AI’s the Thing: Immersive futures in Dance and Performance Research. A HAMLET Living Lab.

Online Panel Session

Think Inside the Box Conference

https://k8.design/think-inside_the-box/

IMPULSE Pre-Hackathon
CREATING IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
WITH DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE
Feb 10-12, 2026 | CoHub, Saarbruecken, Germany

To get the video call link and participate please signup here

https://pretix.eu/K8/hwsnu/

IMPULSE research explores new ways of creating immersive experiences of Europe’s (digital) cultural heritage - this hackathon offers an opportunity to co-develop concrete use cases

Wednesday 11. February 2026
14:00-15:30 CET

AI’s the Thing: Immersive futures in Dance and Performance Research. A HAMLET Living Lab.

This session brings together researchers and practitioners from the HAMLET project, from computer science research institutes as well as dance and performance practice, to explore the future of immersion. Drawing on their experience with XR technologies, the participants ask how immersive practices are changing and what new forms of immersion may emerge from current artistic and technological developments.

Based on concrete projects, the session looks at how generative and interpretive AI influence space, movement, embodiment, and storytelling, and how collaboration between artists, technologists, and intelligent systems may change authorship, agency, and human relationships. Questions of dependency on AI, the personification of AI, and whether AI functions as a tool, collaborator, or competitor are central to the discussion.

Immersion is considered not only as an intensification of experience, but also as a possible space for retreat, reflection, or collective negotiation, raising questions about whether future immersive environments are primarily individual, shared, or socially shaped. 

Facilitator: Mert Akbal, Generative Arts and Design Lab, HBKsaar

Joumana Mourad

Dancer, Choreographer and the Artistic Director at IJAD Dance Company

Joumana Mourad is the founder and artistic director of IJAD Dance Company, where they explore the possibilities at the intersection of performance, science, XR, MR, and AI. Their immersive work transforms conventional spaces - walls, ceilings, and floors - into dynamic stages, challenging perception and fostering collective experience.

IJAD Dance Company works at the intersections of performing arts, technology and science to evolve new creative forms and innovation in the industry, while offering new insights into the human body and advancing movement techniques. This is done via multi-dimensional performances, expert discussion and community projects.

Francesco Cutillo, rMA

Junior Researcher ICK-Academy & Producer, ICK Dans Amsterdam

Francesco trained in performing arts and philosophy in Italy, France, and the Netherlands. He joined ICK in 2023, and has since then been involved in the artistic research, technological operations, and production of projects around dance and new technologies, including the performance-installation Intuition Machine and the HorizonEU research and innovation projects PREMiERE and HAMLET.

The international choreographic arts center ICK Dans Amsterdam was founded in 2009 by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, who have been working together since 1995. Under their vision, ICK has developed into an institute for contemporary dance with three closely interconnected domains: ICK-Ensemble and ICK-Next, a company with its own repertoire; ICK Guest Artists, focused on talent development; ICK Academy, dedicated to research, education and transmission of dance knowledge. ICK is internationally known for its innovative approach to dance and the methodology Double Skin / Double Mind, where the body is understood as a source of physical intelligence, intuition and embodied knowledge.

Dr. Andreas Aristidou

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, Senior Research Fellow at CYENS Centre of Excellence

Dr. Andreas Aristidou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cyprus, a member of the Graphics & Extended Reality Lab, and a Senior Research Fellow at the CYENS Centre of Excellence, with research interests in computer graphics and character animation. He earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Cambridge European Trust fellow, holds an MSc (with honors) from King’s College London, and a BSc from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has previously held research fellow positions in China, Israel, and Cyprus, and has participated in multiple EU-funded projects.

CYENS Centre of Excellence (formerly RISE) is Cyprus’s Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence focusing on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies. It aims to empower knowledge and technology transfer and to integrate academic research with industrial innovation to support scientific, technological and socio-economic growth in Cyprus and Europe. CYENS is a joint venture between the three public universities of Cyprus (University of Cyprus, Cyprus University of Technology, Open University of Cyprus), the Municipality of Nicosia, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Germany), and University College London (UK).

Dr. Marina Stamatiadou

Journalism & Mass Communications, MEng Electrical & Computer Engineering, M3C Group, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki  (AUTH)

Marina Eirini Stamatiadou is a post-doctoral researcher in the e-media Lab of the School of Journalism & Mass Communications. She earned her PhD from AUTH and she holds a diploma (MEng) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from AUTH. She has strong expertise in software engineering, requirements elicitation, and conceptual systems' design and her multidisciplinary profile bridges software, journalism, and communication studies, with a focus on the selection, evaluation, and integration of AI tools and services into digital media workflows and mobile journalism. She has extensive experience in EU R&I projects on applied AI, multimedia processing, and service-oriented architectures for media production and distribution.

Dr. Nikolaos Vryzas

Journalism & Mass Communications, MEng Electrical & Computer Engineering, M3C Group, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH)

Nikolaos Vryzas is a post-doctoral researcher in the e-media Lab of the School of Journalism & Mass Communications and belongs in the Laboratory Teaching Staff of the same school. He holds a diploma (MEng) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from AUTH and a MSc in Information and Communication Audio/Video Technologies for Education & Production.

AUTH is a university in Greece and Southeastern Europe, with 10 faculties, 40 schools and 1 single-school Faculty covering all disciplines. The Multidisciplinary Media & Mediated Communication Research Group (M3C) addresses the complex interdisciplinary demands of contemporary media and mediated communication. Initiated by researchers from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and particularly the Media Informatics Lab (MIL) and the Laboratory of Electronic Media (eMedia), M3C integrates technological and social perspectives on the rapidly evolving media landscape. Its research spans new media theory and practice, media technologies, computational and data journalism, audiovisual production and broadcasting, multimedia and signal processing, machine learning, multimodal intelligent systems, and human–computer interaction. Additional focus areas include media sociology and psychology, media economics, verification and authentication of user-generated content and cultural heritage. M3C brings together a highly motivated, interdisciplinary team capable of addressing contemporary media challenges with a strong, high-dimensional research character.

Funded by the European Union [GA 101178362]. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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