As part of this year’s ViennaUp Festival, HanZzzel took part in the Creative Days Vienna — a gathering spot for creative minds across disciplines. A standout moment: the hands-on workshop hosted by the artificialmuseum, held at the historic Funkhaus Wien.
The Artificial Museum describes itself as a “digital landscape of GPS-anchored augmented reality artifacts and a means of reclaiming public space.” In the Artificial Lab, participants created their own AR experiences — grounded in specific locations, expanding the idea of what public art can be. HanZzzel explored the toolkit, developed initial AR sketches, and engaged in a lively exchange with fellow artists and technologists from Vienna’s vibrant creative scene.
Following the first test runs of these new digital artifacts, the group made their way to the official opening of Creative Days at The Hoxton Vienna. The evening kicked off with two keynotes that left a strong impression: Sean Bidder of The Vinyl Factory / 180 Studios shared insights into immersive audio-visual spaces, while Claire L. Evans — writer, musician, and systems thinker — explored the intersection of art, network culture, and new media futures.
For HanZzzel, both talks provided a timely update to his own creative frameworks. Sean Bidder’s insights into immersive storytelling and the fusion of music, moving image, and architecture echoed HanZzzel’s interest in multimedia experiences and spatial narratives. Claire L. Evans challenged the human-centric view of intelligence by highlighting that our fixation on the human brain is egotistic. She emphasized that intelligence is not solely rooted in the brain but is a distributed phenomenon involving bodies, environments, and interactions, as seen in organisms like slime molds and ant colonies that solve complex problems without centralized control. Her perspective fundamentally challenged the listeners’ mental models, inviting them to rethink intelligence as something far more distributed, embodied, and ecological than the human brain alone.
The evening wrapped up on the rooftop with drinks and conversations that blended the practical with the visionary. It was a day of creative momentum — where new technologies met old questions, and where art once again proved its role as an engine for perspective shifts.
