2020, May

Meltionary: Heating Matters/Change Flux Public at Goldsmiths, Dept of Computing

MELT (Loren Britton & Isabel Paehr) are presenting their new video work on May 22nd 2020 for the Digital Art Masterclass Series at Goldsmiths. Meltionary is an artistic research project that unlocks metaphors of melting in times of climate crisis and explores unstable states of matter. Colliding theories and practices from chemistry, trans*feminism and computation, this dictionary-like assemblage is invested in moments of material transformation. Watch the video until June 5th.

2019, November

Topicbird is now a part of Saftladen in Berlin!

We got the opporunity to join the shared office and collective at Saftladen Berlin in the center of Berlin Kreuzberg. That means we will still be working on our own projects, but from a bright office with about 50 interesting people in and around game development. After a year living in Berlin this feels like a big step.

2019, August

We're giving a talk at the Word and Play festival on August 3rd, 2pm

Our talk on SHI•RO and Klickhüpfguck will focus on research and story-telling. Come to Neuruppin’s World and Play festival on August 3rd. We are looking forward to spilling some secrets about SHI•RO’s second story :-).

2019, June

Performance Gazing Figures at Kunst#Quer#Kopf conference in Braunschweig

From the 5th to the 7th of June, we’ve performed Gazing Figures at HBK Braunschweig. We were invited to join the conference Kunst#Quer#Kopf on the intersections of the neuro sciences and the arts. Kunst#Quer#Kopf consisted of a speaker line-up, workshops and an exhibition. Especially the students who helped with the exhibition and the two highly motivated professors organizing Kunst#Quer#Kopf made these days very memorable.

2019, January

SHI•RO is out on Android!

After weeks of testing and tweaking, we are excited to release SHI•RO on Android today. Get it on Google Play and have fun solving all the challenging puzzles we made for you.

2018, december

Disrupt Encode Consolidate Workshop at Lancaster University

We had the most interesting time during the Disrupt Encode Consolidate Workshop at Lancaster University. The workshop took place from the 17th to the 19th of December. During talks, workshops, performances, lab sessions and dinners neuroscientists from the SynaNET network and professional artists gave insight into their practice, methodologies and works. Our talk took place in the university’s lab, which was an exciting setting to experiment with our VR suit GAZING FIGURES that allows one to see with one’s knees and wrists. We learned so much from everyone who organized and participated in the workshop and will share more about it in a longer blogpost soon. Spoiler: We learned how to slice the brain of a mouse into very thin layers that are used for research on schizophrenia 🐭.

2018, december

SHI•RO’s Open Sky is out

Tell your iOS device: On December 6th we released our first content update for SHI•RO introducing a new area called Open Sky. You will find it on the map overview as a tiny golden circle with a dot inside, placed above the golden button that leads to the main game.

The Open Sky includes 15 puzzles, but instead of Japanese words this time you unlock sounds and instruments you can play with afterwards. We added a metronome, so don’t hold back. Since the new puzzles are pretty challenging, the Open Sky only becomes available once you have mastered at least the Hercules star constellation.

Also: We have started vigorous work on the Android port of the game, more on that soon!

2018, december

Bauhaus and VR

From December 7th, 2018 to March 10th, 2019 a commissioned work of ours is shown in the exhibition “100 Years of Bauhaus” at NRW-Forum Düsseldorf in Germany. The work is based on extensive research by professor Hemken and his team of the School of Art and Design Kassel. This collaboration with the brothers grimm is a Virtual Reality (VR) installation that recreates the photography exhibition “Film and Photo” which was on view from 1929 to 1930 in Stuttgart, Berlin, Zürich and other cities.

Besides parts of the original Berlin exhibition being physically reproduced as a set in the NRW-Forum, our VR installation aims to create an experience that is as true to the original material as possible. In the creation process, we rebuilt the original room in Blender and recreated every detail we had access to such as the soft, cozy benches. In Unity, we used self-made PBR materials to recreate the concrete floor, bright plaster walls and metal frameworks. We also developed tools to place, scale and rotate the hundreds of photographs on the walls, and to add passepartouts. If you are planning to do a similar project give us a wink.

2018, october

SHI•RO wins 'Most Innovative Game Award' at Casual Connect Belgrade

From October 1st to 3rd, we presented SHI•RO in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia which is home to a friendly game development scene. At Casual Connect, we were nominated in five categories: Best Game Audio, Best Game Design, Best Game Art, Best Mobile Game and Most Innovative Game. Many great games took home prizes and with SHI•RO, we won the Most Innovative Game Award. The second picture is from the Indie Prize and shows all the winners and organizers.

Also, we made a bunch of friends and while we (as many others) had a terrible cold, the festival provided us with fresh fruit & tea.

2018, september

SHI•RO at Talk & Play Berlin

On the 18th of September, we showed SHI•RO at Talk & Play. This was special to us, because we just moved to Berlin and saw the event as a chance to meet fellow game developers and interested players. It’s been a great evening!