Speculative Sensing II
2026
performative workshop
custom temperature sensing tools
speculative mapping / environmental perception
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»Speculative Sensing II« is a performative workshop exploring the
interplay between human perception, environmental sensing and the
floodplain landscape.
Developed for the artistic research residency »AUENLand – What
Now?«, the workshop investigates how different forms of sensing
shape perspectives and understandings of a river floodplain
undergoing ecological transformation.
Participants work in small groups using custom-built handheld
devices developed specifically for the workshop. Each instrument
combines air and waterproof temperature sensors with an analogue
servo-motor-based interface, translating environmental
measurements into physical movement rather than numerical values.
Instead of functioning as scientific instruments, the devices
invite participants to design their own principles and scales of
measurement, to compare bodily sensations with sensor readings and
to reflect on the different ways our understandings of landscapes
are shaped by human and non-human sensing practices. Rather than
producing »exact« environmental data, the workshop approaches
sensing and sense making as explicitly situated and embodied
processes.
The workshop unfolds in three stages. It begins with an
exploration of temperature through the body, inviting participants
to become human temperature sensors and investigate thermal
differences within the landscape. In the process, they develop
their own purely analogue methods of sensing, communicating,
recording and interpreting. The workshop continues with a
presentation and discussion on different concepts and technologies
of sensing and sense-making. This builds the fundament for a
series of field experiments in the floodplain landscape using the
hand-held sensing devices to explore and record temperatures in
air, water and soil.
Realised in the framework of the Artistic Research Project and
Artist Residency »AUENLand – What Now?«. With Anna Kramer, Luisa
Hörning, Maria Bauhofer, Jeremy Knowles, Yana Varbanova, Katharina
Büttgen, Gift Lalicha Lalitsasivimol, Uli Brantl, Charly
Nijensohn, Hannes Rassmann
