Cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable for climate change and there is an urgent needto become more resilient. This research involves the development of the City climate scanRotterdam (September 2017) methodology to measure, map, scan and assess differentparameters that together give insight in the vulnerability of urban areas and neighborhoods.The research at recent City climate scan / Sketch your city in April 2018 used storytelling andsketching1 as main method to connect stakeholders, motivate action, evoke recognition in ajointly formulated goal, such as taking climate action. The city climate scan also involved thedevelopment of a set of measurement tools that can be applied in different urbanneighborhoods in a low-cost low-tech approach with teams of stakeholders andpractitioners. The city climate scan method was tested in different cities around the globe(Rotterdam, Manila and Cebu) in groups of young professionals and stakeholders in rapidurban appraisals.
Ga in gesprek met ooggetuigen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog ín oorlogstijd bij Erfgoed ’s-Hertogenbosch vanaf 16 november. Via interactieve portretten sta je oog in oog met de Bosschenaren Roosje, Fientje en Jan tijdens gebeurtenissen die hun leven veranderen.De bezoeker ontmoet de Bosschenaren Roosje, Fientje en Jan in de interactieve expositie en kan met hen in gesprek gaan. De Tweede Wereldoorlog krijgt in deze vernieuwende publiekspresentatie vanuit verschillende perspectieven gezicht. Diverse thema's zoals het dagelijks leven, verzet, collaboratie, vervolging en bevrijding komen aan bod. De personen worden geïntroduceerd door historica en Andere Tijden-presentatrice Astrid Sy. De inzet van innovatieve technieken, zoals spraakherkenning, maakt het mogelijk om virtueel een actief gesprek te voeren met de persoon uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Iets dat in het echt nauwelijks meer mogelijk is, omdat bijna alle ooggetuigen van de oorlog zijn overleden.
We De Try: Creative Methods of Storylistening and Storytelling tells the story of a research journey the author underwent in trying to gain a better understanding of diversity and inclusion in higher education. Through insights generated by the exploration of methods of storytelling and storylistening, the research problematises using stories as tools for diversity and inclusion in higher educational institutions. In order to be transformed by that which emerges (storylistening) in a manner that is non-extractive, avoids reinforcing existing power imbalances, and recognises that stories transcend time and space asks for exploring questions relating to practicing care, generosity, and honouring and catering to different needs.
This Professional Doctorate (PD) project explores the intersection of artistic research, digital heritage, and interactive media, focusing on the reimagining of medieval Persian bestiaries through high dark fantasy and game-making. The research investigates how the process of creation with interactive 3D media can function as a memory practice. At its core, the project treats bestiaries—pre-modern collections of real and imaginary classifications of the world—as a window into West and Central Asian flora, fauna, and the landscape of memory, serving as both repositories of knowledge and imaginative, cosmological accounts of the more-than-human world. As tools for exploring non-human pre-modern agency, bestiaries offer a medium of speculative storytelling, and explicate the unstable nature of memory in diasporic contexts. By integrating these themes into an interactive digital world, the research develops new methodologies for artistic research, treating world-building as a technique of attunement to heritage. Using a practice-based approach, the project aligns with MERIAN’s emphasis on "research in the wild," where artistic and scientific inquiries merge in experimental ways. It engages with hard-core game mechanics, mythopoetic decompressed environmental storytelling, and hand-crafted detailed intentional world-building to offer new ways of interacting with the past that challenges nostalgia and monumentalization. How can a cultural practice do justice to other, more experimental forms of remembering and encountering cultural pasts, particularly those that embrace the interconnections between human and non-human entities? Specifically, how can artistic practice, through the medium of a virtual, bestiary-inspired dark fantasy interactive media, allow for new modes of remembering that resist idealized and monumentalized histories? What forms of inquiry can emerge when technology (3D media, open-world interactive digital media) becomes a tool of attention and a site of experimental attunement to cosmological heritage?
Inside Out is an innovative research project that translates cutting-edge microbiome science into immersive, multisensory experiences aimed at long-term behavioral and mental health transformation. Combining extended reality (XR), speculative gastronomy, and narrative therapy, the project enables participants to explore their inner microbiome landscape through taste, smell, touch, and interactive storytelling. This pioneering methodology connects gut-brain science with emotional and sensory engagement. Participants experience their bodies from the inside out, cultivating a visceral understanding of the symbiotic microbial worlds within us. The project includes AI-generated "drinkable memories," microbiome-inspired food designs, haptic-olfactory VR environments, and robotic interactions that choreograph the body as terrain. Developed in collaboration with designers from Polymorf, producer Studio Biarritz, psychiatrist-researcher Anja Lok, and microbiome scientists from Amsterdam UMC and the Amsterdam Microbiome Expertise Center, Inside Out bridges scientific rigor with artistic expression. The project seeks to: • Increase embodied understanding of the microbiome’s role in health and well-being • Shift public perception from hygiene-based fear to ecological thinking • Inspire behavioral change related to food, gut health, and mental resilience The outcomes are designed to reach a large audience and implementation in science museums, art-science festivals, and educational programs, with a view toward future clinical applications in preventive healthcare and mental well-being. By making the invisible microbiome tangible, Inside Out aims not only to inform, but to transform—redefining how we relate to the ecosystems within us.
We had been involved in the redesign of the 4 Period Rooms of the Marquise Palace, also called the Palace of Secrets, in Bergen op Zoom. This design was based on the biography of a historical figure: Marie Anne van Arenberg, whose dramatic life was marked by secrets. Each of the 4 rooms represents a turning moment in Marie Anne’s story: the official marriage, the secret marriage and the betrayal, the dilemma and choice, with, in a final room, the epilogue. These different episodes are reflected in the way the rooms are furnished: the ballroom, the bedroom, the dining room. The Secret Marquise as design and exhibition has brought more visitors to the museum. As designers and researchers, however, we were interested in understanding more about this success, and, in particular, in understanding the visitors experience, both emotionally and sensorially at different moments/situations during the story-driven experience.In the fall of 2021, the visitors’ lived experience was evaluated using different approaches: a quantitative approach using biometric measurements to register people’s emotions during their visit, and a qualitative one consisting of a combination of observations, visual imagery, and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).Qualitatively, our aim was to understand how respondents made sense of Marie Anne’s story in the way in which this was presented throughout the exhibition. We specifically looked at the personal context and frame of reference (e.g., previous experiences, connection to the visitor’s own life story, associations with other stories from other sources). In the design of the rooms, we used a combination of digital/interactive elements (such as a talking portrait, an interactive dinner table, an interactive family painting), and traditional physical objects (some 17th century original objects, some reproductions from that time). The second focal point of the study is to understand how these different elements lead the visitors experience.
