season 2 episode 20 – Robotic Couture: when fashion meets Brain-Computer Interfaces Tech | Anouk Wipprecht and Christoph Guger

Resources and links

Artworks and other topics mentioned during the podcast can be seen in the following links:

• • Anouk Wipprecht
  • GTEC website
  • BR41N.IO hackathon – The Brain-Computer Interface Designers Hackathon
  • Ars Electronica 
  • Agent Unicron Helmet
  • Pangolin dress

All images, courtesy of Anouk Wipprecht

Transcripts

The transcript was produced by an AI, mistakes might appear. 

[00:00:00] Nir Hindi: Hey Christophe. Hey, Anouk. Welcome to Artian podcast. Thank you so

[00:00:04] Anouk Wipprecht: much for the invitation

[00:00:06] Nir Hindi: Maybe before we even dive into our conversation, maybe you can introduce yourself quickly.

[00:00:12] Anouk Wipprecht: Yeah, for sure. My name Anouk Wipprecht and I’m fashion designer. I live in the United States and for the last 20 years I’ve been creating, uh, yeah, sort of robotic dresses and dresses that have like sensors built into them.

And that reacts either to the body, through body signals or to the world around them, sort of, you know, so these addresses are fully equipped with all kinds of cool electronics and, uh, yeah, mostly. Great.

[00:00:41] Nir Hindi: I’m wondering you interested to hear what is about the dresses castoff. Maybe you can tell us briefly about

[00:00:46] Christoph Guger: yourself.

I’m Christoph Guger here based in Austria and I work for a company called Gtech medical engineering. So my company is producing brain computer interfaces and bio signals amplifiers. And this allows us to do different neuroscience experiments and to use it for different biomedical engineering projects. That’s the reason why they’re used in so many universities and hospitals, but also in the industry to realize different plain computer interface, experiments, and views.

It also very often for medical experiments where medical treatments, so we can use it. For example, for us talk patients to improve motor functions and spasticity, or also for coma patients to. Kate with stem so they can answer yes and no two questions by using the brain computing interface.

[00:01:39] Nir Hindi: It’s already sounded like a great beginning for the conversation or robotic dresses, and then hearing everything you do and with technology. And the reason that I actually wanted to speak with both of you is that you managed to build a successful relationship between you and Anoukas the artist and designer and Christoph is the entrepreneurial and technologist.

I’m always interested, is that how even these relationships kind of forms. And one of the things that I’m interested to hear from you maybe is that, what was your area of interest? How did you actually came up to think about those Robotic Dresses

[00:02:15] Anouk Wipprecht: um, well, the robot addresses that think fashion is very expressive, sort of, you know, something that’s can really express us something that’s can communicate something sometimes very privates from us, or maybe something culturally or like religious, even like people use garments to express defense, uh, parts of their identity, rights of their culture.

And also if their emotions. But I think, uh, the garments that we are wearing, they analog, they’re not doing anything for us to really express so I can wear very happy dress in the morning, go out on the streets and be very happy, you know, but in the afternoon I might be, might be really tired and I’m still wearing that very happy dress rights.

So the closing that. I’m wearing currently, they are not living with us. Uh, they are not really reacting to our emotions. And that’s something that I’m interested in.

[00:03:05] Nir Hindi: You have these interests. And then how did you end up finding Christo?

[00:03:10] Anouk Wipprecht: I was doing an artist in residency at, um, at Ars Electronica, which is a really big, uh, center for a sort of new media and some experimental technologies in Linz.

And I told them that I wanted to work with brain signals and it gets into that sort of, and they told me that they knew this company, which is really cool called Ditech and it was near to Ars electronic and near to Lynn’s. So actually cloudyish nuke. Uh, she was one of the persons responsible for the artist in residency program at Ars Electronica.

Uh, she introduced me to Christoph and and we set together and of course there needs to be like some kind of connection. And I think what I understood from their own, like crystal was already known with sort of the experimental nature of our setup. And this is basically how we got in contact and Christoph could tell me a lot about sort of the neuroscience backgrounds on a neuro technology on possibly what light waves to use in order to detect the things that I wanted to detect in 80 unicorn, adverse focus.

So he showed me the P 300 waves of B3 wave and all of that stuff. So that was a very helpful first discussion. And then we went on yeah. Doing of course, other projects.

[00:04:25] Nir Hindi: Obviously you have to be an open-minded technologist/entrepreneur to kind of jump into discussion with artists and designers.

And before I even asked you about what you thought, when you heard this project, did you have a passion or interest in the outbeat before? I mean, how did you end up working without this and designers?

[00:04:44] Christoph Guger: We started already 20 years ago to work with artists and designers and to do exhibition. So playing computer interface, new technology is fascinating and people like it.

And that was the reason that we started very early on to show it to different exhibitions and conferences. And then of course, as electronic is very close to us and they other huge to her, also the arts electronica festival and music. So we made it also into the permanent exhibition and people can just stop by and test where you was playing computer interfaces there.

Then when a new kid appeared, it gave it the very stylish touch is a very interesting new science. So she had this unicorn one agent unicorn project where she mounted the over into horn and V hooked up together. His heard a plane computer interface in order to analyze the plane waves of children, Vida experiencing something and disfigured.

For example, the video recording and is just a perfect project for us. Electronica RDRC electronica. Because they always want to see the combination of artifice technology and new additional cheese specialist is just very new and innovative and fascinating. And it’s the reason why we are now for many, many years in the exhibition and showing different projects with different artists

[00:06:03] Nir Hindi: all the time.

I’m interested to ask you maybe Christophe, because you said you have already been working with artists and designers for twins. And I’m interested what intrigued you 20 years ago to work without this in designer? What is it about this profile of the creatives that you thought worth putting the time, effort and resources?

[00:06:26] Christoph Guger: we have a lot of engineers, you know, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, and so on the programmers and the, they built these hardware and software components, but you also have to show it to the channel public to make them a robot playing computing to face technology 20 years ago.

Nobody had an idea what BCI. Nowadays, you know, it’s all Yvonne in the media. Everybody knows it. But 20 years ago, BCI was, was just knew. There were basically three labs worldwide working on the technology. And one of these labs was in carts where I was doing my PhD. And our first exhibition was for example, in carts for one year.

And we just allowed visitors. Exhibition. We’ll sit down, used to playing computer interface to control a train. And you could move the train with your brain waves in the media TV stations, radio stations. Sharnell Scott, very interested. Everybody wanted to try it out. And this triggered all day, future exhibitions.

[00:07:26] Nir Hindi: So you have this idea, Anouk, and I want to hear more about this project because I think if I’m not mistaken, the first project you collaborated was the agent unicorn helmet. Correct? What is this project? What you were even trying to achieve in this project?

[00:07:41] Anouk Wipprecht: What’s I wants to do as creates a bank, computer interface for children, which would allow to record their focus states and when the focus, state of us being true.

The little camera influenced the design was go on and it would record whatever was happening around them basically. And, for me the, the notion of creating this, uh, like little computer on their heads that they could work with. I think a lot of like, uh, of the ADHD gets results guarantee by the pharmaceutical industry by medication.

But I wanted to create a, basically a little headsets that’s what’s allow for these kids, uh, their, uh, brain signals to be measured. And then also, um, yeah, I have this device to be something instead of numbing out a child using medication. Actually having defy sets could help them understand how their brain

[00:08:32] Nir Hindi: works.

Before this experience with G-Tech? Did you work with other technology companies on a longer term, like you do with the G-Tech?

[00:08:41] Anouk Wipprecht: Um, I’ve worked with, uh, some of the commercially available at that time, uh, like sort of brain computer interfaces, but. That was like around 2013.

Um, I’m not going to name any of the brand names, but for me it was more about EMD. So it’s about missile construction. Mostly each of us have one single sensor on the front of the hats that they say it’s, it’s my recording brain signals. But it’s, it’s more for me EMD missile construction. So they look more at how the missile of the forehead behaves or the eyes, how they, uh, how dyes react to that.

For me, that’s also an effort. Yeah about medical measurements of the brain. For me, it was more about missile you know, willing the frontal part of the face. So this is why I was interested in broken with real brain signals in where you really measured the yeah. The brain instead of a muscle contractions in the foreheads rise.

And that is dead was at that time. Definitely the problem that most of these proclaimed brain-computer interfaces were doing, uh, yeah, sort of more reading off the brain, they said, well, that was not necessarily true. So I was, I wanted to work with like real data basically, and that’s how I got to do.

[00:09:50] Nir Hindi: And this work with a G-Tech you actually worked with engineers, right?

Like with a developing team, I guess, Christoph, you were the person that worked with you. I know, uh, kind of hand to hand I’m interested. How was the experience working you as a designer with engineers, and then I’ll be happy to hear how it feels from your side. Uh,

[00:10:13] Anouk Wipprecht: yeah, for me, it was good because it allowed me for me to create the design.

It was a three-month project, I think even two months on the functional design. So it’s really Fastly spread X rights. I was able to create basically to design, uh, integrates into the prototype, had like a recipe I pay and the rest we have five camera and. And that’s, we then connected to, uh, basically sort of the ends that’s Christoph and his team Steamatic Martin was involved, um, and all of that stuff that they were creating from their sites.

And then we could basically connect everything together and basically start to test it sort of, you know, so, and that’s actually became later on, it became the unicorn BI, which you can also find on the website of detects. So unicorn Stripe, bi.com, and it’s actually also an, a little module. And it’s a BCI that’s Christophe and esteem brought out that we do like hackathons sweats, and you can, uh, you can buy it and you can use it yourself.

So it’s actually a really interesting, and it’s what I say other than the commercial devices, often making these things not necessarily. Yeah. Brain-related like, this is really a sort of a medical grades, BCI that you can really use for artists and developers. So that’s really interesting.

[00:11:26] Nir Hindi: So I have a question over here because I’m trying to kind of tap into the collaborative process.

So obviously it was a collaborative process. You came up with design and then a Christoph and his team, actually a developer in a second case of you will explain you how it looks from your side and what are we interested maybe to hear. K stuff is that, you know, we often tend to think about our descent designers, people that relate to imagination and the intuition and the creativity and the world of engineering and technology is the more, uh, I would say the details oriented down to earth, kind of analytical.

And I wonder how you actually make. Create a bridge between those maybe just misconception of two, those two ways of thinking between the artist and designer to the engineer, a

[00:12:14] Christoph Guger: developer, the us it’s of course an engineering problem. Even if a nuke is onboard solution. There’s a very important hole in the whole development process.

So I’m personally not doing much except of coordination. So I need a lot of other guys who are experts. So I have a team, for example, working on the EEG, electrodes into an unknown came in, we developed these Thai electrodes so that you can easily Mount the each year electrodes. Uh, that’s a very important aspect.

If you want to show playing computer interfaces to the public. And then we were able to develop a wireless EG systems who this was the first wireless system on the market at all. This means the whole system is sitting on the head and it was just much smaller than anything before in this league. It also a lot of new opportunities of what we can do.

And then I need, of course, the electrical engineers developing all the electronic parts. I needed Martin and Leo for doing the software interfacing to, to the, uh, processor board and to the camera. And I need signal processing guys who are collecting information from the EEG data so that you can actually integrate it into my role is just to coordinate and bring everybody together.

and with Anoukwe have the unique opportunity to create very nice showcases for the public, which are much better looking than normal medical devices. You know, medical devices must be functional, but for exhibitions you need something very special. And this is something that we can do very effectively with one.

And, and after the agent unicorn project, we were even able to come up with this unicorn brain interface for the maker-space because a new port does into the maker space. So now we are providing, playing computer interface. Interfaces for the footage channel, developing community, and these triggers again, a lot of new projects because naughty can just use species technology result, having much knowledge about bio-cycle amplifiers or electrodes or a signal processing that’s all included and you can just use it.

So, wait,

[00:14:24] Nir Hindi: you said something very important that immediately intrigued me. Correct me, if I’m wrong from this collaboration and work with a Anouk, you actually were able to develop. I don’t know if to call it component or device that you just said was the first one in the market, is that.

Almost.

[00:14:42] Christoph Guger: So we had a wireless prototype beforehand, which was used for medical applications and research, but it was just too complicated and much too expensive. And together with Anouk, we, we hit the development idea to make it much cheaper, smaller, much easier to use. And now your basic curly can speech on the plane, computer interface, and it gives you the data.

And it’s also much, much cheaper than all these medical devices. And this means everybody can, can this a bite because it’s affordable and use it for a fascinating project.

[00:15:15] Nir Hindi: Amazing. I mean, I loved it because I know now I have a question for you because it’s very, very interesting. What we just heard.

Everyone talks these days about human machine interaction. And over here, I think it’s a classic example that we have sophisticated maybe technology that in the prototype phase that G-Tech has. And then you come in and you make it simple, easy to use accessible. And I’m interested to hear from you. What is the role of designers and artists like you in developing and improving human machine interface?

[00:15:53] Anouk Wipprecht: I think, yeah, for me, it has all to do with where technology and design and interaction design, and, um, just coding and efforting comes together sort of, you know and I think that’s, that’s important. It’s like, I think Christophe cooker and G-Tech have, yeah, such amazing technologies, uh, can be used for a lot of things.

Right. Some people can control robots with it. I create, I can create like robotic dresses. We get sort of, you know, so what is your application? Um, I’m really good at anything around the body, and, uh, like working with that, but I think. Yeah, definitely. I think like an artist can give like a lot of meaning to a product, right.

Can give a certain outputs or sort of an image, official image, uh, what can be done, uh, what can be future efficients or future applications of these technologies. Right. And I think that is about artists are always really interested,

[00:16:51] Nir Hindi: always interested in.

[00:16:54] Anouk Wipprecht: Um, well, I think one of the things is artists like to, to dream, they like to dream of the future, you know?

And, uh, definitely anything that has to do with technology, um, is of course, like there’s a future in that because the possibilities are. The things that we can do right now, we could not do like 50 years ago. Right. So even though we live with technology, the new generations are growing up with it. It’s still a fairly new fields and just possibilities are endless.

And I think that’s really triggers to mind. So for a lot of artists, because we are, yeah, dreamers, we don’t want to know what we can do. Now. We want to know what can we do in 50 years or a hundred years or a thousand years. Right. And I think that is the possibilities and the imagination. Technology is really opening up for us, sort of

[00:17:40] Nir Hindi: great and stuff I’m interested.

I mean, you just said that your role was to coordinate kind of a conductor. I would say of a creative project over here. How did the team in your company actually responded to working with a designer and artist? Do you see influence on the, on the people that. Uh,

[00:17:59] Christoph Guger: definitely it, it adds a lot of motivational the whole team because the outcome is, is nice.

Beautiful. You not immediately acting everybody likes it. And otherwise you are just pulled using an amplifier. You know, it’s, it’s a box with some electronic. So you always need the use case to become useful and nice so that people can like it. A bio signal amplifier is just not good enough to motivate people.

[00:18:25] Nir Hindi: Um, so I’m interested if out of this kind of bringing this type of energy and motivation, why, in your opinion, we don’t see more companies actually working without this on a regular basis because your collaboration is already what, like three, four years maybe. Six years. Great. So I’m interested to hear from your perspective Christoph, why we don’t see more business owners, entrepreneurs, technologies that actually working without these for long period, like you two, six years

[00:18:55] Christoph Guger: already.

I guess you need a lot of research and developme nt ongoing in the company and not so many companies are investing so much money in ID switch, some effort that you have to put in and, you know, now is tuition. It can be difficult to finance projects like that. Then you also have to do it efficiently to bring something quickly to an exhibition.

And we have, for example, a portfolio of products are on this plane, computer interface. Which can vary very rapidly, uh, at tempted to new applications, sweet, small, less made for four sings like that. And that allows us to reactivate quickly. If you’re a robotic device company, you know, it can be a lot of effort to develop something for next year.

It’s

[00:19:42] Nir Hindi: something very interesting that you are saying, because you call it and I will, I will call it innovation. And we hear a lot of companies wanting innovations, but then, you know, you ask yourself, what are the resources and the commitment that goes into that? I think this conversation kind of make me reflect on a lot of things about the business world.

[00:20:02] Anouk Wipprecht: That’s I think what I know is the only way I often companies, sometimes they have the problem and I do we hire this person or what else can we offer? And I’m often like, uh, I might not have to be with the company for the next 10 years. I might jump on a project with them for three months or half a year or maybe a year or one a half year.

So they have the problem, like, do we hire this person? Or what is the ID there? Because there’s not really necessarily a structured. Before offering artists and residencies that companies could do that because you either cause hired or you were like a weird kind of contractor, you know? But now we have programs like artists and residency programs coming in.

I’m mostly actually I worked with a company and I say like, they are like, wow, I knew we would love to hire you, but we just don’t know how. And I’m like, well, have you had. Artist and residency programs, you know, you can come in as an artist for three months and then I’m out of it. You know, we do a project, we have to deliverable, we creates an amazing showcase and then, um, I’m away.

So often I’d seen the problem is that these business directions are not aware of programs like artists residency program. And that’s can be implemented in that company. And, and I’m talking about big companies now, Christoph and Ditech they understand this, they understand like the maker world, they understand the artists and residencies, they know are electronica and, uh, because they’re also smaller company, they’re more flexible.

So that is very cool, you know, so they are able to possibly serve these projects or. Um, make room for a, yeah. Anything like this to happen. And I think personally, what’s, I always say, I think it’s really important to have certain programs like this sort of, you know,

[00:21:43] Nir Hindi: but I’m very happy that you are mentioning it because that’s exactly why I’m recording this podcast with you to actually bring this knowledge to listeners that it is possible to work without these in a technological and cutting edge.

Projects. So, first of all, I’m very happy. You mentioned that because you mentioned knowledge. So I mentioned the resources, I think it goes for both. So there is another project I’m interested that you are working on it now or you just finish it. The pangolin dress

[00:22:13] Anouk Wipprecht: yeah.

Well, it’s a it’s first of all, I really a cool system. It’s basically a new way to detect a really high resolution of, of measuring the brain. That’s a G-Tech and  university to get a came up with. So they have been creating together sort of diesel electrodes, and I’ve run in my hands here. Each circuit boards has 16 centers.

And you can repeat that on the head. So in our productivity repeated it’s time 64. So we have 1024 channels. And the more like, sort of, yeah, the more channels you have better resolution you have of measuring D signals. So that was a really, um, interesting sort of innovation that, uh, . And basically then they ask me, uh, in order to create a design based , on, on this new BCI and what I propose for us to connect each of those 1024 signals to, uh, anything happening in address.

Uh, so in the end we ended up with a direct connection between, uh, yeah, sort of the sensor and address in where every one of the signals that coming. Uh, either make an led go up a changing color, or there’s also motors, little motors integrators within the dress. So they make movements. So each of those channels is basically connected to a, another part of the dress and then addresses lightening up and moving based on these signals, sort of, you know, that’s yeah, the dress, I think is school, but it real technology and real innovation is the BCI the sort of the whole sensory area.

[00:23:45] Nir Hindi: It’s interesting. Let me make sure that I understood. So the first project, the agent unicorn helmet is that you had an idea and you search for what technology. Yes. But in this project, Christoph developed a technology and came to you. Yes,

[00:24:02] Anouk Wipprecht: correct. And that is, I think the fun thing about collaboration, because sometimes I have something in my hats and I’m emailing Chris stuff like, Hey Chris stuff, is this possible?

Can we do this? And he’s like, yes, I knew or know. I knew, you know, and then sometimes I come up with something and go to Christoph and sometimes Christoph has something and he’s like, Hey, let me check with know if this is interesting for her. And I think daddy’s really about like having fruitful collaborations like that, you are able to.

Play with each other on that level. And I think that is really important for me as a developer and also something that I, that I kept the most fun out of, you know, or flight going on this, on this playground together on this road together, you go into this little trifle together right. Of what this can be.

And so, yeah, in our case, we had two very successful.

[00:24:49] Nir Hindi: Great. I mean, I think you already kind of answered the next question that I have, but I want to hear Kristoff opinion and I wonder what makes this relationship successful?

[00:24:58] Christoph Guger: There was even one step in between the agent unicorn and the pangolin dress. So based on the first project, we started a tree to the earth to do paint, computer interface hackathons, and we developed a pre-new serious.

So in this case or programmers, designers, aritsts and just interested, people are meeting foot. And we organized our first Hekaton at us electronica festival and we got to around 100 people attending and clearly designing their own plane, computer interfaces. And we also had speedy painters and people from the art school using swing.

To design the really good looking and different EEG headsets. Normally EEG electrodes are mounted with caps. They’re not very innovative and doing the ass electronica hackathon came really or previous very nice ideas. There was also a lady, Catalina Maya Hoffa she came in a couple of high school students.

So they are studying at the design school in the, we are also coming with their own Swingman. And these signed really good looking EEG kept doing the hackathon. And there was one lady in the coop who designed the cap that had scales on it. And this looked a little bit like a penguin. This is actually where the idea is coming from to develop the pangolin plus and in the neuroscience community DV half.

The problem is the spatial resolution of each year looked hot. So normally they’re spaced from each other 2.5 centimeter, sweet spot one inch. And this gives us a certain resolution what the plane computer interface can detect. So we stand at the GB can, for example, figure out different person imagines the left-hand movement or a high-tech hand.

But we cannot decode single fingers from each other. And for that reason, our development teams sought about the solution. Uh, so we needed a much higher density of each. He sensors on the head to be able to decode, uh, pinky finger movement from index finger movement, and dumping of movement and so on. And I know keys is just showing the itself.

So with this system, we can Mount 1024 channels on the. The standard is 64 channels. And this is just a first system that allows you to decode single finger movements with non-invasive technology. Normally you need a neurosurgeon. He would open this Culp put in the each year, electrodes directly on the cortex to give you this resolution and Vista

We developed all the technology to do this. Noninvasively took care of an Oak and we showed it also as electronica to the general

[00:27:38] Nir Hindi: public. Again, you give a kind of a example for successful layer, relationship and collaboration that leads to innovation in new product. And just like you mentioned, being able to identify movement in fingers, only with a person doing it.

And now you found a way to do it with technology. And it brings me back to the question why this relationship between you and a Anouk successful, how can other technologies, business owners, entrepreneurs can replicate, or at least try to build these type of relationship? What makes the relationship from your side, at least with our new, so successful.

[00:28:17] Christoph Guger: Uh, I know exactly what to get you for work with. And this is because we are working so many years together. I just have to cope with. And then the ping pong a little bit and develop it. And if we do something, then we know from the beginning that this will be good, her. So nobody is wasting time. So, you

[00:28:35] Nir Hindi: know, you’re saying something interesting because your whole approach and listening to you, it’s very exploratory, but at the same time, you’ll say, I know what I’m getting, and I’m interested how, when you say I know what I’m getting, but the whole approach is very exploratory.

What is this one thing that you know, that you are.

[00:28:56] Christoph Guger: You know, people are only good if they do some, seeing hard in the new for 20 years, her, her dresses and her design style. And this is what she always does. And so I know exactly what she will put Hughes also in few 22, you’re doing also the same. We developed BCI.

And we want to make it as good as possible. sweets were easy to come up with new ideas. If an Oak would change her style every two years, it would be useless for us, but it’s important that somebody is consistent in and a good in what is.

[00:29:30] Nir Hindi: And I know your thoughts on that. What makes successful relationship?

[00:29:34] Anouk Wipprecht: Uh, Christopher mentioned, um, I think we both love experiments, but we are also very practical humans. If I’m an artist and I’m very disorganized and I might not be as technical and all of that stuff is, might not have works out, but we are both.

We have the same mindsets and we have the same obsession for something, right. We want to make something work. We want to innovate on something and it’s, um, I think it’s all about passion and flow and compatible personalities in debts in that. Um, working with crystal for me is really great because he, in a sense, the art side, he understands the technology sites and he also understands, um, just anything around the, from psychology to.

The fashion element sort of, you know, so even if fashion is not Crystal’s world, he knows that we can do something in there. And I think that’s all about again, complimentary rates rates that you have towards each other. And that’s really makes, um, I think collaborations really work well or, you really districts if, because it needs to really align sort of with each other so.

If I’m working with a company, maybe not everybody in the company is, um, like-minded like me rights, but there are some people in that company that’s have the same mindset sort of, and that’s important too, to have those people by your side because they understand you, you, you speak the same language.

If you’re not in the same field, you speak the same language and you have the same goals and mindsets.

[00:31:04] Nir Hindi: Interesting not to be in the same field, but speak the same language again. I’m kind of reinforcing this message because often when I speak with business owners and entrepreneurs, technologies that are not familiar without this, they think it’s a totally different language that they cannot comprehend.

So I’m happy you’re bringing it up. So I have a question I know for you because we kind of played with the words out, design out is designer. What is the difference between out in design? That’s

[00:31:32] Anouk Wipprecht: a good question. Yeah. I think in art, you really just explore the world around you. It might be a little bit more, um, state mental design is sometimes a little bit more flexible.

It’s very UX base. Uh, it needs to work. It needs to surface. Uh, ProQuest, right? It needs to be pretty, pretty lexical. sometimes the sign is there to create an emotion, but it’s not, not the main parts. And I think art has as a main part to create or to make people consider certain emotions in a more dramatic way.

So I think that the sign is there definitely to also create an emotion. We can see something beautiful or ugly or, you know, and really enjoy. But, I think the, the main parts of this purpose of art is to yeah. To create certain emotion to be considered. And sometimes that’s going, can be a fairly dramatic emotion.

Right. The artist really wants to awaken something in. Well, mostly predict, assign really wants to make a beautiful product, sort of it’s a little bit less extreme and a little bit less radical. And it’s definitely, for me, it’s still working on a certain emotion. It’s just it has different boundaries sort of, you know, so I think they’re very closely related.

Um, they are both working with shaking us up, creating any kind of innovation they’re just supposed to do. It’s a little bit.

[00:32:54] Nir Hindi: you know, I always say that for me, art is kind of formulate questions and designers solve those questions, kind of moving between those, but everything is around a questions that’s for sure.

And stuff. I’m interested to hear. Maybe your thought, what surprised you when you started to work without. Maybe things that you didn’t think about this then, then when you started to work with them and say, okay, I never thought about out this, that way. If I can take you 20 years back

[00:33:25] Christoph Guger: difficult.

It’s mostly the person that you’re working this. People are very distinct in like for poor creamers or electricity engineers. It’s the same for artists. Sometimes it matches and you cannot really work nicely together and produce something. And sometimes you are losing years until. Productive outcome at all.

So you have to find good people, uh, which can work productively together, who like each other. And, and then the outcome is good and this is normal for every seeing what you’re doing in. And it’s the same between engineers or artists or designers. You just have to find the people who fit into what you need.

[00:34:10] Nir Hindi: Great K stuff. And look, we’re getting into the end of the podcast. And I have one last question that always, I’m kind of interested in and I want to ask both of you and I’m interested. What is the role of the artist in a technological world, in your.

[00:34:27] Anouk Wipprecht: that’s a good question. I think I come from a, for me, it’s hard because I come from interaction, the science, I have like a technical background.

So I come from interaction side. I never bought six before. That’s a fashion design puts your tailoring sort of, you know? Yeah. That’s a, that’s a really hard question to answer because for me, they, they just go together. You know, it’s not that I started with analog kinds of like painting and all of that stuff.

And then cutting to digital tools. For me, it’s a very, uh, basically symbiotic thing for me Art and technology should be together because I can myself not consider a world without it. Right. So for me, it’s hard to answer.

[00:35:09] Nir Hindi: Hey, can stuff. I mean, what do you think, what is, in your opinion, all of the artist in a technological

[00:35:15] Christoph Guger: that leads to the inspiration that we need as engineers, otherwise, you know, we will build black boxes.

And, and not put the book like it or buy it. So additional Jews not saw it. Doesn’t look like if it’s just a box that you can use. So it’s very important to have the artists inspiration or the design inspiration to make it good, looking at attractive so that people who really want to have.

[00:35:40] Nir Hindi: Great. Great.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to chat with me. I think, uh, Your collaboration kind of enforced many of the things that I feel and think about. No, that it’s possible to work without this, but at the same time, you also need to dedicate the sources. And I always say that for me, creativity, it’s a matter of commitment

[00:36:03] Anouk Wipprecht: and it’s all about the network that we have and the people that we get in constant contact with that’s created these really amazing collaborations.

So I’m just very happy on furry. Yeah, laughingly about all of that. So, yeah.

[00:36:17] Nir Hindi: Great. So thank you. Thank you very, very much for joining. Thank you a

[00:36:24] Anouk Wipprecht: first year, and thank you so much for having us.