For our annual Sommerfest at Retune studio, we brought together the Tech Open Air crowd and our community for a cozy backyard gathering, accompanied by cold beer and and an awesome Lightning Talks session. Thanks to everyone who came over for a chat!

This event was part of the Tech Open Air Satellite program.

This time we visited Selam X – a design studio specialized in visual communication for clients from art, culture and commercial projects.

From Berlin and Hamburg, they work in the field of music, fashion, lifestyle and art to provide design strategies for their clients. Their scope ranges from consulting, art direction and visual identity to webdesign, animation and web development.

The collective worked with numerous big names like Adidas, Nike, Yung Hurn, Zalando, NHB, Universal, Broke Boys, Red Bull, Absolut, Vice and many more.

Program 19:00 – Doors


19:30 – Presentation

20:30 – Drinks

LocationSelam X

Erkelenzdamm 59

10999 Berlin

Website https://selam-x.com

Our April studio visit will take place at Studio HILO, a place to admire precious weavings and spinning machines.

Studio HILO is a Berlin-based studio for digital textile education. They developed a digital spinning machine pretty much like a 3D-printer: The open-source spinning machine HILO is controlled by a software, which allows users to design and produce their own local yarn.

Studio HILO concentrates not only on developing an open source spinning machine but also a community of designers, researchers, small manufacturers and artists for local yarn manufacturing. The studio offers workshops, trainings and cooperations on sustainable yarn manufacturing and design, open hardware machines and digital spinning processes.

We will give a textile life cycle talk, showcase the HILO software and hardware and give you an introduction on how to spin your own yarn.

Sara & Natalija are looking forward to meet you!

Program19:00 – Doors


19:30 – Presentation 20:30 – Drinks

LocationTextilatelier

Blumenthalstr. 8 10783 Berlin

For our studio visit this month we are heading to Bianca and Felix, who will present us their real, virtual and augmented artworks! ✨

The Artists


Bianca Kennedy studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and completed her diploma with a Meisterschüler-degree. Scholarships have brought her to North America, Barcelona, Athens and Tokyo. Kennedy's animations, drawings and site-specific installations were shown at Kunstverein Munich, CCBB São Paulo, C-Gallery Milan and Colombo Art Biennale in Sri Lanka among others. In her analytical stop motion animations she depicts the human abyss and works regularly on photographies and drawing series where she stages self-created miniatures.

 

Felix Kraus is the founder of The Swan Collective and studied media art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and HfG Karlsruhe. The group mixes different techniques like Virtual Reality animations, painting, paper embossment, literature and performance. Works of the collective were shown in places like Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, C-Gallery Milan, Alessandro Casciaro in Bolzano, Kunsthalle Schweinfurt and the Egyptian Museum Munich. 

The Visit

Multimedia artists Bianca Kennedy & Felix Kraus (The Swan Collective) will open the studio doors to present a mix of their latest works. From three-channel installations and drawings to Virtual and Augmented Reality, the participants will be able to dive into the artists' world. Feel free to try out the various VR headsets and go on an augmented treasure hunt through the studio.

Program

19:00 – Doors
 19:30 – Portfolio presentation of Bianca Kennedy & The Swan Collective
 20:00 – Augmented Reality treasure hunt and VR experiences

Location

Bianca Kennedy & Felix Kraus
 Schonensche Straße 5 
10439 Berlin
 
S-Bahn: Schönhauser Allee 
Tram station: Schönhauser Allee/Bornholmerstraße

Located in the listed industrial area Oberschöneweide directly on the Spree, AURORA School for ARtists at University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW) opens its doors for a unique Retune Studio Visit! ✨

The SchoolAURORA School for ARtists offers artists and other creative minds working in Berlin the opportunity to educate themselves about Augmented Reality (AR) and Digital Media as well as to work on their own AR projects in the AURORA Production Lab. 

The VisitDuring the Studio Visit, you will get a glimpse into the work of the AURORA project as well as into the AURORA Production Lab. Cooperating artists Bianca Kennedy, Felix Kraus and Ulrike Schmitz will also be present.

Program19:00 – Doors

19:30 – AURORA project presentation, AR hands-on-session & cosy get-together

LocationAURORA School for ARtists is located on the HTW Wilhelminenhof campus, building H. The best way to get there is to use gate 5 on Rathenaustraße and then always walk straight towards the Spree.

HTW Berlin Building H 
 Wilhelminenhofstr. 75A 
12459 Berlin Phone: 0173 60 255 77 Tram station: Rathenaustr./HTW

Maybe you had a chance to see RLON's Timeline installation at Retune Festival 2018, now you got the chance to meet the makers ✨

StudioRLON is a design and concept studio that creates objects and installations characterized by minimal aesthetics, playful interactions and poetic motions. Their works arise out of an particular interest in meta physics, spatial cognition and experiments with materials, processes and humour.

As children of a rising global consciousness, the three founders understand design as one way to widen our imagination of the future and to encourage individual and confident constructions of realities: “The future is less a shadow of yesterday than a reflection of now. what we think, is what we get. So let us think sassy, brave and juicy. Let us connect the dots not straight but curved. We believe we can contribute to such a liquid thinking, by crafting interactions and narrating stories that trigger awareness and reward curiosity. With the tools of design and the soul of art. So this is what studio RLON creates: objects and narratives for curious spaces.”

TalkRLON will share their perspective and give an overview of the projects they realized so far, as well as a glimpse of the installations they are currently working on.

Program19:00 – Doors

19:30 – Talk

20:30 – Discussion, Drinks and Hang-out

LocationRLON, Lobeckstraße 30-35, 10969 Berlin

You find our studio at Ritterstraße 26. In the backyard look for Entrance "B", take the elevator to 3rd floor, turn left and follow the gangway until the very end til room #315.

StudioOMSTUDIOS is a full-service creative media production company based in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Founded in 2007, they have since acquired numerous opportunities to collaborate with established and respected international brands. Their vision has always been to appreciate and facilitate the whole media production journey, from idea to premiere. That's why they have their own FILM, DESGIN, VFX and POST-PRODUCTION departments.

OMSTUDIOS also offer their clients a full-service 360 VR workflow, app development, interactive media and everything ranging from AR to MR.

TalkTimor Kardum's talk gives an impressive overview of the current developments in VR, MR and AR (in short: “XR”) and describes the gradual journey – although in baby steps – to spatial computing and the AR Cloud, our future. Machine Vision and A.I. play an important role towards the future of AR Cloud but there are still many hurdles and many questions unanswered (technological or ethical ones).

Timor will give incredible examples during the talk which will prove that there is almost no limit to machine learning anymore. In short: We will look at the foundation that is being laid today to create the next revolution in computing, interfaces and how it will become an integral part of our live sooner than we can imagine.

We finished the renovation of our studio (Wheee! ✨) and it is time to invite you over!

On Wednesday, 19th September 2018, we open our doors and show you around. We will give an introduction into the Retune Festival program, you will be able to buy tickets ;) and hang out with our friends and partners who are participating in this amazing program!

Of course, there will be some beers too! 🍻

Future Center Europe is a unique Volkswagen Group facility where a highly creative team of more than twenty nationalities and from all disciplines is given fantastic new challenges. We push the boundaries of technology and progressive digital workflows to develop holistic experiences. Our role as a creative hub is to inspire the entire Volkswagen Group.

We will be presenting a short history of our studio, a short presentation regarding how we work and have a walk through of the building. During the walk through visitors will have a chance to see our facilities, working environment and maybe see some tech-setups that we are working on. As most of our projects are confidential, we will focus more on how we work in this visit.

We will also talk about our recruiting activities since we are growing our UX team, and this visit is a great chance to get people interested in our positions.

This time, everything is a bit different:

• The studio is not in Berlin but in Potsdam and we have a very limited capacity of only 30 people who can attend. So please only sign up when you're pretty sure that you will make it.
• If you sign up, your name (not e-mail address) will be passed on to the Volkswagen Group Future Center Europe to prepare the entrance documents.
• You will need to show your ID (or drivers' licence etc) at the entrance to identify you. Also you will need to leave your phone and laptop at the reception.

Konstruktiv are experts in agile product development and rapid prototyping. Their aim is to help others realize their visions as fast as possible by providing the necessary know-how, design and production skills.

For Retune's Studio Visit @Konstruktiv prepare for serious machine porn and nerd talk galore! They will open the doors to their workshop, show off their tools and current projects. For the extra hungry, food for thought will be served in conversational bits later on.

Program19:00 doors, drinks & prototyping dungeon expeditions

19:30 show-off-and-tell 20:00 more drinks, all talk

undev is a development and design studio working on the cutting edge of interactive media on the web using WebGL, Web Audio and WebVR. From interactive data visualisations, data art, music visualisations, virtual experiences, custom interfaces to micro-games. All running in the web, on smartphones and desktop computers.

Next to their client work undev develops «cables» – a visual creative coding environment and community for developers and designers to create interactive experiences on the web – by connection nodes instead of writing code. cables is currently in private beta.

Program 19:00 doors 19:30 short introduction 20:00 discussion, drinks and hang-out

Based in Berlin and Los Angeles, PCH is a multi-disciplinary Innovation Strategy & Technology Development Studio – connecting science, design, engineering, storytelling and art to transform usage patterns, mindsets and business models. By combining our intuitions, skills and talents they explore game-changing topics, and proactively solve for a new global logic based on alternative economic principles alongside scientific and technological breakthroughs.

PCH delivers in-depth research, uniquely designed & engineered concepts, material & technology solutions, as well as high-fidelity digital and physical prototypes. Their projects involve an alchemic recipe of empathic, engaging and empowering discovery. Enabling clients with the latest culture of creativity and innovation, leveraging relevant methods, tools, processes and mindsets. With partnerships including MIT, Google X Labs, DARPA, JPL, UCSD and NASA, we channel cutting-edge science and technology.

The studio is currently focused on generating integrative solutions through 2020/25, such as participative digi-physical installations, brain-computer-interfaces, holographic devices, advanced HMI-systems, blockchain technologies, non-static & shape-shifting structures, sensing materials, optical & nano-material applications, human-robot collaboration solutions, as well as virtual and mixed reality applications to rethink industrial design and development processes.

Kling Klang Klong is a studio for sound, music and interaction.

We pursue our own research into acoustic scenography by crafting our work around sensor interfaces, motion-to-sound software, generative composition and concepts of interaction.

Program19:00 doors 19:30 short introduction to kling klang klong's work 20:00 music performance LIVE interactive sound and data sonification jam

• free drinks and hang-out -

Niklas Roy is an installation artist, educator and inventor of useless things.

Here's what he says about himself:

"Through my work, I explore art, science and technology, often in the form of humorous installations and machines. I like to make as much as possible by myself, because engineering, constructing and coding is a nice way to keep learning new things. This very hands-on DIY approach also produces many ideas, which inspire projects yet to come.

Additionally, I'm interested in the history and imaginary futures of technology, such as renewable energy and space travel. By working with different materials and techniques, I develop interactive media, through which I share the unique and sometimes bizarre fruits of my contemplations."