7 Mar 2026 – 3 Jun 2026
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Sun – Thu: 10am – 7pm Fri & Sat: 10am – 9pm |
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Oculus, Basement 2 |
Free Admission
Stridulations is a site-responsive, multi-channel sound installation by Vienna-based sound artist Robert Schwarz, devised for the Oculus at ArtScience Museum. Adapted from Schwarz’s long-running research into insect and arthropod communication, the work takes its name from stridulation — a process through which sound is produced by friction between chitinous body parts.
Drawing from over two decades of ecological field recordings and sound experiments, Schwarz transforms these tiny, often unheard signals into an enveloping listening experience. Chirps and pulses drift through the space, forming ever-shifting sonic patterns that mirror the rhythms of insect life and the collective energies of the swarm.
Composed as a looping work for long-duration listening, Stridulations invites a mode of listening in which distinctions between the natural and the synthetic, the individual and the collective, begin to blur. Sound moves around and through the listener, suggesting an acoustic ecology that exceeds human scale and familiar ways of perceiving.
Presented as part of Forms of Life, ArtScience Museum’s wider seasonal focus on insects, ecology and more-than-human intelligences, Stridulations frames listening as a cross-species encounter and foregrounds sound as a medium of relation.
Free Admission
Presented in collaboration with artists and creatives, ArtScience Encounters is an invitation to discover curious spaces hidden within ArtScience Museum’s unique architecture.
Robert Schwarz is a Vienna-based sound artist whose practice sits at the intersection of computer music, visual art and architecture. His work explores listening as an embodied and immersive experience, often blurring the boundaries between sound synthesis and field recording to create richly textured sonic environments.
Schwarz has presented his work internationally at institutions and festivals including CTM Berlin, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Kunsthalle Wien, Ars Electronica Linz and Tokyo Arts and Space. His recordings have been released on labels such as ETAT, ALTER, Gruenrekorder and AVA. He is also the co-founder and curator of PARKEN, a Viennese festival dedicated to adventurous music, and a co-creator of the experimental music series Los Bar, Strookoffer, Laxbar and Relax.
6 Mar 2026, Fri
Time: 6pm – 6.45pm
Location: Oculus, Basement 2
Free Admission
This live performance by Vienna-based sound artist Robert Schwarz marks the launch of Stridulations, extending the sonic logic of the installation through a real-time activation of the Oculus. Conceived as an embodied listening experience, the performance unfolds across the architecture through layered sound and live spatialisation, inviting audiences to linger and listen within the space.
Drawing on Schwarz’s long-term research into insect communication, the performance treats stridulation as both method and metaphor: sound emerging through friction, repetition and collective synchrony. Field recordings, synthesis and live spatial control articulate shifting relationships between the individual and the swarm, the organic and the synthetic, and the programmed and the emergent.
Feb – May 2026
A micro festival of insects, machines and intelligent futures
Signal & Swarm is a micro festival that explores intelligence in all its forms — biological, digital and mechanical. Inspired by the intricate worlds of Insects: Microsculptures Magnified and NOX: Confessions of a Machine, the programme weaves together practices of care, curiosity and co-evolution to invite reflection on urban futures, machine empathy and the hidden lives of insects.
A micro festival of insects, machines and intelligent futures
Signal & Swarm is a micro festival that explores intelligence in all its forms — biological, digital and mechanical. Inspired by the intricate worlds of Insects: Microsculptures Magnified and NOX: Confessions of a Machine, the programme weaves together practices of care, curiosity and co-evolution to invite reflection on urban futures, machine empathy and the hidden lives of insects.
Be a part of the conversation. Gain insights to a line-up of intriguing topics that showcase the best in arts and science.
Fill your world with wonder in a purpose-built screening room dedicated to films that will inspire, challenge and transform.