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Symbiotic lab

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A Wing that was a hand – Paula Strundn & Pascal Marcel Dreier

47m Contemporary Leipzig

‍Kuratiert von Leoni Fischer / Symbiotic Lab 
Unterstützt durch das Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen

XR Workshop

18.09.–19.09.2025 Multispecies Studio / Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln

This two-day workshop explores a bird’s lived experience through embodiment and extended reality. The choreographer and dancer Viviana Defazio as well as the artists Pascal Marcel Dreier and Paula Strunden will guide participants through a series of exercises, that investigate orientation, trust and care. In parallel, XR sessions invite participants to envision and inhabit bird-like bodies, experimenting with eggs, nests, wings, claws and finally the sensation of flying. Together, we will weave these experiences into collective discussions on perception, imagination, and transformation.

The event forms part of the artistic research project "A Wing That Was a Hand" by Pascal Marcel Dreier and Paula Strunden, developed during Strunden's media art fellowship (NRW Medienkunstfellow) at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Curatorially guided by Leoni Fischer (Symbiotic Lab), the project explores the (im)possibility of becoming-bird, creating immersive experiences that deepen our understanding of birds, ourselves as humans, and extended reality (XR) technologies.

Viviana Defazio is a freelance dancer, choreographer, workshop facilitator and shiatsu practitioner based in Berlin. Following her studies at the Folkwang University of the Arts, she worked and toured with various choreographers and directors including Anna Konjetzky, Romeo Castellucci, Jo Parkes, Allora & Calzadilla, Sasha Waltz, Akemi Nagao and Stella Geppert.Her choreographic works have been shown at the Berlin Academy of Arts, Humboldt Forum Museum, Bode Museum, Radialsystem, JTW Spandau, Sophiensäle and Tanzhalle Wiesenburg in Berlin, as well as at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. She runs workshops at Radialsystem and Uferstudios in Berlin as well as dance workshops relating to Extended Reality (XR) at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, the UdK Berlin and the KHM Cologne, together with the architectural designer and transdisciplinary artist Paula Strunden. Since 2023, she has worked with Isabelle Schad on creations such as "Studies on Infinity #1", "The Shift of Focus", "Studies on Infinity #2 – Nudity and Landscape", and "Close by – So far", as well as with Sasha Waltz on the choreography "In C".
Paula Strunden is a transdisciplinary artist who studied architecture in Vienna, Paris, and London and is currently based in Amsterdam. She worked for Herzog & de Meuron Basel and Raumlabor Berlin and completed her design-led PhD as part of the Horizon 2020 project TACK—Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing. Her dissertation on multisensory perception through extended reality models (XRM) was awarded the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Prize for Best Research Work 2023/24. Paula's room-scale XR models have been nominated twice for the Dutch Film Award Gouden Calf and exhibited internationally at film festivals and cultural institutions, including the Royal Academy of Arts London, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, MAK Centre for Art and Architecture Los Angeles, Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, Ars Electronica Linz, and Museum der Moderne Salzburg. Paula recently completed the MAK Schindler Fellowship in Los Angeles, with the resulting work set to be exhibited at MAK Vienna. As part of her research into female pioneers in virtual technologies, she founded the educational platform xr-atlas.org, hosts a podcast on women in XR, and has taught at leading European institutions including the Bartlett School of Architecture, Architectural Association London, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Academy van Bouwkunst Amsterdam, and UdK Berlin. In spring 2025 she served as acting Professor for Emerging Technologies and Design at Bauhaus University Weimar,
Pascal Marcel Dreier (Cologne, Berlin) is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher with a focus on human-animal relationships. Pascal studied Art & Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as Media, Design, and Fine Art in Cologne, Vienna, and Schwäbisch Gmünd. His artistic-research practice includes ethnographic fieldwork as well as working with game engines, video games, 3D scanning and 3D printing. Pascal is currently assistant professor of Multispecies Storytelling at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

©Jan Colomer
©Jan Colomer
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