2025-07-02 –, Theil C2-4 (22p)
We present and demonstrate the early phases of a virtually co-located collaboration between HKU Utrecht's Artistic XR Lab and Design Academy Eindhoven's Trans Realities Lab. We are exploring the potential for XR-mediated colocation to deliver new interdisciplinary models for educational art and design collaboration across geographic and institutional boundaries.
This dynamic presentation showcases the early phases of an innovative collaboration between HKU University of the Arts Utrecht's Artistic Extended Reality Lab and Design Academy Eindhoven's Trans Realities Lab.
Our session highlights how educational institutions might meaningfully connect physical and virtual laboratory spaces through XR technologies for art and design research and education, demonstrating a pioneering approach to collaborative design education. Building on the Trans Realities Lab's established eXtended Reality – Intraverse Toolkit (XR-IT), we are testing integration of a hybrid sketching environment based on the Social VR platform Resonite.
We showcase an embodied multi-user workflow between Utrecht and Eindhoven as interdisciplinary teams design "The Hybrid Design Studio of the Future." Unpacking how art and design students and researchers collaboratively utilize MoCap, 3D scanning, and virtual object manipulation to ideate, design, and expand spatial narratives based on the laboratories’ physical limitations and the boundaryless virtual environment.
Key takeaways:
• Practical insights into connecting physical labs through XR technologies
• Emerging framework implementing cross-institutional collaborative design environments
• Embodied interdisciplinary collaborative design strategies within hybrid physical/virtual spaces
• Technical considerations for synchronizing inputs/outputs across locations
• Discussion of future development of interdisciplinary art and design collaborations
As educational institutions explore new collaboration modalities, this presentation provides a concrete example of how networked XR transforms design education by creating shared spaces that transcend physical limitations while maintaining tactile qualities of studio-based experiential learning. We see this as an opportunity to engage with the XR community at the early stages of our collaboration, intending to return to National XR day in 2026 for a progress report.
Dr Ian Biscoe - a serial technology entrepreneur with start-up experience in Europe and the USA across the fields of engineering, aerospace, and entertainment. Ian is currently Professor Transdisciplinary Design Networks at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) where his Trans Realities Lab (TRL) is investigating applications of real-time collaborative networked XR in education, design, production and research. Ian leads multiple research programmes in the TRL, including the Horizon Europe / EMIL funded XR-IT (eXtended Reality - Intraverse Tookit), a software and systems framework for distanced collaboration in high-fidelity Metaverse / Distributed Spatial Environments.
Through his arts practice, Studio Biscoe, Ian fuses approaches from many fields of technology, performing and visual arts to create networked performances employing low-latency networks and coalesced space.