is the knowledge-sharing platform for the 

. Explore the experiments and bold ideas behind the Academy's Fellowship programme, delve into the science behind the projects of our HIDA researchers, and explore the results of international collaborations.

is a platform for discovery and documentation. Each 

showcases a unique artistic-technological research project, with topics as diverse as the use of AI in theatrical design, choreography for and with robotics, and the possibilities for theatre in virtual spaces. Each 

 offers the chance to learn more about the members of our artistic research network. By pooling our knowledge in such a way, creative research into theatre, performance and digital technologies can become more accessible, sustainable, and artistically innovative.

Funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Academy will award a total of 54 fellowships between 2019 and 2022, each lasting for five months. The 

 are designed for people interested in artistic-technical research which explores the possibilities for digital narratives in theatrical spaces, as well as their practical implementation. Fellows have researched a variety of digital methods (motion capture, coding, XR, VR, AR, sensor technologies, robotics, and more) across artistic fields including opera, dance, orchestra and drama. 

Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy

(HIDA), the Academy for Theatre and Digitality has offered joint research fellowships at the interface of digital art and cutting edge scientific research since 2021. The HIDA fellowships are kindly supported by the 

Artificial Intelligence

VR (Virtual Reality)

Interactive

Sound Design

Projection/Mapping

3D Printing

XR (Extended Reality)

AV (Audiovisual Design)

Theater Dortmund
Theater Karree 1-3
44137 Dortmund
Germany
Fon: +49 (0) 231 226 14330

Address and location of the Academy for Theater and Digitality:
Speicherstrasse 17
44147 Dortmund
Germany

E-Mail: akademie@theater.digital
Web: theater.digital

Tax number: 314/5702/9367
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Management Team:

Executive Director
Tobias Ehinger

Administrative Director
Martin Lizan

Director of the Opera
Heribert Germeshausen

Director of the Ballet
Xin Peng Wang

General Music Director
Gabriel Feltz

Artistic Director of the Schauspiel
Julia Wissert

Director of the Children's and Youth Theater
Andreas Gruhn

Director of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality
Marcus Lobbes

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Fellowship

HIDA

PlayOn!

discover cutting-edge digital research in theatre and performance 
meet our research fellows and collaborators in the 

Portal: Academy for Theatre and Digitality

Max Schweder is a digitalist, musician, performer and producer.

He works as a creative coder for the Koproduktionslabor Dortmund (

) and as a freelance digital artist, realizing a variety of projects such as the ARD cultural production Einklang (ARD Mediathek - Einklang).

As a member of the inclusive Un-Label Performing Arts Company (

), he creates accessible stage projects and gives workshops in accessibility and inclusion.

Schweder releases his music as a solo artist under the pseudonym Strange Attractor and together with Tobias Hartmann in the duo CYLVESTER (

). With CYLVESTER he also realizes digital art projects (see e.g. 

Max Schweder is a fellowship alumnus of the Academy for Theater and Digital Dortmund, the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp (BEL) and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. As an artistic researcher at the Conservatoire Antwerp (BEL), he developed interactive performances such as EMPTY MIND (

Schweder studied music production at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (MA) and jazz saxophone at the ArtEZ Conservatorium in Arnhem (NL) (BE).

Website

Max Schweder

In this research it is important to not use visuals as a mere translational system. The main interest — which more and more becomes Max Schweders expertise — lies in working on music and their visuals simultaneously, where one artform reciprocally informs and inspires the other. Decisions and actions echo back and forth during the creative process.

Reactively visualizing all dimensions of a sound, is a complex task. Not only common or just bipolar parameters, such as dynamics, pitch or articulation, but also the more complex relations and connections between sounds can be visualized. Additionally, a sound-reactive virtual embodiment of a performer, provided by e.g. 3D Camera Input - can furthermore amplify the connection between performer and sound.

Many core elements of the code, such as the 

 Object for Pd, necessary for sending analyzation-data from Pd to Unity, have been developed by Collaborator and Mentor 

Recommended minimum Sensor SDK configuration for Windows is: Seventh Gen Intel® CoreTM i3 Processor (Dual Core 2.4 GHz with HD620 GPU or faster) 4 GB Memory. Dedicated USB3 port. Graphics driver support for OpenGL 4.4 or DirectX 11.0.

Azure Kinect SDK (refer to repo for version)

https://github.com/strangerattractor/Soundvision.git

For installation and setup, follow the instructions in the Repository

How many channels can be analysed simultaneously?

Currently 16 audio channels can be constantly and simultaneously analysed

What type of data do you get from the channels?

Loudness of manually chosen parts of the frequency spectrum (float)

Index of a closest match of a list of trained sounds using 

What type of data do you get from the AzureKinect?

Frame Difference, between two frames (2d texture)

SOUNDVISION can be cued manually by clicking the Next/Previous/Reset button in the Pd-Patch, or it can be cued by external Midi-Inputs. Refer to Tutorial-Videos for more info. A cuelist is achieved in the form of a .csv file that is being read by a C#-script in Unity. Different states of visualization are achieved by utilizing Unity's 

 feature. The “playhead” of the timeline is moved to different markers in the timeline, following the cue-list.

SOUNDVISION also has a Script following to the method CYLVESTER uses to cueing its shows, utilizing Midi-Program-Changes coming from the CYLVESTER-Instrument-Setup.


As a musician, performer and multimedia-artist Max Schweder works for the international, inclusive and interdisciplinary performing arts company 

. Un-Label pushes towards a more diverse, mixed-abled cast on stage and challenge themselves to make their performances as accessible to anybody as possible. They use artistic creativity and technology to achieve these goals. With his electro-duo 

, Max Schweder plays concerts and parties all over Germany. CYLVESTER developed their very own visualization 

music-video FRANK by CYLVESTER (2018), showcasing CYLvision:

As a researcher at the Academy for Theater and Digitality in Dortmund, Max Schweder is developing SOUNDVISION, the open source successor of CYLvision.

SOUNDVISION is being developed as an opensource Unity and PureData based artistic toolset for reactive real-time-visualizations of sound, music and movement with the goal of making performances more visually perceivable, also for example for a deaf audience.

Visualization of sound is always interpretation, translation, transformation from one sense to another. Can we generalize this translation? Can we shorten the necessary steps that have to be taken? Or is the absolute subjective, artistic interpretation the key factor to make visuals tangible?

RESEARCH PLATFORM

Academy for Theatre and Digitality

Max Schweder

Digital Artist, Creative CoderFellow

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