter a negotiation with your respective peers ("challenging")
- During the three week stay in Venice the ability—and willingness—to embrace communal living, inhabiting shared spaces shaped by creative, essential infrastructures and collective sleeping areas
- Also a strong adaptability to shifting conditions and the agility to improvise—both essential for synchronising with the nature’s rhythm and navigating smoothly
We offer:
- 4 years PhD curriculum of low residency
- Laboratorio Laguna, a yearly, three-week workshop in Venice in the Bohemian Pavilion (obligatory attendance; no further courses) including navigational trips into the lagoon
- Personal supervision by a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, the Zurich University of the Arts or the Kunstuniversität Linz
- International PhD network connecting 12 PhD candidates from Berlin, Linz, and Zurich
- A substantial contribution to the costs for tuition and the three weeks in Laboratorio Laguna by the universities (including housing and common activities in the lagoon, excluding food and travel costs)
- There is no further financing associated with the admission
The following documents must be submitted for the application:
- Portfolio of your (artistic) practice
- Detailed curriculum vitae
- Letter of motivation (2-3 pages)
- An exposé is not mandatory, but please draft in your letter of motivation also the direction of your PhD research, especially relating it to one or more topics of the overall Laboratorio Laguna, which are Navigation – Balance – Synchronizing – Collectivity – Hospitality – Body – Absence – Pre-Renaissance Engineering – Democracy – Ritual – Cohabitation – Intertidal (cf. Wind Tunnel Bulletin, no. 15, p. 377)
- Proof of a Master's degree
- Preference will be given to candidates who have a basic knowledge of boat handling, especially sailing and confidence with water and swimming.
We would appreciate a spontaneous short video message (max. 3 min) with you presenting yourself, so we have a chance to get a first impression of you.
Application deadline: April 7th, 2025 Mail to:
Mail to: Susanne Dujardin, susanne.dujardin@kunstuni-linz.at
Dates of the interview: April 30 & May 2, 2025 (via video link)
Upcoming Laboratorio Laguna Academy in Venice: 29/08/2025–14/09/2025
Further information:
laboratoriolaguna.net
Magazin: Wind Tunnel Bulletin N°15: https://windtunnelbulletin.zhdk.ch
In terms of our understanding of research we refer to: Florian Dombois: Art With Some T. A 35 minute essay. download
Selection committee:
Andrea Curtoni (Biennale Urbana / Kunstuniversität Linz), Florian Dombois (Zürcher Hochschule der Künste), Karin Harrasser (Kunstuniversität Linz), Ariane Jeßulat (Universität der Künste Berlin), Giulia Mazzorin (Biennale Urbana / Kunstuniversität Linz), Stefan Neuner (Universität der Künste Berlin), Berit Seidel (U5 / Kunstuniversität Linz)
Contact
Prof. Dr. Florian Dombois
Head Research Focus in Transdisciplinarity
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste
Pfingstweidstrasse 96, P.O. box
CH-8031 Zürich
florian.dombois@zhdk.ch
info@laboratoriolaguna.net
Prof.in Dr. Giulia Mazzorin
Head of space&designSTRATEGIES
Kunstuniversität Linz/University of Arts Linz
Hauptplatz 6
AT-4020 Linz
giulia.mazzorin@kunstuni-linz.at
info@laboratoriolaguna.net
Prof.in Dr. Ariane Jeßulat
Vice President University Board
Berlin University of the Arts
D-10595 Berlin
ajessulat@aol.com