As children, we often created spaces within rooms. We constructed areas under tables, between shelves, with boxes, blankets, colorful cloths, lamps, and all sorts of accessible materials, where we felt protected and inspired. In these places, we could play and whisper, dream and plan, shielded from the outside world. We could retreat there to be alone, find peace, read intently, or hatch new adventures with others to discover the world outside in our own way.

When our friends Oksana Lemishka and Taras Komisaruk told us about their escape from the war in Ukraine to Austria, we fondly remembered these special spaces of protection and cosyness together. And Oksana surprised us with a word from her native language that describes these places: Halabuda.

A plan took shape: we wanted to build a "Halabuda" together with Oksana and Taras in our small studio and office at the university and see if it would affect our communication and well-being. The experiment led us to realize that just through the process of building and setting it up—trying out where to stretch ropes, gathering colorful cloths, securing a translucent sky, arranging carpets and boxes—we entered a sort of flow that deepened our communication. Then, sitting inside our colorful, temporary "little house," we could speak more focused and openly with each other, listened to one another more intensely and patiently, and learned a lot from each other, from our different experiences, fields of knowledge, and life worlds. Our receptiveness was open, and we were ready—without ingrained attributions, without (often unconscious) mechanisms of exclusion, and beyond dichotomous ideas—to receive information and critically but kindly illuminate insights. And we had fun doing it. Simplicity in its most positive meaning guided us and our language / communication. Effortlessness and lightness, indeed a form of serious playfulness, characterized our conversations about social science theories as well as very personal experiences and insights. Our senses were as open as our minds, and the olfactory trials we conducted with scents we composed ourselves opened up exciting new considerations.

A few months later, when it came time to prepare the transdisciplinary SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS symposium, where all the project-related artists and systems scientists from Europe and Southeast Asia would meet, get to know each other, exchange ideas, and also cooperate for the first time, we had the idea to relocate our experiment to the AIL hall. During the symposium, this resulted in three different HALLABUDDAs, which allowed our diverse team to unfold their potential and brought together the different thinking spaces and expertise. The video artists Zoe Gendron and Daniel Jamernik made a 30-minute contribution about this symposium, the artistic communication and cooperation methods applied, its results, and insights into our research project. As part of the "Angewandte Festival" at the end of June 2024, we wanted to present this film and thought about a suitable place. And what could be more comfortable, stimulating for the senses, inviting, and fitting than a HALLABUDDA?

With the different materials and surfaces that encourage touch and the olfactory intervention, the HALLABUDDA also represents an installative prototype for a multisensory scenography for SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS.

About the series: ART CABIN at AIL

The Otto Wagner Cashier Hall offers a special opportunity to give insights to processes and activities of SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS. For the first time, the historical cabin is used for ongoing artistic installations to make methods more visible, relatable and comprehensible for a public audience. Surrounded by visitors of the hall, the cafe and AIL, also by other institutions in the building (Academy of Science, FWF, JKU) offer a chance to gather feedback and reactions to the project and the specific stages of studies that will be incorporated into the project outcome.