Bernd Lintermann and Florian Hertweck, DE

Fascinating—or eerie? TRUST AI is an interactive media artwork that addresses the role and significance of the digital transformation in our society. The focus here is digital manipulation and deepfake videos. In dialogue with viewers, the machine collects and rapidly analyzes their answers, facial features, and personal traits in order to create a virtual  avatar: a false self that looks deceptively real. Collecting data enables the machine to simulate an individual and put untruths into their mouth.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used not only to write texts but also to decipher them. The research projects presented here illustrate this by using digital tools and machine learning algorithms to make it easier to read scanned letters, cuneiform tablets, and papyrus scrolls, or even make them legible for the first time. Digital technologies can enrich texts with metadata and also facilitate the processing of large volumes of written documents. Digitizing the physical objects and evaluating the data requires numerous steps – and collaboration between various experts.

Can artificial intelligence (AI) contribute to developments in design, or does it merely serve as a source of inspiration? This installation explores the tension between historic  design classics and AI-generated reinterpretations. Icons from our collection – from the chaise longue to the peeler – are analyzed and then reassembled by means of algorithms. This process generates a seemingly infinite amount of  image material within a very short time. The results range from functional variants to surreal visions, testing the possibilities and limits of generative video and image AI.

Double Truth II brings together a series of revered objects from the Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions found in the collections of the Bihar Museum in India. As part of a research project, hundreds of these works were documented using photogrammetry and assembled into high-resolution 3D models. The installation explores how the interplay of different digital technologies can enable the precise digital copying and interactive reception of these cultural artifacts and sculptures.

Few cultural assets have generated such high-profile, animated debates about rightful ownership and restitution as the works of art from the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria. During the colonial era, the British army plundered the royal palace in 1897 in a “punitive expedition” that was later financed by selling the looted art to museums and collectors. The raw material used in casting the works came in part from the slave trade, which is why claims to the originals are made both in Nigeria and the diaspora. Various initiatives are now seeking ways to make these works accessible in both Western and African museums in the form of digital copies.

The Pavillon Le Corbusier in Zurich was originally conceived as a concrete building, as can be seen, for example, in the plans submitted for the building permit. Heidi Weber, initiator and client of the project, was able to persuade the famous architect Le Corbusier to construct the building in 1967 in steel and glass instead. A digital reconstruction brings the abandoned concrete project to life, while a point cloud scan enables a virtual walk through the pavilion that was actually built. Original plans, a filmed tour, a photo essay, and models let viewers explore the building and trace its design history.

Insects are among the most diverse and colorful of nature’s creations. They are experts in adaptation and survival – and yet the influence of human civilization is putting the future of many of them at risk. Due to their small size, we often fail to take note of their beauty, their existence, or their disappearance. The installation invites visitors to get to know twelve native insect species up close. Digital models made using 3D scans of real specimens can be enlarged and examined from all sides. Observing these insects face to face can change our image of them and break down prejudices– helping us to view them differently in the future.

How does it feel to experience the world with a spider’s senses? The multisensory virtual reality experience lets you feel what it’s like to be a native buzzing spider (Anyphaena accentuata) hunting for prey at night. The spider perceives its surroundings via sensory organs on its exoskeleton that register the slightest air currents and vibrations. This installation was developed as part of a research project combining design, modern technologies, natural sciences, and psychology. The aim is to offer a new perspective to visitors by immersing them in an alternative sensory world, thus raising awareness of biodiversity.

The panorama painting The Battle of Murten was created in the late nineteenth century to mark the 400th anniversary of the historic event and today forms part of Swiss cultural heritage. The painting, around 1,000 square meters in size, has been digitized and is currently the largest digital image in the world at 1.6 terapixels. In the interactive reproduction, augmented with 3D elements and a multifaceted soundscape, the painting can be explored down to the smallest detail. This includes fine differences in how the individual elements and scenes were painted – nuances that were hard to see in the huge original but are now visible in its digital counterpart.

What happens to the costumes from Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet (1922) when they are generated by artificial intelligence and reinterpreted in a digital performance? Triadic Triptych explores Schlemmer’s vision of using geometric shapes to represent the human body by tracking dancers’ movement data in order to transform the iconic original costumes into new sculptural forms.

In their projects, students of the minor Digital Play at  Zurich University of the Arts explore the marionettes Sophie Taeuber-Arp conceived for the puppet play König Hirsch (1918). Inspired by her design approach, they created four new “Playful Experiences” that bring to life the ingenious, systematic interplay of color, form, and movement of the the seventeen figures. The digital reinterpretations of the marionettes underline the timelessness of Taeuber-Arp’s formal language. Interfaces developed by the students let viewers actively influence what is happening on the screen.

The short film is the result of an experimental exploration of the marionette play König Hirsch (1918) by students of the minor Cinematic Narration in Virtual Spaces at Zurich University of the Arts. Generated entirely on the computer, it shows how digital tools can be used to find personal forms of artistic expression in virtual space. With the help of motion capture, students slipped into 3D models of self-designed characters or operated virtual cameras and created digital lighting moods.

Movement plays a key role in Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s multifaceted oeuvre. Her experience as an expressive dancer undoubtedly influenced the design of the marionettes for the play König Hirsch (1918), an aspect that cannot be conveyed in a traditional showcase exhibition. Therefore, the marionettes were digitally recreated based on photographs of the originals and now invite visitors to switch roles in a virtual theater. The spectators become performers who control the marionettes’ movements with their whole bodies.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, CH

Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp designed the stage sets and an ensemble of radically abstracted marionettes for the production of the puppet play König Hirsch at the Swiss Werkbund Exhibition in Zurich in 1918. The playwrights René Morax and Werner Wolff adapted Carlo Gozzi’s commedia dell’arte for the exhibition, integrating contemporary themes such as psychoanalysis and Dadaism as well as contemporary references from Zurich. With their abstract geometric bodies and masklike faces, Taeuber-Arp’s figures illustrate the avant-garde interest in puppetry at the beginning of the twentieth century.

For conservation reasons, Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s original marionettes in the collection of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich can no longer be used for performances. As digital copies, however, they gain new freedom of movement: using a multiuser interface based on hand gestures, visitors’ finger movements are translated into the marionettes’ actions. With precise hand movements, the arms, legs, and bodies of the figures can be animated to perform unusual choreographies. Each movement creates a new, abstract performance made up of colors and shapes.

The versatile artist Fred Schneckenburger founded his own puppet cabaret in Zurich after World War II and his fanciful sketches enjoyed success throughout Europe. With his expressionistic-surrealist rod puppets, he performed plays that criticized the hypocrisy and contradictions of the bourgeoisie. Three of the originals from our collection have been photogrammetrically recorded and digitized for this installation. The original tape recordings were transcribed and updated with the help of a Large Language Model (LLM).