This time, we set sails down the internet highway and visit two exciting studios from two different creative worlds in two different cities. On March 14th, Mate Steinforth and Studio Above&Below will come together to host the second installment of Retune’s Virtual Studio Visits! 

Studio Above&Below is a London based art and design studio founded by Daria Jelonek (DE) and Perry-James Sugden (UK). The studio combines computational design and speculative storytelling in order to unravel future interactions, visual languages and experiences with emerging technologies.

Believing in research based digital design, the studio aims to draw together unseen connections of emerging technologies in order to create new interactions between humans, machines and the environment.

The studio offers bespoke physical and digital experiences using Augmented Reality, Motion Design and Interaction Design. Working with cultural institutions such as the V&A, museums such as the Natural History Museum Berlin, scientists and international brands Studio Above&Below establishes meaningful installations which aim to push the boundaries of digital media for future living.

 Mate Steinforth is a Berlin-based animator and creative director. He studied graphic design at the University of Applied Arts Hildesheim and the University of Madrid, Facultad de Bellas Arte. Several stops worldwide including Madrid and New York as a Creative Director at PSYOP - led him to a position as a Partner and Creative Director of SEHSUCHT in Berlin. Mate is now working as a freelance motion designer and director on projects as "The kids want filters" using Augmented Reality and Motion Design. He founded Faux Images - a meeting and platform for showing and exchanging work and networking for the Berlin animation and motion design scene.

✨ Program:

19:30 welcome

19:40 presentation & digital visit

20:15 discussion / Q&A

✨ In order to create a smooth virtual meeting, please follow:

• sign up for the event before
• https://www.crowdcast.io/retune
• try to join us on time
• enjoy the community, ask a question through the chat. 

Let's gather up virtually and have a vibrant insight into the work and home office situation of those two design pioneers.

flora&faunavisions: Founded by Leigh Sachwitz in 1999, flora&faunavisions describes itself as an "innovative creator of emotional moments". By challenging design and technology the Berlin-based studio specializes in multidisciplinary experiences, 360-degree soft-edge projection mapping and responsive data works within theatre and opera productions, live music, fashion shows, and company events.

Waltz Binaire: Founded by Christian “Mio” Loclair, Waltz Binaire is a creative studio for human motion in digital design, a laboratory for creative innovations based on new technology. By applying generative design and artificial intelligence to the process, the studio translates data to meaningful artworks and convert algorithms into creative partners.

Watch the replay here!

Our February studio visit will take place at BadaboomBerlin, a creative place to explore analog and digital media installations. The studio's playful approach to technology and curiosity to combine storytelling, analog, and digital media leads them to create installations for everybody to enjoy. Involving kids and grown-ups in the process of creation they design an open space that allows free expressions of creativity and research while collaborating with museums, theaters, and festivals.

✨ BadaboomBerlin is an interaction design studio for open-minded people and an inclusive space where every age, culture, and diversity is welcome. 

Daniel Huber & Alessandro Maggioni are looking forward to meeting you!

Program

19:00 – Doors
19:30 – Presentation, Playtime & Try out
20:30 – Drinks

Location

BadaboomBerlin
Glogauerstr.19a
10999 Berlin 

FIELD is a creative studio specialised in art and technology, striving to create powerful new formats of visual communication. Together with selected brands and cultural institutions, they work as artists, designers and consultants across strategy and branding, moving image, and immersive experiences.

Boost combines the competences of interaction, product and user experience design, blending curiosity with common sense.

Initially set out to be a hardware startup with the digital prosthesis “Shortcut”, the founders Max Mahal, Lucas Rex and David Kaltenbach eventually became the design service studio Boost.

As a host to our Studio Visit on Oct 22, Boost talked about their journey so far, the projects, how they work and how they failed to make a product concept reality.

studio-boost.com instagram.com/studio.boost/

Berlin-based multi-media artist and design informatics alumni, So Kanno, considers the relationship between human and machine. His work reflects his technical knowledge as well as his insatiable curiosity about the natural world, which allows him to discover new perspectives.

For instance, he translates the synchronization seen in swarming organisms, such as starlings or fireflies, into fluffy-haired robots that communicate via laser beams. They make visible, what nature conceals. Lasermice was recently presented at Ars Electronica festival 2019 in Linz, Austria.

Another exhibition by So Kanno und Takahiro Yang at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media in 2017 examines how visitors and remote-controlled, mobile objects, like a car, a plant, or a catapult interact with each other in a real environment. Any person around the world with access to the exhibition website could log in to one of the devices. Thus, they come alive, provoking new attitudes towards artificial intelligence.

http://kanno.so/

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 VisitMultimedia 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

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