Workshops
WETLAND WORLDS
Biodiversity Lives Here
By Dorothea Rust, Marille Hahne, Jill Scott and invited scientists
Duration
2 Days
Limit
20 Participants
Description
Wetlands are currently one of the most fragile environments on the planet today. Here the dialogues between the species in both the water and the soil creates a precious and vulnerable source for interdependent life. When we ask a wetland pond and its banks, ‘Who lives here?’ a dense chorus responds – from dragonflies, fish, worms’ frogs, microbes and many other species.
Over the last 10 years, one in eight of these species has already vanished! Saving wetland biodiversity is crucial. Discover Biodiversity Lives Here –a series of dynamic workshops uniting artists, biotechnologists and hydrologists to explore the state of biodiversity through innovation, citizen science and creative collaboration. Participants learn how to make live recordings of species moving in water and soil, help scientists make an analysis of local biodiversity using environmental DNA analysis, and monitor water quality and quantity with online iPhone software from hydrology.
Information
In 2025, WETLANDS WORKSHOPS took place at two wetland sites in Switzerland: Mount Zugerberg (Canton of Zug) and the Auried Nature Reserve (Canton of Fribourg). Using a guided hiking format, the workshops brought together 24 artists, scientists, and citizen scientists to explore wetland biodiversity through immersive, interdisciplinary methods. Future workshops will be based on collaborative efforts and can be applied to different countries with Weland landscapes.
Workshop Documentary
Wetland Worlds: Workshops
2025–2026, 25 min.
“Biodiversity Lives Here”
Directed by Jill Scott and Jasmine Chastonay
Collaborating Organizations and Institutions
- SciArt and ec(h)o/art associations (Jill Scott/Marille Hahne/Dorothea Rust)
- Simplex eDNA Winterthur (Kristy Deiner)
- Crowdwater App: Hydrology, University of Zurich (Vanja Maksimovic)
- The Swiss Alpine Club (Arnold Häni)
- Outreach GmbH (Luci Bader)
Storyboarding Science
By Jill Scott, Marille Hahne and invited guests
Duration
5 – 10 Days
Limit
25 Participants
This workshop aims to give scientists and science communicators from all disciplines the basic knowledge to collaborate on documentary films and help them to humanize science through the medium of film and interactive media. It includes storyboarding and storytelling skills, semiotics, critical discussions of film examples and basic production and editing techniques by invited filmmakers. Film students are also encouraged to participate.
Former workshops include:
Kulturama Film and Neuroscience workshop (2013), The Singapore Science Center (2014) and Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) (2016) in collaboration with Life Science Zurich (or in collaboration with the Life Science Zurich Graduate School)
Enhancing sensory perception for Artists and Designers
By Jill Scott and invited neuroscientist
Duration
2-3 Days (including one day for students to work on a specific research parts in partner groups)
Limit
20 Students
This workshop is a unique blend of sensors systems lab exercises from Neuroscience, electronic media, digital art and design exercises and body awareness experiments designed and taught by Jill Scott. It is designed to not only educate students in neuroscience and cognition, but to help them work in a unique way with users or their interactive viewers in the actual process of construction. It focuses on the stimulation of three neural systems, the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Automated Nervous System. The aim is to help artists and designers think differently about sensory stimuli past old fashioned interaction ideas of cause and effect, and to understand cross-modal sensory interaction. The following themes are explored:
Sight
Observation, saccade movements, blink and light reflex reaction, the blind spot, visual acuity, eye dominance, visual impairment and photoreceptor adaptation.
Taste
Understanding taste receptors, relation of taste to visual, olfactory response, trigeminal (hot, cool). Mechanical contributions to “sapictive” perception, location, distribution and thresholds of taste.
Smell
The act of odour detection, smell and taste, adapted nostrils, somatic mapping, chemo-sensors and the role of cilia.
Touch
Touch Reception, distribution of touch receptors, tactile discrimination, temperature, pressure and vibration.
Sound
Deafness, localization and eco-location, inner ear interpretation and action potentials, bone conduction and substitution.
Proprioception
Balance and sound reflex, relative position and tactility, Movement and mind body centring, sight and the sense of the bodies edge. Smell and movement. Environmental effects on the body. Students attend lectures and work in pairs to develop unique approaches to media art and digital design interaction processes.
Comments from participants in Saarbrücken, Germany
– “Very good, things I learnt here were not connected in my mind before now.”
– “The content of the course was amazing and I learnt a lot from their own neuromedia experiments. I totally recommend this workshop.”
– “I enjoyed every part of this 3 day workshop. It was a unique chance to learn about how the percepts works and it gave me tons of ideas for new media art.”
Former Workshops include
School of Visual Arts NY (2013) | Rutgers School of Art (2014) | Nan Yang University, Singapore (2016) | Tasmanian School of Art (2017) | University of the Arts (Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien), Department Digital Arts, Vienna, Austria (2018) | Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, Saarbrücken, Germany (2019)
Redesigning Nature
by Jill Scott and Invited Ecologist
Duration
1 Day
Limit
20 participants (participants work in groups of 4–5)
Originally designed by Christoph Kuffer (ecologist) and Jill Scott (artist). How are artists and designers representing the changing relationships between humans and “nature” today? This workshop is for both scientist and artists, about the challenge for ecosystems to be adjusted through targeted new design concepts. How do we deal with climate change, urbanization, invasive species, or ecosystems eutrophication and the fundamental anthropogenic changes that these cause? Using drawing and brainstorming techniques, the science students work with ideas like: intervention ecology, re-wilding, resurrection ecology or assisted migration and reconciliation ecology.
Former Workshops include
Monte Verita: Conference on Ecological Novelty ETHZ (2011), The ETHZ Integrated biology department Summer School Zurich (2014)
Creativity Workshops
LASERZURICH Creativity Workshops foster collaboration between artists and scientists to brainstorm on themes related to sensory perception, emotional contexts, and global topics such as climate change and artificial intelligence.