Test_Lab: Realities in Transition 2 – THE RECIPROCAL TRAP

In this Test_Lab we showcase the project realized by the artists who have participated in this year's Realities in Transition residency at V2_Lab. The residency is entitled The Reciprocal Trap. The residents Mohsen Hazrati, Elli Koliniati and Iyo Bisseck collaberatively developed the work Lambertian Dance. This project will be demonstrated live and the audience will be invited to 'test' it hands-on.
The Lambertian Dance is a collective technosomatic installation in which bodies, gestures, and technologies come together to form a shared presence. Two participants enter a collaborative experience where one’s hand and the other’s gaze converge, dissolving individual agency into a shared rhythm that echoes back into the space and becomes part of an evolving lineage of movement.

Info
Thursday 3 September
19:30–22:00
Free entrance

Friday 4 September (Kunstavond)
18:00–21:00
Free entrance
About the Residency
Realities in Transition 2 – Unwritten Worlds invites artists and creatives to participate in a residency programme dedicated to exploring eXtended Realities as spaces for imagination, connection, and transformation. The residency looks for hybrid practices, undisciplined perspectives, and collaborative approaches capable of questioning the present and giving shape to worlds yet to be written.
In the age of agentic AI, Extended Reality shifts from a space of immersion into a system of extraction. As part of Realities in Transition 2 – Unwritten Worlds V2_ (NL) invited artists and designers for the residency The Reciprocal Trap to co-create a shared artwork during a residency that explores the hidden loop between human labour and machine world-building.
Bringing together artists from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds, Realities in Transition 2 – Unwritten Worlds investigates the shifting relationship between simulation, reality, and emerging technologies. Through a collective process of research, experimentation, and co-creation, the residents contributed to the development of a shared artwork that critically reflects on the role of XR and AI in shaping perception, behaviour, and worldbuilding.
The Reciprocal Trap was conceived as a collective process, and as an extended period of research, experimentation, and co-creation.
Over the course of 30 months, Realities in Transition 2 will support 5 rounds of international, collaborative residencies, each unfolding digitally and in-person over six months and consisting of successive phases of exploration, production, and testing. The residencies are hosted by international institutions (#1 V2_ · Rotterdam + #2 MEET · Milan + #3 L.E.V Festival · Gijon/Madrid + #4 Beta Festival · Dublin + #5 Chroniques · Marseille), and will focus on a specific topic and artistic medium (please refer to each open call page).
More info: https://www.realities-in-transition.eu/rit-2-unwritten-worlds/

Selected Artists 2026
For The Reciprocal Trap V2_ welcomed:
Mohsen Hazrati (Iran/Germany) is an artist and researcher whose practice operates at the intersection of literature, ethics, and digital technologies. Drawing on non-Western knowledge systems, ritual, and poetic traditions, his work challenges dominant narratives surrounding machine rationality and artificial intelligence.
Elli Koliniati (Greece) is a transdisciplinary creator working across XR, game design, and spatial storytelling. Combining architecture, computational arts, performance, and immersive technologies, she explores how space influences collective behaviour, identity, and social interaction.
Iyo Bisseck (France/Cameroon) is a media artist, interaction designer, and memory worker whose practice brings together speculative worldbuilding, archives, performance, and video games. Through immersive experiences, Iyo investigates Afro-diasporic memory, ritual, storytelling, and collective forms of existence.
Together, the residents will spend the coming months exploring the possibilities and tensions of XR as a collaborative environment, contributing their individual perspectives to a shared artistic process.

Test_Lab
Test_Lab is a public events series organized by V2_ that provides an informal setting for the presentation, demonstration, testing and discussion of artistic research and development.

Credits
Realities in Transition 2 – Unwritten Worlds is co-funded by the European Union.
The partners for Realities in Transition 2 – Unwritten Worlds are MEET Digital Center (IT), V2_Lab for the Unstable Media (NL), L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual) (ES), beta (IE), and Chroniques (FR).