Strings Attached – IXLAB x HfBK Dresden

IXLAB Summer Workshop 2026
with the Puppet Theater Collection Dresden

Topic: Strings Attached - Performing Hybrid Stages
Date: September 14-26, 2026

At the center is a stage. A historical stage construction of the Ritscher puppeteer family, which was built exclusively for our joint research in the Puppentheatersammlung Dresden. It has been on the road for decades, played on, transported, dismantled and rebuilt. Today it looks like a relic from another time.

The Ritscher family is one of the oldest and best-known puppeteer families in Saxony. For generations, they built and performed their own puppets, stages and worlds. The Ritscher stage thus stands not only for the history of a family, but also for a form of theater that has largely disappeared today: the traveling puppet theater. At the same time, it opens up a field of research that is surprisingly topical. How do presence and identification arise? When does something become real? How is liveliness created? Puppetry has been negotiating the relationship between humans, objects, proxy figures and avatars for centuries, providing us with an exciting starting point for researching hybrid spaces - an overlapping of physical and virtual worlds.

At the heart of our research is the question of how practices of figure and object theater can be further developed in hybrid spaces. What happens when the classic separation of stage, puppet and audience is dissolved? When a puppet stage is physical and virtual at the same time? When a character has a virtual doppelganger?

Based on archive films and photographic documents of a production by the Ritscher family, we will examine aesthetic procedures, dramaturgical structures and illusionistic logics. This research will be the starting point and inspiration for our own artistic exploration.

Interdisciplinary groups of media/computer science students from TU Dresden and students from HfBK Dresden will create performative fragments and sketches. In addition, participants will be introduced to puppetry practices and learn how to use technical tools - including state-of-the-art motion capture systems and mixed reality interaction.

The 2026 IXLAB Summer Workshop is part of our experimental space at the Puppentheatersammlung Dresden.

Format and schedule: A 2-week workshop September 14-26, 2026. Monday - Friday, approx. 10:00-17:00.
Location: Puppet Theater Collection Dresden (SKD) - Kraftwerk Mitte & IXLAB Studio - Andreas Pfitzmann Bau, TU Dresden.

Tutors:
Vici Dewinski
Fabian Töpfer
Franziska Hannß
Theda Nilsson Eicke
Matthew McGinity

Technical Support:
Zhongyuan Yu

Enrollment:
Students of the HfBK Dresden ( apply now ! ):
Please send a short letter of application and, if available, relevant work by e-mail to Vici Dewinski ( vicidewinski@gmail.com )

Students of TU Dresden (already full):
The course is open to Bachelor, Diploma and Master students in Computer Science, Media Computer Science and CMS. You can register the workshop for 4 SWS credit as "Komplexpraktikum Digital Design" in any of the following modules:
INF-B-510, INF-B-520, INF-B-530, INF-B-540 (Bachelor)
INF-E-4, INF-VMI-1A, INF-VMI-4A, INF-VMI-6, INF-VMI-7, INF-VMI-8A (Master Media Computer Science)
INF-25-MA-FHI-DD, INF-MA-PR, INF-VERT3, INF-VERT7 (Master & Diploma Computer Science)
CMS-VC-ELV1, CMS-VC-ELV2 (Master Computational Modeling and Simulation)