SensUs is an Augmented Reality exhibition that makes visible the invisible processes happening in the urban nature of Karlsruhe. SensUs artists have created virtual artworks interrogating the symbiotic relationship between biological and social processes, tracing historical and contemporary developments of nature–culture, and visualising scientific, ecological and social data.
The SensUs virtual artworks are geo-located in specific urban sites (such as museums of natural history, botanical gardens, city forests, or national parks) where nature–culture manifests in its most intertwined and symbiotic way. By focusing on a more-than-human perspective, the SensUs exhibition challenges the previously dominant anthropocentric view of our environment and envisages the future of Karlsruhe as an inclusive and sustainable nature-culture city.
The SensUs artworks were funded in 2022 as part of the UNESCO City of Media Arts Karlsruhe project funding program for media arts.
Part of the exhibition Media Art is Here (2023).
Runtime: 05.08.2023 – 17.09.2023
Location: Friedrichsplatz and forecourt State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe
Curators:
Daria Mille, Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits (Riga and Karlsruhe based artist duo) will show their first experiments of their new artistic research project “Flower – as an Attractor and Antenna” (in the framework of SNF funded research “Plants_Intelligence”), where artists use AI visualized data sets to explore the aspects of “beauty” in the discussion of vegetal intelligence.
Further exhibition of the SensUs
While rooted and primarily created in Karlsruhe for UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts program, the Augmented Reality exhibition SensUs aims at expanding its nature–culture explorations into the international contexts by connecting with Riga (which is yet to apply for this status), and the UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts Toronto.
The public opening of SensUs – Augmented Nature-Culture exhibition in Karlsruhe will take place on August 5, 2023, during the Karlsruhe Museum’s night (KAMUNA), and it will be on view throughout the entire Media Art Is Here festival.
Expanding its geographical location, the SensUs exhibition will first travel to Riga (Latvia), where it will be on view from September 20, as part of RIXC Art Science festival program, while next year it will expand collaboration involving artists in Toronto.
