HALOS
Event details
| Date | 05.06.2025 › 29.06.2025 |
| Hour | 18:00 › 20:00 |
| Location | |
| Category | Exhibitions |
| Event Language | French, English |
OPENING
05 June 2025
18.00 pm - EPFL Pavilions - Pavilion A
Enter the Hyper-Scientific x mudac Solar Biennale
Organized in conjunction with the second Solar Biennale presented by mudac and titled Soleil·s, the exhibition HALOS premieres two new productions: Atithi by Sahej Rahal and Interspecies Interfaces (Part II) – Shape of Language by Emilia Tapprest, realized in dialogue with the EPFL scientific community.
Atithi by Sahej Rahal is an immersive and interactive installation that explores a form of non-human cognition centered on sensory interaction and touch. The word “atithi” means “visitor” in Hindi, but it also refers to a being outside of linear time, unbound by fixed beginnings or endings. In the work, AI-driven tentacles wander through the ruins of an abandoned temple. Each tentacle is a creature that acts as both body and brain, a hybrid of mind and flesh, forming a quasi-sentient collective entity. Visitors can interact with them by touching conductive plates: each tactile gesture triggers a movement-based response from the AI tentacles, creating a nonverbal, haptic dialogue. Every touch performed becomes an utterance to which the creatures respond by swirling, swaying, and scattering in an extra-linguistic conversation across the porous boundaries of myth, machine, mind, and memory.
In a time when artificial intelligence is increasingly applied to “decode” animal communication, Interspecies Interfaces (Part II) – Shape of Language by Emilia Tapprest interrogates the dominant framing of interspecies understanding as a matter of verbal translation. The film investigates how ambient technologies—interfaces that communicate through continuous, nonverbal sensory feedback—might open up alternative ways to do and communicate research on more-than-human minds. It follows two scientists hoping to reconstruct the cognitive landscape of seven lab-born bats through a translation engine that maps their neural activity into real-time sensory representations. But the modeling process reveals its own instability: the more data the scientists integrate, the more implicated they become in the bats’ extended mind. The scientists find themselves navigating an emergent cognitive field where agency is diffused, and distinctions between human, bat, and machine intelligence begin to dissolve, giving way to a fluid field of experience. Presented within an immersive audiovisual installation, the film draws from real neural recordings of social animals like bats and rats, translating brain activity into visual, sonic, and haptic textures that form an evolving ambient environment.
HALOS continues the itinerary of From Solar to Nocturnal, advancing its inquiry into “other suns” to question a solar-centric hierarchy of perception. Just as transitioning to solar and alternative energy sources requires new ways of thinking and designing, reimagining cultural and technological approaches to perceiving the more-than-human world demands a shift in human consciousness. HALOS immerses visitors in a world where artificial intelligence serves as a medium to rethink our bond with the living and the non-human. The exhibition delves into non-verbal intelligences whose cognition unfolds through touch, movement, and atmospheres. Through machinic memory, sensory contact, and interspecies interfaces, HALOS creates spaces where the boundaries between human, animal, and technology dissolve, making room for new forms of shared perception and interconnected existence.
______
HALOS
Opening 05 June 2025
EPFL Pavilions - Pavillon A - 18.00 pm
In the presence of the artists.
Exhibition dates: 06.06 - 29.06.2025
Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm
______
Enter the Hyper-Scientific
Initiated by the EPFL College of Humanities (CDH), amplified by EPFL Pavilions, and in partnership with the City of Lausanne, the EPFL-CDH Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program “Enter the Hyper-Scientific” fosters transdisciplinary encounters and collaborations between artists and EPFL’s scientific community. The program invites international artists, for three-month residencies to realize innovative and visionary projects at the intersection of art, science, advanced technologies, and the humanities.
The Solar Biennale 2
From the spring equinox to the autumn equinox of 2025, mudac will host the second Solar Biennale with the exhibition Soleil·s in the Plateforme 10 arts district and on the EPFL campus. Launched in 2022 in the Netherlands by designers Pauline van Dongen and Marjan van Aubel, the Solar Biennale provides a platform for reflections on the challenges of solar energy. For this second edition, mudac will broaden the theme by bringing together designers, curators, activists, and researchers to explore expanded perspectives on how to approach ecological transition.
______
© Sahej Rahal, Atithi, 2025
Commissioned and produced by the EPFL CDH AiR Program 2024/2025: Enter the Hyper-Scientific, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne EPFL
© Emilia Tapprest, Interspecies Interfaces (Part II) – Shape of Language, 2025
Commissioned and produced by the EPFL CDH AiR Program 2024: Enter the Hyper-Scientific, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne EPFL with additional support from the Mondriaan Fund
05 June 2025
18.00 pm - EPFL Pavilions - Pavilion A
Enter the Hyper-Scientific x mudac Solar Biennale
Organized in conjunction with the second Solar Biennale presented by mudac and titled Soleil·s, the exhibition HALOS premieres two new productions: Atithi by Sahej Rahal and Interspecies Interfaces (Part II) – Shape of Language by Emilia Tapprest, realized in dialogue with the EPFL scientific community.
Atithi by Sahej Rahal is an immersive and interactive installation that explores a form of non-human cognition centered on sensory interaction and touch. The word “atithi” means “visitor” in Hindi, but it also refers to a being outside of linear time, unbound by fixed beginnings or endings. In the work, AI-driven tentacles wander through the ruins of an abandoned temple. Each tentacle is a creature that acts as both body and brain, a hybrid of mind and flesh, forming a quasi-sentient collective entity. Visitors can interact with them by touching conductive plates: each tactile gesture triggers a movement-based response from the AI tentacles, creating a nonverbal, haptic dialogue. Every touch performed becomes an utterance to which the creatures respond by swirling, swaying, and scattering in an extra-linguistic conversation across the porous boundaries of myth, machine, mind, and memory.
In a time when artificial intelligence is increasingly applied to “decode” animal communication, Interspecies Interfaces (Part II) – Shape of Language by Emilia Tapprest interrogates the dominant framing of interspecies understanding as a matter of verbal translation. The film investigates how ambient technologies—interfaces that communicate through continuous, nonverbal sensory feedback—might open up alternative ways to do and communicate research on more-than-human minds. It follows two scientists hoping to reconstruct the cognitive landscape of seven lab-born bats through a translation engine that maps their neural activity into real-time sensory representations. But the modeling process reveals its own instability: the more data the scientists integrate, the more implicated they become in the bats’ extended mind. The scientists find themselves navigating an emergent cognitive field where agency is diffused, and distinctions between human, bat, and machine intelligence begin to dissolve, giving way to a fluid field of experience. Presented within an immersive audiovisual installation, the film draws from real neural recordings of social animals like bats and rats, translating brain activity into visual, sonic, and haptic textures that form an evolving ambient environment.
HALOS continues the itinerary of From Solar to Nocturnal, advancing its inquiry into “other suns” to question a solar-centric hierarchy of perception. Just as transitioning to solar and alternative energy sources requires new ways of thinking and designing, reimagining cultural and technological approaches to perceiving the more-than-human world demands a shift in human consciousness. HALOS immerses visitors in a world where artificial intelligence serves as a medium to rethink our bond with the living and the non-human. The exhibition delves into non-verbal intelligences whose cognition unfolds through touch, movement, and atmospheres. Through machinic memory, sensory contact, and interspecies interfaces, HALOS creates spaces where the boundaries between human, animal, and technology dissolve, making room for new forms of shared perception and interconnected existence.
______
HALOS
Opening 05 June 2025
EPFL Pavilions - Pavillon A - 18.00 pm
In the presence of the artists.
Exhibition dates: 06.06 - 29.06.2025
Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm
______
Enter the Hyper-Scientific
Initiated by the EPFL College of Humanities (CDH), amplified by EPFL Pavilions, and in partnership with the City of Lausanne, the EPFL-CDH Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program “Enter the Hyper-Scientific” fosters transdisciplinary encounters and collaborations between artists and EPFL’s scientific community. The program invites international artists, for three-month residencies to realize innovative and visionary projects at the intersection of art, science, advanced technologies, and the humanities.
The Solar Biennale 2
From the spring equinox to the autumn equinox of 2025, mudac will host the second Solar Biennale with the exhibition Soleil·s in the Plateforme 10 arts district and on the EPFL campus. Launched in 2022 in the Netherlands by designers Pauline van Dongen and Marjan van Aubel, the Solar Biennale provides a platform for reflections on the challenges of solar energy. For this second edition, mudac will broaden the theme by bringing together designers, curators, activists, and researchers to explore expanded perspectives on how to approach ecological transition.
______
© Sahej Rahal, Atithi, 2025
Commissioned and produced by the EPFL CDH AiR Program 2024/2025: Enter the Hyper-Scientific, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne EPFL
© Emilia Tapprest, Interspecies Interfaces (Part II) – Shape of Language, 2025
Commissioned and produced by the EPFL CDH AiR Program 2024: Enter the Hyper-Scientific, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne EPFL with additional support from the Mondriaan Fund
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Contact
- Alison Carré : for all press and exhibition inquiries Christine Farget : for all questions relating to the Artist-in-Residence program