• 60 participants
• 12 countries
• 5 challenges
• 2 days
• One goal: to develop innovative applications for XR technologies that can be used to explore and experience Europe’s cultural heritage.

 

On February, 10th and 11th 2026, K8 Institute for Strategic Aesthetics, in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Saarland organised „THINK INSIDE THE BOX“ – a two-day hackathon that brought together creative, technological, and cultural perspectives on extended reality (XR) experiences in the context of Europe’s digital cultural heritage.

How can immersive technologies open up new perspectives for cultural mediators such as museums and theaters, players in the tourism industry, and research institutions, enabling them to create new, contemporary approaches for diverse target groups with different requirements and needs?
Designers, creative professionals, developers, and scientists from various disciplines were seeking answers to these questions as part of the „THINK INSIDE THE BOX“ hackathon.

Delve into content, train teams, develop initial ideas

Tuesday morning, 10 a.m. Participants begin arriving at CoHub Saarbruecken, greeting one another over coffee as laptops flicker open across the room. At the same time, the steady ping of notifications signals others logging in remotely, their faces appearing one by one on the large screen. They have joined from across Europe and beyond — Belgium, Greece, Italy, Malta, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Germany — forming a truly international cohort.

Together, they represent a wide spectrum of disciplines and professional backgrounds, spanning numerous fields of practice:

• XR Technologies & AI Systems
• Immersive Arts & Cultural Practices
• Experience Design & Creative Industries
• Research, Education & Governance

Over the course of the two-day hackathon, participants would tackle 5 challenges set by the organising team, representing the IMPULSE, Hamlet, and Cyanotypes projects:

Challenge 1. PERFORMING HERITAGE – Owner: Luka Prinčič

The challenge was to craft the dramaturgy of a performative event at the Ggantija temple -translating its cultural and historical meaning into lived experience. This involved shaping narrative, emotion, and sensory design through choices of story, technology, and atmosphere. Possible outcomes included a cohesive mixedreality experience where participants actively engage with heritage, connecting place, story, and feeling in an immersive, emotionally resonant way.

Challenge 2. PARTICIPATION, PLASTICITY, PLAY – Owners: Margarita Pule and Afroditi Andreou

This modular hackathon challenge invited participants to explore digital storytelling and playful design as ways to question dominant narratives and invite multiple interpretations of heritage. Each micro-challenge could stand alone or combine practical and theoretical elements. Themes range from speculative curation and digital fragility to intimacy, care, and reinterpretation of artefacts. Possible outcomes included experimental prototypes, reflective games, and immersive experiences that reshape how audiences engage with cultural heritage.

Challenge 3. BUILDING FUTURE AGENCY – WHEN XR MEETS Al – Owners: Mert Akbal and Sónia Alves

The design of immersive experiences often involves a combination of existing and future skills. To connect and integrate processes of design and learning, the challenge linked use case development and learning journey design. The challenge drew on approaches from HAMLET (including the Generative Arts and Design Lab, a future skills format developed by the HBKsaar’s Experimental Media Lab) and CYANOTYPES. lt focused on XR and (generative) Al as skill domains, possible outcomes included learning journeys designed to address the needs of learners involved in implementing the use cases

Challenge 4. WITNESSING HISTORY DIGITAL WORLD – Owner: Martin Gordon

Surviving Holocaust documentation consisted primarily of Nazi state authority accounts. Early Holocaust historiography failed to effectively integrate survivors‘ voices until Saul Friedländer’s genre-changing approach, which also enabled the discovery of small acts of resistance and individual self-assertion that had not been ‚officially‘ documented. Such a ‚microhistorical‘ lens facilitates comprehension of the regional/local dimensions and multi-layered realities of the Shoah and can guide the design of immersive experiences. The challenge presented details of the role and fate of selected individuals in Bielsko-Biafa, in the context of the Auschwitz concentration camp laundry located in the Polish town.

Challenge 5. DESIGNING THE XR TECH STACK – Owners: Henrik Elburn and Jan Tretschok

Ideally, studio infrastructures are designed to address existing needs – and offer enough flexibility for future uses. Framed by the current tech stack of the Motion Hub, the challenge involves the creation of a series of use cases that can serve as a roadmap to inform future studio design. Possible outcomes include scenarios that focus on new data sets, new technological infrastructures, or new user groups.

In the afternoon, Evgeny Kalachikhin from the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (Germany) introduced the short paper “From Archiving to Activation: A Methodological Pipeline for Cultural Heritage Visualisation”. This publication formalizes the approaches developed during their ongoing work at CX Studio | Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF (within the IMPULSE Project framework), particularly around integrating photogrammetric data with generative models. The paper addresses the practical challenges of digital heritage visualisation – specifically, how to create workflows that move from static archiving to active engagement.

In the evening, hackathon participants were treated to the screening of “Das begehbare Märchen (The Immersive Fairytale)”, an immersive media installation created by the students of the department Media Art and Design of the Academy of Fine Arts Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar on the building’s facade. The works combine visual narratives, spatial staging, and media overlays to create an immersive experience.

Hacking in progress…

In one room, around a large table, several participants gather over a felt mat printed with keywords. Wooden dice roll across the surface, landing on unexpected combinations of terms. Laughter, debate and rapid brainstorming follow as participants interpret the prompts and turn chance into concepts. In the next room, another group leans over a paper strip stretching several meters across the floor, sketching side by side with colored pencils. Lines, shapes and ideas unfold simultaneously, merging into a collective visual narrative.

A few meters away from the main event space, Jan Tretschok and Corbin Sassen of the project “Motion Hub” demonstrate the technology behind the immersive XR Cave with markerless Motion Capture. Engaging in lively discussions with participants, they explore how the motion-capture system could help bring ideas from cultural heritage to digital twins and interactive exhibition design to life — a direct response to the challenge Designing the XR TechStack.

Hearing presentations from diverse experts and having space for discussion broadened my understanding of current developments in the creative field. I enjoyed learning in the context of the pre-hackathon „Think Inside the Box.“ Thank you for making it possible. – A participant about challenge 4

At the end of the day, it’s time to present the ideas and prototypes developed by the five teams. The interim results of the pre-hackathon will be further developed until the final hackathon – Stay tuned!

Discovering new perspectives… and future partners?

Antoine Roland and Vincent Mathiou from the French network Agency Correspondances Digitales gave insights about XR in the French cultural sector and introduced a research report on digital cultural mediation in museums. During their presentation, the speakers examined the societal role of museums in the face of innovation. Their input led to a lengthy discussion, particularly regarding national specificities in terms of cultural policy and approaches to cultural heritage. It is highly likely that the IMPULSE project team will soon cross paths with Correspondances digitales in the coming months!

Take-aways and outlooks

In conclusion, the take-aways from this event that matter most to us are the importance of face-to-face interaction to enable rapid and effective prototyping, and the value of multidisciplinary collaboration in shaping the future of cultural heritage. This cross-disciplinary approach is essential in the immersive sector, where technical complexity, diversity of formats, and hybridization of economic models make cooperation indispensable. After this hackathon, we are more convinced than ever that XR technology is the key to creating multisensory engaging experiences in the context of digital cultural heritage.

“You didn’t just organise an event, you created a community experience where all of us could truly connect and co-create. It will resonate far beyond these three days.” A participant

What is the next step?

You may have wondered why we referred to it as a „pre-hackathon”? The answer is simple: IMPULSE schedules a series of pre-hackathon events that act as milestones in the co-creation process. These help align ideas and prototype components so that by the time the official hackathon comes, people are better prepared and collaborative outcomes are richer.

Thanks to the Regional Adult Education Center VHS Regionalverband Saarbruecken, the XR environment K8 manages in cooperation with HBKsaar will stay open for a few more weeks. If you have an XR project idea you’d like to experiment in our “Motion Hub”, feel free to contact us at info@k8.design — we’d love to explore it with you.

 

THINK INSIDE THE BOX is an event organized by K8 Institut für strategische Ästhetik as part of the EU-funded IMPULSE Project in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Saarland as part of the EU-funded projects Cyanotypes and Hamlet EU Project and Numix Lab.