SΫS DANCE
Sound and scent installation
Arts-based Research-Installation by MUELLER-DIVJAK in the course of the artistic project SENSING
LIVING SYSTEMS at AIL
We are all living systems: sensitive beings embedded in and connected to other living
Systems. The art-based research project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS (SLS) explores how sensory experiences – especially
through smell, touch and sound – can foster a deeper awareness of our interconnected world and provide an understanding of
living, complex systems – whether in nature, society or art.
The work of the artist duo MUELLER-DIVJAK
has given emergence to an as yet intangible being called SΫS. A mythological and at the same time contemporary real being,
who has developed systems awareness. An embodiment that can cope with diverse developments and crises in the socio-, eco-
and techno-spheres and with a wide variety of people and entities – and takes great pleasure in life itself.
2,367 people took part in the scent-based vote which was the fifth installation in the Series of Scenographic Studies Conception
of SΫS – THE SMELL OF A MYSTERIOUS BEING, primarily at AIL Vienna, but also at MIT Boston, the SAR Artistic Research
Conference in Porto, the Austrian Embassy in Bangkok, the Songkhla Art Centre (TH) and other temporary voting booths. Visitors
responded to the prompt: ‘Imagine a being that knows and feels everything about connectedness and interactions. How would
it smell like?’ Voters were able to choose one of six specially composed smells.
The voting results are now presented
in the sixth multisensory installation SΫS DANCE – the SΫS dance floor – which smells and sounds like SΫS. The
scent installation introduces the favourite of the international electorate. Informed by the latest advancements in generative
AI, the sound artist collective of the SLS-research-team aka THE LIVING SYSTEMS meticulously experiments with the dynamic
interplay between human and the machine, interrogating (co-)agency, and expanding arts-based research.
The lyrics
of the four different tracks are based on poetic interpretations of systems theory and quotes from the Systems Awareness
Conference at MIT (2025). The tracks, presented as house and electroclash artefacts in the staged mini club, take up
the idea of emerging SΫS beings and explore spaces of (co-)existence.
SΫS DANCE is an invitation
to immerse yourself into scent and sound, into a human and not-just-human world – for a dance and embodied experience that
celebrate connectedness and empathy. Get yourself connected!
SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS – Exploring the Potentials
of Multisensory Scenography for Systems Awareness
This artistic research project ist based at AIL / FWF/PEEK-Project
DOI: 10.55776/AR 776
