Staatsgalerie Stuttgart's Schlemmer x Beats: a motion-capture techno art club

Revive the Triadic Ballet as a form of art and create a meaningful, gamified, location-based mixed-reality museum experience at the Stuttgart State Gallery.

Visitors first configured a triad at 3D-plaster-printed 'triadic selection pillars' dedicated to Schlemmer's three acts, moods and costume types, with combinations named after Bauhaus figures like Oskar, Mies, Lilli, Anni and Walter. Their choices then joined a real-time online projection: each triad got '10 seconds of fame', growing tall with its name overhead, performing choreography extended from Schlemmer's originals onto techno beats. Professional dancers in motion-capture suits digitised the movements, costume movement restrictions included, and the DJs were captured the same way to drive a virtual 'DJ Schlemmer' behind the console, with music matching the triads' range of moods.

The experience ran at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and was selected for the Event Design Yearbook 2022/2023 as a published case of culture-and-art interactive installation design.

For the Bauhaus centenary, students at HdM Stuttgart reinterpreted Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet for the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Their aim was to revive the ballet as a living form of art and build a meaningful, gamified, location-based mixed-reality museum experience. The result was Schlemmer x Beats — an interactive techno art club inside the Stuttgart State Gallery.

The experience ran in two phases. First, visitors configured a triad at 'triadic selection pillars', 3D-plaster-printed columns dedicated to Schlemmer's three acts and styles — three moods and three types of costume — rotating the pillars to try new triadic costume combinations, all bearing Bauhaus names such as Oskar, Mies, Lilli, Anni or Walter.

Then visitors and dancers entered the club: a real-time online projection continued their configuration, and each triad was accorded '10 seconds of fame' — it grew, its name floated over its head, and it performed movements extended from Schlemmer's original choreographies and transferred to techno beats. Professional dancers in motion-capture suits digitised the choreography, with the costumes' movement restrictions baked in, and the DJs were likewise captured to animate a virtual 'DJ Schlemmer' dancing behind the console, with music reflecting the triads' moods.

The Triadic Ballet was conceived for the stage, so a club — not a vitrine — returned it to a living, embodied setting.

Gamified configuration let every visitor author a costume trio, giving them ownership of what appeared on the virtual floor.

Motion capture translated Schlemmer's restricted geometric movement faithfully, so the techno translation stayed true to the source.

The '10 seconds of fame' mechanic gave each visitor group a reason to stay, watch and share the result.

Heritage comes alive when visitors become performers: give each guest a authored role in the work, even ten seconds of it, and the museum becomes a club.

The project entered the Event Design Yearbook 2022/2023 as a published entry under culture and art, interactive installation and mixed-reality experience categories, credited to the HdM Stuttgart student team with media technology partners including WIREWORX and VISUELL.