The exploration of new technologies as a creative resource and tool for developing new artistic fields is generally of elementary importance for the further development of the arts. At the DIGITAL ART class, process-oriented and collaborative teaching and production settings enable the critical analysis and appropriation of new technological applications. The labs and facilities set up at the class are of particular importance in teaching and artistic research.

The Fulldome / VR & AR Lab, established in 2013 at the DIGITAL ART class of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, is significantly involved in a number of artistic research projects that focus on new digital applications for fulldome, virtual reality and augmented reality environments. These immersive media environments, which blur the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds, have become ubiquitous. Experimental questions on holistic audiovisual spatial experiences and on topics that are crucial for the future development of our societies are central themes of the research lab. (More)

The Electronic Lab of the Digital Arts Department is a laboratory and a studio supporting teaching, research and self-experimentation with old and emerging electronic media. The lab offers a variety of open source hardware, tools, and resources, such as electronic components, sensors, wearable devices and microcontrollers, for hands-on and artistic creation of interfaces that can be use in combination with a variety of media, software and programming languages.

Grounded at the intersection of art, technology and society, the Lab aims to empower critical and creative thinking, encouraging a top-down methodology and employing deconstruction as a method. This might enclose, for instances, the expression of counterculture movements such as FLOSS, DIY, DIT, DIWO, hacking and hacktivist approaches to digital media, reverse engineer, critical making, and other provocative and artistic approaches that resist and challenge dominant media systems.

The Sound_Art_Lab enables working with sound from a spatio-plastic perspective. Sound is to be understood as consisting of different things in space, as an event with aural horizons and effects that arise as spatially defined interactions of sound waves. Strategies are to be developed through artistic productions to acquire access to sound as an architectural, spatial material in an immersive listening situation.

For this purpose, the Sound_Art_Lab has a 16-channel Ambisonic system in addition to a 2-channel studio system. The workflow in the studio was designed in such a way that recordings with Ambisonic microphones (3D Sound Field Recording) can be mixed with 1-channel recordings, which are spatially placed in the Lab, to create a common acoustic spatial situation. The Ambisonic format used ensures that the resulting (sound) spatial works can be reproduced on different speaker configurations (Sound_Art_Lab - headphones - free installation - dome).