Interactive (+entangled) Spaces and Environments

In times multiple social crises in climate dissonance, learning the craft of designing interactive spaces and environments is entangled with the broader societal contexts that it emerges from and actively transforms. This practice-based, process oriented interaction design course was a response to recent demands by students at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) for courses that address environmental concerns while learning a design skill.

In the first weeks of the course, students explored MtH entanglements with the Oslo river Akerselva by attuning through their senses to the different movements, rhythms and tempos of various other-than-humans dwelling in the river. Students chose a particular spot along Akerselva and returned to it weekly to spend time attending to what they saw, heard, touched, smelled or felt in other ways. They documented their experience with images, videos or sounds and wrote short stories or poems about it. They then brought these materials to class on Tuesdays and worked with them to create simple interactive artifacts using different interaction design software tools. At the end of the class, we opened a space for collective discussion and reflection on both, the artifacts and the experiences that led to their design. The course culminated with the event “Averselka” where 13 students presented hybrid (digital+physical) creatures embodying their course experiences in an interactive environment at AHO with music performed live by members of the Young Ensemble.

Videographer Thomas Hellstenius filmed the event and edited it into a visual sculpture with the same name. Averselka was exhibited at the RSD Conference in October 2024. This is the description that accompanied the piece:

Averselka were one among others at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design’s (AHO) course Interactive/Entangled Spaces and Environments which ran as a 12 week experimental spacetime for exploring boundaries such as ecology and technology through design. Each student spent time with diverse non-human creatures at a specific site along Akerselva and shared their experiences weekly through interactive multimedia artifacts.

Averselka is (with)in Akerselva. Ebbing and flowing with many organic, inanimate, spectral, algorithmic, sonic, symbolic, conceptual, emotional and other beings that met in their wake. A chance for space as time taking cues from another. A glitchy gathering with uncertain boundaries here, there and then. Emerging, entangled and estranged.

The Interactive Entangled Spaces and Environments course grew from a collaboration between AHO and Uroboros. The course content was developed by Enrique Encinas with the help of other members of Uroboros collective. Uroboros archive, which includes materials in audio-visual form but also research publications and other texts accumulated through its 4 year history of festivals and other events, was one of the main reference resources for the course.

Tutor: Enrique Encinas

Students: Anne Sunmin Kim, Maija Hauger, Emilie Berg Eilertsen, Herman Barstad, Jelmer Vervoort, Johan Nicolai Troye, Jonas Noer Fjetland, Magnus Winther, Matilde Skarveland Petlund, Rui Hu, Thea Sofie Fjortoft Ve, Tu Vi Tran Phan-Nguyen, Johannes Maximilian Schnell

Film: Thomas Temesgen Hellstenius

Music: Jonas Evenstad, Erlend Olderskog Albertsen, Ferdinand Schwarz, Madara Eleonora Mežale