Pilots

Perfolab Lisbon

A week of performing arts and technology projects with students in videogame, acting, digital humanities, and computer engineering degrees from Portugal, Italy, and Spain focused on ecology and green practices.

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Date

2nd to 6th February 2026

Main theme

Ecology, green practices

Impact of digitalization in local, national and global environments, pollution and waste management of computer and mobile devices, consequences of mining of rare minerals, impact of ecommerce in transportation and production chains.

Entry point

“questioning technology”, “taking science out of the lab”, "humanizing technology” and “path to progress”

Challenges

This workshop invites students to investigate the environmental impacts of digital technologies through the lens of media ecologies, combining practices from ecology, physical computing, videogames and performance. Rather than treating media as immaterial or virtual, the work foregrounds the material interdependence between the digital world and the living planet: rare mineral extraction, energy consumption, infrastructures of data circulation, and the global trajectories of electronic waste. Encourage participants to physically explore or enact these processes, e.g., through gesture-based mapping of e-waste flows or performative representations of digital infrastructures.

Students will work in mixed interdisciplinary teams, integrating individuals from performative and technological areas, and bringing together participants from the three partner universities. Each team will develop a site-based or site-responsive creative research project. Forms may include ecological sensing systems, documentary interventions, participative installations, speculative artworks, or interactive or body-activated elements where participants’ movements affect the installation or performance.

Schedule

Day 1
(2nd February - Monday)

Time	Duration	Activity	Room	Games Students	Acting Students	Upna+Unige Students
10:00–11:00	1h	Introduction Challenges & entry points Individual pre-assessment Oscar Ardaiz	Z02	X	X	X
11:00–12:00	1h	Media ecologies Rui Antunes	Z02	X	X	X
12:00–13:00	1h	Make groups based on challenge Project requirements	Z02	X	X	X
13:00–14:00	1h	Lunch Break
14:00–17:00	3h	Augmented walk Isabelle Arvers	Parque da Quinta das Conchas e dos Lilases Location	X	X	X

Day 2
(3rd February - Tuesday)

Time	Duration	Activity	Room	Games Students	Acting Students	Upna+Unige Students
10:00-13:00	3h	Playability: Alternative controllers João Cabral	Z02		X	X
11:00-13:00	2h	Practices of Attention (A) Sílvia Pinto Coelho	Y05	X(A)
13:00-14:00	1h	Lunch
14:00-16:00	2h	Performative & Immersive Technologies: Creative coding Oscar Ardaiz Multimodal Systems for the Performing Arts Gualtiero Volpe	Z02	X	X
16:00-18:00	2h	Practices of Attention (B) Sílvia Pinto Coelho	Y05	X(B)		X

Day 3
(4th February - Wednesday)

Time	Duration	Activity	Room	Games Students	Acting Students	Upna+Unige Students
10:00–13:00	3h	Ideation/Prototyping Isabelle Arvers / João Cabral	Z02 Y08	X	X	X
13:00–14:00	1h	Lunch Break
14:00–17:00	3h	Prototyping Isabelle Arvers / João Cabral	Z02 Y08	X	X	X

Day 4
(5th February - Thursday)

Time	Duration	Activity	Room	Games Students	Acting Students	Upna+Unige Students
10:00–13:00	3h	Prototyping / Presentation preparation	Z02 Y08	X	X	X
13:00–14:00	1h	Lunch Break
14:00–15:00	1h	No Endgame: Performance, Play, Recycling for Sustainable Futures (Round table) Ana Rita Moreira (JF Lumiar) Ana Matos (Electrão) Gustavo Ciríaco chaired by Inês Marques	U31	X	X	X
15:00-15:30	30m	Groups final presentations Closing	U31	X	X	X