Maša Jazbec is an artist, academic researcher, curator and producer who works in various fields where science and art intersect.
About Maša Jazbec
Maša Jazbec at the Crossroads of Art and Science
Maša Jazbec is an artist, academic researcher, curator and producer, working in various fields where science and art intersect. Her multifaceted work focuses on the impact of robotics and other modern technologies on the lives of humans and other living organisms.
Educational path
From Maribor to Japan
She completed her studies in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Education in Maribor, then completed a Master’s degree in New Media Art at the Interface Culture Department of the University of Linz (Austria), furthered her studies at the IAMAS Institute (Japan), and later completed her PhD at the Empowerment Informatics Programme at the University of Tsukuba (Japan).
Katapult Robotics
Connecting Art, Science and Technology
She was a visiting researcher in Professor Hiroshi Ishigura’s lab in Kyoto (Japan). From 2019 and 2022, she was the head of the DDTLab at Katapult, the business accelerator of the Trbovlje Workers’ Home, which is dedicated to the integration of art, science and new technologies. Within DDTLab, she designed the Creative Robotics programme, for which she has received several awards from the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for innovation in the cultural industries.
Teaching work
Teaching and mentoring in the field of new media
She was a visiting professor at the Interface Culture Master’s programme at the University of Art and Design Linz. She is co-mentor of several master and diploma theses in the field of integration of art with science and advanced technologies.
Prestigious awards
Jury member at festivals worldwide
She was a member of the jury for the main prize, the Golden Nika, at the Ars Electonica 2018 in Linz and was on the jury for the selection of works for SIGGRAPH ASIA in Tokyo 2021. She is a member of the National Council for Culture (NCC).
Festival Speculum Artium
Integrating Art and Technology at an International Level
In the period 2013-2019, she co-created the international festival of new media culture Speculum Artium in Trbovlje. In the framework of the Speculum Artium festival, it brought to Slovenia many renowned names in the field of robotics (ASIMO Honda Robotics, Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro, STELARC, Patrik Tresset, …) as well as renowned artists in the field of intermedia art (Prof. Victoria Vesna, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, ARART, Robertina Šebjanič, Hide Ogawa, So Kanno, …), organized several symposiums with guests such as Ars Elekronika director Gerfried Stocker, Ivan Novak (Laibach), Prof. James Gimzewski, Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro, IJS, Polona Tratnik, Janez Strehovec, …
Global presence
Artistic performances on international platforms
She has presented her artistic projects at numerous international art platforms and festivals, including Ars Electronica, Athens Media Art Festival, Sonica, Lab30, Tsukuba Media Art Festival, ISEA, Speculum Artium, MFRU and Kiblix, among others.
Solo Exhibitions
Creating large-scale installations and artworks
In 2019, she participated in two retrospective solo exhibitions at the Equrna Gallery in Ljubljana and the Velenje Gallery, and co-created an intermedia installation, the large-scale public sculpture Monolith, which is located in the Culture Park in Trbovlje. This is her second installation of a large-scale sculpture in a public space. On the way to Mount Kum, the metal sculpture Canrad stands.
Fun Robotics
Exploring Human-Robot Interactions
For the last few years, he has been working on social robotics at the level of pedagogical, scientific and artistic work, in which he has been studying human-human and human-robot interactions.
Creative Robotics
Lecturing and training in an innovative discipline
She founded and runs the Creative Robotics programme, where together with students from the Trbovlje Vocational and Technical Secondary School and DDTLab, she creates robots that are presented at various events. As part of this programme, she also presented at the educational festival Katapult fest.
Industrial cooperation
Art projects with Yaskawa
She has collaborated with Yaskawa Slovenia, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of industrial robots, on artistic projects where her artistic interventions have been integrated into the industrial production process.
Maša Jazbec’s collection of achievements
A selection of lectures at Universities, Festivals and Institutes
- Human robot interactions, delavnice in predavanja, Interface Cultures, Univerza v Linzu, Avstrija, 2023
- Uporabniški vmesniki: BCI naprave in neuroart, Akademija za umetnost in oblikovanje, Ljubljana, Slovenija 2023
- Uporabniški vmesniki: humanoidna robotika in neurorobotika, Akademija za umetnost in oblikovanje, Ljubljana, Slovenija, 2023
- Kreativne interakcije med ljudmi in roboti, tehnologije VR in BCI, NAIST, Nara, Japonska, 2022
- Robotika in umetnost, Oddelek za umetnostne vede, UCLA, Kalifornija, ZDA, 2021
- NeuroArt, Oddelek za kognitivne znanosti in umetno inteligenco, Univerza v Tilburgu, Nizozemska, 2021
- Predavanja in delavnice kreativne robotike na Univerzi za umetnost in oblikovanje v Linzu, Avstrija, november, 2021
- Predavanja in delavnice kreativne robotike na Univerzi za umetnost in oblikovanje v Linzu, Avstrija, julij, 2021
- Kreativna robotika in nevrorobotika, Univerza za umetnost in oblikovanje v Linzu, Avstrija, 2021
- NeuroArt, Oddelek za umetnost in oblikovanje, Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenija, 2021
- Nevrorobotika in rehabilitacijska robotika, Univerzitetni rehabilitacijski inštitut Republike Slovenije Soča, 2021
- Nevrotehnologije in robotika, Laboratorij za medicinsko nevrologijo, Medicinska univerza Ljubljana, Slovenija, 2020
- Nevro umetnost, Oddelek za računalniški vid, Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenija, 2020
- Integracija senzorike v VR, Inštitut in akademija za multimedije Ljubljana (IAM), Slovenija, 2020
A selection of lectures and presentations at arts festivals
- Nova Festival Bukarešta, How do you envision Future with Robots (pogovor in demonstracija interakcije človeka z robotom BCI na odru), Bukarešta, oktober 2022
- R.O.R. Festival, Roboti med nami – predavanje in robotska delavnica, Nova Gorica, Slovenija, 2022
- Festival PixxelPont, Kako si predstavljate prihodnost z roboti, Nova Gorica, Slovenija, 2022
- ACM Siggraph Sparks – Razprave o robotiki, elektroniki in umetni inteligenci, 2021
- Predstavitev robotskih raziskav na Unescovem Mednarodnem raziskovalnem centru za umetno inteligenco (IRCAI), Tokio, Japonska, november, 2021.
- Predavanje in delavnica o kreativni robotiki, Slovenski digitalni center, Ljubljana, Slovenija, 2021
- BCI in modne tehnologije, simpozij g.tec na festivalu Ars Electronica, 2020
- Možgani in umetnost, Klub CD, Slovensko kongresno in kulturno središče, Ljubljana, Slovenija, 2020
- STEAM prakse izobraževanja, Univerza Doshisha, Kjoto, Japonska, 2020
- Future in the Nutshell, predavanje o androidni znanosti, Greiner, Linz, Avstrija, 2019
- žirija na prvem Brain Computer Hachathonu v Sloveniji, ki ga organizira g.tec, Trbovlje, Slovenija, 2019
- Predavanje o doktorski raziskavi spodročja robotike, ThinkLab, IBM, New York, ZDA, 2018
Important scientific publications
Maša Jazbec, STEAM Education in the Case of Engineering (Empowerment Informatics: Tsukuba University, Japan) and the Art Studies (Interface Cultures: University of Arts and Design Linz, Austria), Article in the book: Transformation of Higher Education in the Age of Society 5.0, Springer, 2022 ISBN 978-3-031-15526-0 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-15527-7_3
Maša Jazbec, “Art Science study of Body Ownership Illusion by body swapping experiments between humans and robots”, ACM SIGGRAPH SPARKS, 2021 https://csti.haw-hamburg.de/2021/04/27/acm-siggraph-sparks-lightning-talks/
Maša Jazbec, Floris Erich, Hiroo Iwata, “A glance of cultural differences in the case of interactive device art installation idMirror”, Ai&Society journal, AI & SOCIETY, (), 1-10DOI 10.1007/s00146-017-0737-0
Maša Jazbec, Shuichi Nishio, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Hideaki Kuzuoka, Masataka Okubo, Christian Penaloza, “Body-swapping experiment with an android robot – Investigation of the relationship between agency and a sense of ownership toward a different body”, Proc. Of the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
Maša Jazbec, Floris Erich, Hiroo Iwata, “idMirror”, in the Proc. of International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA) 2017 (https://festivaldelaimagenisea2017.sched.com/event/AtDY)
Maša Jazbec, Shuichi Nishio, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Masataka Okubo, Christian Penaloza, “Body-swapping Experiment with an Android – Investigation of The Relationship Between Agency and a Sense of Ownership Toward a Different Body”, In the Proc. at 2017 Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) 2017, Vienna, Austria, pp. 143-144, March, 2017
Maša Jazbec, Floris Erich, “Investigating Human Identity Using The idMirror Interactive Installation”, Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, San Jose, CA, Pages 3851-3854
Maša Jazbec, Floris Erich, “Investigating Human Identity Using The idMirror Interactive Installation”, IX Interactions, ACM, Issue XXII. 5September+ October 2016, Page 8
Maša Jazbec, “Art as expended thought of its infinitive potential”, Technoetics Arts: Journal of Speculative research, volume 14, Issue 3, December 2016, DOI: 10.1386/tear.14.3.205_1
