Thomas Wagensommerer
2014–2027

Thomas Wagensommerer

Funded artistic research
Research 2026
Index
  1. R01The Psycho-Ludic Approach2023–26
  2. R02Neuromatic Game Art2020–23
  3. R03Wearable Theatre2017–20
  4. R04Breaking the Wall2015–18
  5. R05TransCoding2014–17
  6. R06NEST2023–24
  7. C01ROBOPSY2024–27
  8. C02Biological Interfaces, Ludic Cultures and Non-human Agencies2022–23
  9. C03Ludological Investigations2024–
Funded research · overview
ProjectProgrammeGrantRuntimeFundingRole
R01The Psycho-Ludic ApproachFWF PEEKAR78710/2023–09/2026€410,903Researcher and artistic staff
R02Neuromatic Game ArtFWF PEEKAR58104/2020–09/2023€369,754Researcher and artistic staff
R03Wearable TheatreFWF PEEKAR41304/2017–03/2020€342,964Researcher and artistic staff
R04Breaking the WallFWF PEEKAR32211/2015–10/2018€211,460Researcher and artistic staff
TMAP (BTW follow-up)FWF Science CommunicationWKP12603/2020–08/2021€49,566Team member
R05TransCodingFWF PEEKAR25902/2014–01/2017€292,073Junior researcher (2014–2015)
R06NESTINTRA, call 2023—10/2023–09/2024€30,000Co-investigator / project contact
C01ROBOPSYWWTF ICT (Digital Humanism)ICT23-02010/2024–09/2027€589,922Artistic contribution and tutoring
C02Biological Interfaces, Ludic Cultures and Non-human AgenciesINTRA, call 2021—2022–2023not publishedArtistic contribution and tutoring
C03Ludological InvestigationsINTRA, call 2024—from 12/2024not publishedArtistic contribution and tutoring

Five FWF PEEK pro­jects with a com­bined approved volume of €1,627,154, plus the FWF sci­ence-com­mu­nic­a­tion follow-up WKP126 (€49,566), for €1,676,720 in FWF fund­ing across six grants. In addi­tion: one INTRA pro­ject as co-invest­ig­ator, and artistic con­tri­bu­tions to the WWTF pro­ject ROBOPSY (€589,922) and two fur­ther INTRA pro­jects. Con­tinu­ous involve­ment in third-party funded artistic research since 2014.

Research project

The Psycho-Ludic Approach

Exploring Play for a Viable Future

FWF PEEK AR787 University of Applied Arts Vienna
2023–26 R01
R01

The Psycho-Ludic Approach

1 Oct 2023 – 30 Sep 2026 (36 months), ongoing
Programme
FWF PEEK AR787 · DOI 10.55776/AR787
Runtime
1 Oct 2023 – 30 Sep 2026 (36 months), ongoing
Funding
€410,903
Host
University of Applied Arts Vienna (100%), Experimental Game Cultures
Lead
Margarete Jahrmann
Role
Researcher and artistic staff
Web
psycholudic.uni-ak.ac.at · FWF Research Radar

The pro­ject devel­ops a psycho-ludic meth­od­o­logy that couples artistic research with exper­i­mental psy­cho­logy and com­pu­ta­tional neur­os­cience in order to inter­rog­ate the motiv­a­tional archi­tec­ture of games. Against mech­an­ics of accu­mu­la­tion, con­quest and win­ning, it invest­ig­ates intrinsic motiv­a­tions (curi­os­ity, par­ti­cip­a­tion, flow, empathic bond­ing) as the basis for altern­at­ive, cooper­at­ive game mech­an­ics. Empir­ic­ally, it employs EEG hyper­scan­ning, the sim­ul­tan­eous record­ing of sev­eral co-play­ers in nat­ur­al­istic set­tings; artist­ic­ally, it stages public games in which vis­it­ors act as co-play­ers and self-research­ers. The inclu­sion of non-human "play­ers" extends the inquiry to agency beyond the human, pos­i­tion­ing play as a test­bed for eco­lo­gic­ally and socially viable forms of coex­ist­ence.

R01 · The Psycho-Ludic Approach

Outputs

Main exhib­i­tion: Mon­keys, Machines, and Multi-per­spectiv­it­ies. Trans­mis­sions from Within the Ludic Mind, AIL – Ange­wandte Inter­dis­cip­lin­ary Lab, Otto-Wagner-Post­s­par­kasse, Vienna, 7 May – 28 Jun 2025. The exhib­i­tion was by the PSY­CHOLUDIC / ROBOPSY research group (PI Mar­garete Jahr­mann) and was informed by AR787, ROBOPSY (WWTF) and INTRA NEST. Open­ing with the per­form­ance 250506_PLRG_Lab­Meet­ing on 6 May 2025; public Lab Meet­ings were held every Thursday. Thomas Wagensommerer was one of the main exhib­it­ing artistic research­ers, con­trib­ut­ing TRIADE, an EEG head install­a­tion with Louise Lin­sen­bolz: avatars of three co-play­ers derived from sim­ul­tan­eous brain-scan data, in sym­bi­osis with heads by sculptor Talos Kedl. Artistic research­ers: Thomas Brand­stet­ter, Stefan Gla­sauer, Clara Hirschman­ner, Mar­garete Jahr­mann, Talos Kedl, Louise Lin­sen­bolz, Georg Luif, Stefan Maier, Barbi Marković, Max Moswitzer, Fabian Nav­arro, Tamás Páll, Thomas Wagensommerer.

Sym­posium: Ludic Flow, launch event of the pro­ject, Vienna, 20 Mar 2024

Pro­ject launch, Chubu Uni­ver­sity, Japan, Nov 2023

What is it like to play a tree, re:pub­lica 24, Berlin, May 2024; Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts / Taipei National Uni­ver­sity of the Arts, Jun 2024

Ange­wandte Fest­ival 2024; CRE[AI]D, Jun 2024; Psy­choludic Shuffle­board and Psy­choludic Engine, May 2024

Autumn work­shop and 501 EEG Card Game hyper­scan­ning exper­i­ment, Sep 2024

Mul­tiper­spectiv­ity (Zoophytosym­bi­osis), Kun­stver­ein Ulm, 7 Dec 2024 – 26 Jan 2025

LUDIC PSY AI ENGINE and ROBOPSY install­a­tion, TEDAI Vienna, Hof­burg, Sep 2025

PLA Spec­tator, Foto Arsenal Wien, Jan 2026

Poster at the XXIX Con­gress of the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­ation of Empir­ical Aes­thet­ics, Phylo­gen­et­isches Museum Jena, May 2026

Psy­choludic Zoo, Ange­wandte Fest­ival, 1–4 Jul 2026

Media: Der Stand­ard, 22 Oct 2025; Ö1, Dec 2025

Publications

Jahr­mann, M. (2023). Ludic Method Ouv­roir. Exper­i­menteller FLOW, Kunst und Wis­senschaft. In: Radikale Uni­versität. Uni­versitäten in Zeiten glob­aler Umbrüche. Edi­tion Ange­wandte, De Gruyter. doi 10.1515/9783111341675-028 · pre­print doi 10.31235/osf.io/4czrk

Demmer, T., Jahr­mann, M., Luif, G., Pelowski, M., & Gla­sauer, S. (2026). Using Artistic Psy­choludic Game Design to invest­ig­ate cooper­a­tion in a three-person EEG hyper­scan­ning study. Poster, XXIX Con­gress of the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­ation of Empir­ical Aes­thet­ics, Jena.

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
Research project

Neuromatic Game Art

Critical Play with Neurointerfaces

FWF PEEK AR581 University of Applied Arts Vienna
2020–23 R02
R02

Neuromatic Game Art

1 Apr 2020 – 30 Sep 2023 (42 months), completed
Programme
FWF PEEK AR581 · DOI 10.55776/AR581
Runtime
1 Apr 2020 – 30 Sep 2023 (42 months), completed
Funding
€369,754
Host
University of Applied Arts Vienna (100%), Experimental Game Cultures
Lead
Margarete Jahrmann
Role
Researcher and artistic staff
Web
neuromatic.uni-ak.ac.at · FWF Research Radar

Respond­ing to the grow­ing market for con­sumer neuroint­er­faces and the attend­ant imper­at­ives of self-track­ing and self-optim­isa­tion, the pro­ject sub­jects brain–com­puter inter­faces to crit­ical, arts-based inquiry. EEG devices are repur­posed from instru­ments of meas­ure­ment into media of self-expres­sion; flow states and brain­wave data are rendered in image and sound within pub­licly per­formed games. The pro­ject for­mu­lated a Ludic Method of repeat­able, rule-based exper­i­ment­a­tion in which test sub­jects become co-research­ers, and in which sig­nals dis­carded as arte­facts in sci­entific con­texts (muscle activ­ity, elec­trode slip­page) acquire mean­ing as artistic mater­ial. Eth­ical ques­tions of neural pri­vacy, data extrac­tion for AI train­ing and self-optim­isa­tion were thereby moved from the labor­at­ory into public dis­course.

R02 · Neuromatic Game Art1 / 2

Outputs

Jahr­mann, M., Gla­sauer, S., & Wagensommerer, T. (2021). SPIKE_Clouds_Cli­mate.Mind. Play con­cert per­form­ance for non-human actors and vari­ous minds. Fest­ival #Hybrid Play #Real­i­tyCheck, Fest­spiel­haus Hellerau, Dresden.

Neur­omatic Brain­wave Broad­casts, You­Tube series, 2020–21; online mul­ti­player per­form­ance with pass­ive brain-data trans­mis­sion, Ange­wandte Fest­ival, 26 Jun 2020

The image is taken. The artist is meas­ured. EEG/Styl­eGAN install­a­tion, Par­al­lel Vienna, Sep 2020

ARG_ALT_Art­iv­ism_Thun­der_Play, multi-plat­form EEG game, CIVA Fest­ival, 2021

Brain Dérive, CARPA 2021; Neuro­philo­sophy Looped, 2021; Pink Noise Brain Jam Ses­sion, Vienna Art Week, 2021

Mind­worm: Nar­ren­turm, AR piece, 2021/22; Nubes Mental, 14th Havana Bien­nial, 2022

Zero Action in the Sav­ings Bank, per­form­at­ive EEG hyper­scan, Otto-Wagner Post­s­par­kasse, Vienna, Jun 2022

KOP­F­GELD, Par­al­lel Vienna 2022 and re:pub­lica 2023; [A]I MAZE, A MAZE Fest­ival Berlin 2023; AI Labyrinth, OHO, 2023

Media: Der Stand­ard, 13 May 2020; FWF scilog, Sep 2023; Spike Art Magazine, Oct 2023

Publications

Jahr­mann, M. et al. (2023). Neur­omatic Play. Pro­ject mono­graph, Uni­ver­sity of Applied Arts Vienna. doi.org/10.57752/uaav_neur­omatic-game-art_crit­ical-play-with-neuroint­er­faces

Jahr­mann, M. (2023). Ludic Method Ouv­roir. Exper­i­menteller FLOW, Kunst und Wis­senschaft. In: Radikale Uni­versität. De Gruyter. doi 10.1515/9783111341675-028

Jahr­mann, M. (2023). Exper­i­mental AI, Art&Play Per­form­ances: Hybrid Ludic Assemblages. In: Drey­fuss, R. & Pluta, I. (eds.), Live Per­form­ance and Video Games. tran­script. Pre­print doi 10.31235/osf.io/jwcfe

Jahr­mann, M. (2023). NFT/UID/UBIK im Meta­verse: eine ludisch-künst­lerische Erforschung. Pre­print doi 10.31235/osf.io/fk42d

Dobrosov­est­nova, A., Coeck­el­bergh, M., & Jahr­mann, M. (2021). Crit­ical Art with Brain-Com­puter Inter­faces: Philo­soph­ical Reflec­tions from Neur­omatic Game Art Pro­ject. In: HCI Inter­na­tional 2021 – Late Break­ing Papers, LNCS 13096, Springer, 558–574. doi 10.1007/978-3-030-90328-2_38

Jahr­mann, M. (2021). Ludic Meanders through Defic­tion­al­iz­a­tion: The Nar­rat­ive Mech­an­ics of Art. tran­script, 257–278. doi 10.14361/9783839453452-014

Jahr­mann, M. (2021). LUDICS: The Art of Play and Soci­etal Impact. In: Franke, B. (ed.), Not at Your Ser­vice. Mani­fes­tos for Design. Birkhäuser, 319–332. doi 10.1515/9783035622751-017

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
R02 · Neuromatic Game Art2 / 2

Jahr­mann, M. (2020). Ludic Games: Play­ful Forms of Insight. In: Mateus-Berr, R. (ed.), Teach­ing Artistic Research. De Gruyter, 55–66. doi 10.1515/9783110665215-006

Jahr­mann, M. (2020). Aug­men­ted Play, Art, and Space. In: Gerber, A. & Götz, U. (eds.), Archi­tec­ton­ics of Game Spaces. tran­script, 249–265. doi 10.14361/9783839448021-017

Jahr­mann, M. (2020). Expan­ded Game Art and Neuroint­er­faces as Means of Produs­age. In: Abend, P., Beil, B. & Ossa, V. (eds.), Play­ful Par­ti­cip­at­ory Prac­tices. Springer VS, 131–147. Pre­print doi 10.31235/osf.io/qn65k

Jahr­mann, M. (2020). PLAN A for I/motions. In: Edlinger, T. (ed.), Machines Like Us. Donaufest­ival reader, Falter, 95–103.

Jahr­mann, M. (2020). Play­ful Forms of Insight. Reflect­ing Teach­ing Artistic Research. Pre­print doi 10.31235/osf.io/7j32f

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
Research project

Wearable Theatre

The Art of Immersive Storytelling

FWF PEEK AR413 St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences
2017–20 R03
R03

Wearable Theatre

1 Apr 2017 – 31 Mar 2020 (36 months), completed
Programme
FWF PEEK AR413 · DOI 10.55776/AR413
Runtime
1 Apr 2017 – 31 Mar 2020 (36 months), completed
Funding
€342,964
Host
St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences (77%), Institute for Creative\Media/Technologies, research group Media Creation; Open Acting Academy – Konservatorium für Schauspiel, Vienna (23%)
Lead
Markus Wintersberger (with Marcus Josef Weiss)
Role
Researcher and artistic staff
Web
research.ustp.at · FWF Research Radar

The pro­ject exam­ines 360° vir­tual real­ity for its dra­matic, nar­rat­ive and struc­tural poten­tial as an exper­i­en­tial form for lit­er­ary mater­ial. Key scenes from Dosto­evsky's Demons, Camus' The Fall and Frisch's Homo Faber were adap­ted into 360° VR shoot­ing scripts. Across twelve exper­i­ments, each isol­at­ing one aspect of the VR exper­i­ence, the team iden­ti­fied the aes­thetic vari­ables of 360° sta­ging and form­al­ised two gov­ern­ing prin­ciples: Points of Ori­ent­a­tion, the dram­at­ur­gical options for ori­ent­ing the user in VR space, and Points of Atten­tion, the means of dir­ect­ing atten­tion and gen­er­at­ing sus­pense. An inter­na­tional expert board of authors, dir­ect­ors, media artists, com­posers and media schol­ars eval­u­ated res­ults annu­ally. The pro­ject was com­mit­ted to open know­ledge, doc­u­ment­ing its pro­cess pub­licly as an open, arts-based research lab.

R03 · Wearable Theatre

Outputs

NOMED & AEON, VR install­a­tion and XR per­form­ance: European Research­ers' Night 2019; #digit­al­nat­ives19, Volk­stheater Wien (Präsid­en­ten­loge), 2019; Zen­t­rale, Vienna, 2019

New Forms of Theatre | XR Stage, Mazovian Cul­tural Insti­tute, Warsaw, 2019

The Messy Shape of Prob­lems, Ars Elec­tron­ica Fest­ival (Out of the Box), Linz, 2019

EuroVR Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence 2019, present­a­tion

VR focus Wenn das Kino die Lein­wand ver­lässt, Diag­onale Graz, 2019

Wir haben eine Wahl. WILDE REPRODUK­TION, 2019

ExMe­dia 2019, St. Pölten UAS, per­form­ance and install­a­tion of stu­dent pro­jects

NACHT­GER­ÜCHE, Volx/Mar­gare­ten, Wien 5 – Die Kunst der Nach­barschaft, 2018

Lange Nacht der Forschung, par­ti­cip­at­ory mixed-real­ity set­ting, 2018

virtu.real – zur Ästhetik des Digitalen, St. Pölten UAS, 2017

Forschungs­fest Nieder­ös­ter­reich, inter­act­ive sta­tion, Palais Nieder­ös­ter­reich, 2017

Cre­at­ors Lab on Vir­tual Real­ity, with sound:frame, 2017

Fur­ther pro­ject dis­sem­in­a­tion: Diag­onale VR work­shop 2018; Frank­furt Book Fair talk 2018; Actor & Avatar con­fer­ence, ZHdK Zurich, 2019; Deutsch­land­funk fea­ture, 2017

Publications

Win­ters­ber­ger, M., Vogt, G. et al. (2020). Wear­able Theatre – Immers­ive Storytelling and The­at­rical VR. XChange Real­ity 2020, CEUR-WS Vol. 2618, 17–22. ceur-ws.org/Vol-2618/paper6.pdf

Vogt, G. et al. (2019). Wear­able Theatre – The­at­rical VR and the Art of Immers­ive Storytelling. 16th EuroVR Con­fer­ence. doi 10.32040/2242-122X.2019.T357

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
Research project

Breaking the Wall

Playful Interfaces for Music Audience Participation

FWF PEEK AR322 TU Wien
2015–18 R04
R04

Breaking the Wall

1 Nov 2015 – 31 Oct 2018 (36 months), completed
Programme
FWF PEEK AR322 (AR 322-G21) · DOI 10.55776/AR322
Runtime
1 Nov 2015 – 31 Oct 2018 (36 months), completed
Funding
€211,460
Host
TU Wien (75%), University of Applied Arts Vienna (25%); in collaboration with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
Lead
Fares Kayali
Role
Researcher and artistic staff
Web
piglab.org/breakingthewall · video · FWF Research Radar

The pro­ject asks which new forms of artistic expres­sion emerge in pop­u­lar-music per­form­ance when play­ful inter­faces for tech­no­logy-medi­ated audi­ence par­ti­cip­a­tion (TMAP) enable inter­ac­tion among every­one present. Par­ti­cip­a­tion sys­tems were co-designed with musi­cians: smart­phones turned into dis­trib­uted sound sources addressed via high-fre­quency sound IDs (no net­work required), audi­ence track­ing coup­ling body, sound, light and space, and real-time stereo-vision track­ing of bal­loons. The sys­tems were deployed in three live per­form­ances and eval­u­ated through focus groups, ques­tion­naires, quant­it­at­ive log data and video ana­lysis, yield­ing design implic­a­tions for TMAP and an open-source tool­set.

R04 · Breaking the Wall1 / 2

Outputs

Break­ing the Wall – Inter­act­ive Sound Per­form­ance, Kup­pelsaal, TU Wien, 2 Jun 2017 (three per­form­ances: iStressT­est, Poème Numérique, The Pol­lut­ing Noise of Sense­less Things)

Sym­posium Break­ing the Wall, Ars Elec­tron­ica Fest­ival, con­fer­ence track, POST­CITY Linz, 7 Sep 2017

null.head, Ars Elec­tron­ica Fest­ival open­ing con­certs, POST­CITY Linz, 7 Sep 2017

Waves Music Hack­days, Vienna, 2015, 2016, 2017 (co-organ­isa­tion)

Open-source release of the soft­ware for all three per­form­ances

Publications

Kayali, F., Hödl, O., Fitzpatrick, G., Pur­gathofer, P., Filipp, A., Mateus-Berr, R., Kühn, U., Wagensommerer, T., Kretz, J., & Kirch­mayr, S. (2017). Play­ful Tech­no­logy-Medi­ated Audi­ence Par­ti­cip­a­tion in a Live Music Event. CHI PLAY '17 Exten­ded Abstracts, ACM, Ams­ter­dam, 437–443. doi 10.1145/3130859.3131293

Kayali, F., Hödl, O., Bart­mann, C., Kühn, U., Wagensommerer, T., & Mateus-Berr, R. (2018). Learn­ings from an Iter­at­ive Design Pro­cess for Tech­no­logy-Medi­ated Audi­ence Par­ti­cip­a­tion (TMAP) using Smart­phones. EAI Endorsed Trans­ac­tions on Cre­at­ive Tech­no­lo­gies, 5(14), e5. doi 10.4108/eai.16-1-2018.153643

Hödl, O., Kayali, F., Fitzpatrick, G., & Hol­land, S. (2020). Large-scale audi­ence par­ti­cip­a­tion in live music using smart­phones. Journal of New Music Research, 49(2), 192–207. doi 10.1080/09298215.2020.1722181

Hödl, O., Kayali, F., Fitzpatrick, G., & Hol­land, S. (2019). TMAP Design Cards for Tech­no­logy-Medi­ated Audi­ence Par­ti­cip­a­tion in Live Music. In: Hol­land, S. et al. (eds.), New Dir­ec­tions in Music and Human-Com­puter Inter­ac­tion. Springer.

Hödl, O., Fitzpatrick, G., Kayali, F., & Hol­land, S. (2017). Design Implic­a­tions for Tech­no­logy-Medi­ated Audi­ence Par­ti­cip­a­tion in Live Music. Pro­ceed­ings of Sound and Music Com­put­ing 2017, Hel­sinki.

Kayali, F., Bart­mann, C., Hödl, O., Mateus-Berr, R., & Pichl­mair, M. (2016). Poème Numérique: TMAP using Smart­phones and High-Fre­quency Sound IDs. INTE­TAIN 2016, Springer, 254–258. doi 10.1007/978-3-319-49616-0_24

Gülden­pfen­nig, F., Hödl, O., Reichl, P., Löw, C., Gartus, A., & Pelowski, M. (2016). TASK: Intro­du­cing The Inter­act­ive Audi­ence Sensor Kit. TEI 2016, ACM, 448–454. doi 10.1145/2839462.2856538

Reichl, P. et al. (2016). The Salome Exper­i­ence: Opera Live Stream­ing and Beyond. CHI EA 2016, ACM, 728–737. doi 10.1145/2851581.2851588 (Hon­or­able Men­tion)

Hödl, O., Kayali, F., Fitzpatrick, G., & Hol­land, S. (2016). TMAP Design Cards for Tech­no­logy-Medi­ated Audi­ence Par­ti­cip­a­tion in Live Music. CHI 2016 work­shop pos­i­tion paper.

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
R04 · Breaking the Wall2 / 2

Plus one PhD thesis (Hödl 2016), five master's/bach­elor's theses at TU Wien, and a tech­nical report on 3D bal­loon track­ing.

Follow-up: TMAP – Tech­no­logy-medi­ated Audi­ence Par­ti­cip­a­tion in Live Music · FWF Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion WKP126 · 1 Mar 2020 – 31 Aug 2021 · €49,566 · Uni­ver­sity of Vienna · PI Fares Kayali · inter­na­tional part­ner Simon Hol­land (The Open Uni­ver­sity) · Thomas Wagensommerer: team member. The pro­ject com­mu­nic­ated the res­ults of Break­ing the Wall to music and media-art audi­ences, prac­ti­tion­ers, stu­dents and pupils on four levels: the­or­et­ical, prac­tical, tech­nical and artistic. Its core was the three-day Music Par­ti­cip­a­tion Days at Waves Vienna 2020 (hack­a­thon, con­cert, panel). Fur­ther out­puts were the open Design Cards To Go plat­form, the Music Hacks Joint Per­form­ance 2020, the com­pos­i­tions NiCE Piece (2020) and NiCE Piece II (2021), and tutorial and con­cert videos. Pub­lic­a­tions include Hödl et al. 2020 (Journal of New Music Research), Kayali 2020 (Journal für Lehr­er­Innen­bildung; chapter in Digitaler Human­is­mus, Wax­mann), and Hödl 2024 (IEEE Access, doi 10.1109/access.2024.3386361; Brick­MusicT­able, doi 10.1145/3701571.3701592).

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
Research project

TransCoding

From "Highbrow Art" to Participatory Culture

FWF PEEK AR259 St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences
2014–17 R05
R05

TransCoding

1 Feb 2014 – 30 Jan 2017 (project website), completed
Programme
FWF PEEK AR259 (AR 259-G21) · DOI 10.55776/AR259
Runtime
1 Feb 2014 – 30 Jan 2017 (project website), completed
Funding
€292,073
Host
St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences (2014–2015, Wagensommerer's period); subsequently the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Lead
Barbara Lüneburg
Role
Junior researcher, 2014–2015, St. Pölten UAS
Web
transcoding.info · FWF Research Radar

The pro­ject examined par­ti­cip­a­tion via social media as an integ­ral part of artistic pro­duc­tion, with the aim of open­ing con­tem­por­ary music and mul­ti­me­dia art to young audi­ences rooted in pop­u­lar cul­ture. An online/off­line com­munity, centred on the blog what-ifblog.net, con­trib­uted to the works through calls for entries and sub­stan­tially shaped the themes and aes­thet­ics of the mul­ti­me­dia solo show Slices of Life for violin, video and soundtrack, as well as the audi­ovisual install­a­tion Read me, which indi­vidual com­munity mem­bers could per­son­al­ise. The­or­ies from media soci­ology and cul­tural stud­ies were applied to the artistic pro­cess, recast­ing the con­ven­tion­ally hier­arch­ical rela­tion between artist and audi­ence as per­meable and mutu­ally influ­en­tial. The pro­ject also com­pared meth­od­o­lo­gies of artistic research and qual­it­at­ive, eth­no­graphic soci­ology.

R05 · TransCoding

Outputs

Slices of Life, mul­ti­me­dia solo show for violin, live elec­tron­ics and video (Bar­bara Lüneb­urg)

Read me, audi­ovisual install­a­tion; first exhib­i­tion at Schmiede Hal­lein, Sep 2015

what-ifblog.net and asso­ci­ated social media chan­nels, treated as a par­ti­cip­at­ory art­work in itself

Publications

Lüneb­urg, B. (2018). TransCod­ing – From 'High­brow Art' to Par­ti­cip­at­ory Cul­ture. Social Media – Art – Research. tran­script. doi 10.14361/9783839441084 (with con­tri­bu­tions by Kai Ginkel)

Lüneb­urg, B. (2016). From 'High­brow Art' to Par­ti­cip­at­ory Cul­ture – A Poten­tial for Change. RUUKKU – Stud­ies in Artistic Research. doi 10.22501/ruu.253119

Research project

NEST

XenoLudic Games and Nonhuman Intelligence

INTRA University of Applied Arts Vienna
2023–24 R06
R06

NEST

1 Oct 2023 – 30 Sep 2024 (12 months)
Programme
Angewandte INTRA (Programme for Inter- and Transdisciplinary Projects in Art and Research), call 2023
Runtime
1 Oct 2023 – 30 Sep 2024 (12 months)
Funding
€30,000 (INTRA 2023; projects of up to 12 months)
Host
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Experimental Game Cultures
Role
Co-investigator; named as project contact on the Angewandte project listing
Web
nest.uni-ak.ac.at · Angewandte INTRA listing · base.uni-ak.ac.at

NEST pilots Xen­oLudic artistic research, a term coined by Tamás Páll for game-based inquiry into non­hu­man play and agency, stra­tegic ali­en­a­tion, crit­ical play and human–machine inter­ac­tion. Start­ing from the obser­va­tion that games model and repro­duce the extract­ive logics of the Anthro­po­cene, the pro­ject asks how non­hu­man intel­li­gence is rep­res­en­ted in video games, how game sys­tems feed the devel­op­ment of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and how ali­en­a­tion can serve as a post-anthro­po­centric strategy that opens mul­tiper­spectiv­ity in play. Meth­ods com­bine crit­ical game­play, weird­ing and mod­ding of machine-learn­ing applic­a­tions, open-source invest­ig­a­tion, role-play, digital world­build­ing and exper­i­mental game design. Res­ults are pub­lished as an inter­act­ive, gen­er­at­ive and gami­fied mul­ti­me­dia archive that inter­leaves spec­u­lat­ive texts, the­or­et­ical ref­er­ences, game­play exper­i­ments and time-based works.

R06 · NEST

Outputs

Public present­a­tion of NEST at Exper­i­mental Game Cul­tures, Uni­ver­sity of Applied Arts Vienna, 6 Dec 2023 (Tamás Páll)

Work­shop on role-play, digital world­build­ing and crit­ical play with EGC stu­dents, Jan 2024

NEST in the main exhib­i­tion Mon­keys, Machines, and Multi-per­spectiv­it­ies. Trans­mis­sions from Within the Ludic Mind, AIL, Otto-Wagner-Post­s­par­kasse, Vienna, 7 May – 28 Jun 2025: an act­iv­ist role-play "nest" by the Hollow group around Tamás Páll on lith­ium mining and its polit­ical and eco­lo­gical con­sequences. INTRA NEST is cred­ited as one of the three research pro­jects inform­ing the show.

Online archive nest.uni-ak.ac.at (beta)

credits Thomas Wagensommerer by name
Artistic contribution

ROBOPSY

Robopsychologists: An Artistic Exploration of Collective Memory through Role-Playing with AI Language Models

WWTF ICT23-020 University of Applied Arts Vienna
2024–27 C01
C01

ROBOPSY

1 Oct 2024 – 30 Sep 2027, ongoing
Programme
WWTF ICT23-020, Information and Communication Technology Call 2023 – Digital Humanism · Grant ID 10.47379/ICT23020
Runtime
1 Oct 2024 – 30 Sep 2027, ongoing
Funding
€589,922
Host
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Experimental Game Cultures
Lead
Margarete Jahrmann · Co-PIs: Thomas Brandstetter, Barbi Marković
Role
Artistic contribution and tutoring; artistic researcher in the joint PSYCHOLUDIC / ROBOPSY exhibition at AIL, 2025
Web
robopsy.uni-ak.ac.at · WWTF

The pro­ject designs a play­ful exper­i­mental system to exam­ine how large lan­guage models curate, inter­pret and dis­tort col­lect­ive memory and cul­tural trauma. Par­ti­cipants act as robo­psy­cho­lo­gists and role-play with LLMs that embody his­tor­ical per­sonae in three scen­arios: adoles­cence in Bel­grade during the Yugoslav Wars, the 1936 murder of the philo­sopher Moritz Schlick, and the 2020 terror attack in Vienna. Apply­ing the Ludic Method, public play ses­sions turn vis­it­ors into ludic cit­izen research­ers and open the "black box" of LLMs. Com­par­at­ive ana­lysis of model out­puts reveals sys­tem­atic omis­sions and biases in how his­tor­ical events are nar­rated.

C01 · ROBOPSY

Outputs

ROBOPSY LLM switcher game, a role-play install­a­tion with five LLMs (GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, Mis­tral Large, Deep­Seek-Chat, loc­ally run Llama 3.1), in Mon­keys, Machines, and Multi-per­spectiv­it­ies, AIL, Vienna, May–Jun 2025

ROBOPSY install­a­tion, TEDAI Vienna, Hof­burg, Sep 2025

Der Stand­ard, 22 Oct 2025

Publications

Jahr­mann, M., Brand­stet­ter, T., & Gla­sauer, S. (2025). ROBOPSY PL[AI]: Using Role-Play to Invest­ig­ate how LLMs Present Col­lect­ive Memory. arXiv:2510.09874

Jahr­mann, M., Brand­stet­ter, T., & Gla­sauer, S. (2026). Col­lect­ive Memory Lapse: LLMs' Omis­sions in Role­play. DiGRA 2026 Con­fer­ence, Ire­land.

Artistic contribution

Biological Interfaces, Ludic Cultures and Non-human Agencies

Games of/in/with/beyond Life

INTRA
2022–23 C02
C02

Biological Interfaces, Ludic Cultures and Non-human Agencies

2022–2023
Programme
Angewandte INTRA, call 2021
Runtime
2022–2023
Funding
not published
Lead
Margarete Jahrmann · Partner: Georg Tremmel
Role
Artistic contribution and tutoring
Web
base.uni-ak.ac.at

The pro­ject explores agen­cies and inter­ac­tion dynam­ics between bio­lo­gical inter­faces and ludic cul­tures. Work­ing with bac­teria, fungi, slime moulds, tissue cul­tures and syn­thetic cells, it builds bio-ludic game inter­ven­tions as play­ful epi­stem­o­lo­gical situ­ations for mutual learn­ing between human and non-human agents, as the basis for macro-spec­u­lat­ive fic­tions. Its out­puts include the Bio­Ludic Lab.

Artistic contribution

Ludological Investigations

Game Design in Terms of Cultural Techniques

INTRA
2024– C03
C03

Ludological Investigations

from 1 Dec 2024
Programme
Angewandte INTRA, call 2024
Runtime
from 1 Dec 2024
Funding
not published
Lead
Simon Huber, Margarete Jahrmann; carried out by the Ludological Symposium
Role
Artistic contribution and tutoring
Web
ludology.uni-ak.ac.at

The pro­ject exam­ines game sys­tems, ana­logue and digital, as cul­tural arte­facts and media-tech­nical arrange­ments. It reads game mech­an­ics as oper­a­tions of dis­tinc­tion, assign­ment and rule form­a­tion, the same basic cul­tural tech­niques that struc­ture read­ing, writ­ing and arith­metic, and tests whether a coher­ent ludo­logy is pos­sible as a dis­cip­line groun­ded in the mater­i­al­ity of play itself.

C03 · Ludological Investigations

Outputs

inter­na­tional work­shop The Ana­tomy of Games. Mater­i­al­ist Invest­ig­a­tions into the Dark Arts of Game Design, FLUX 1, Uni­ver­sity of Applied Arts Vienna, 9 May 2025

poster, Ange­wandte Research Days 2025

Publications

Huber, S. (2026). Paper­work vs. Paper­play: The Media His­tory of Play­ing Cards as a Ludo­lo­gical Cri­tique of Con­tem­por­ary Digital Cul­ture. Springer.

Thomas Wagensommerer

Vienna