About UTM
➊ Our Approach❷ Collaborative Efforts
❸ Our Goals
âťą Partner Institutions
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➊ Helsinki (FI) ❷ Warsaw (PL)❸ Antwerp (BE)
❶ Tartu (EST)
âť· Vienna (AUST)
❸ A Coruña (ES)
âťą Brussels (BE)
28-30/NOV/2024
Koninklijke Belgische Sterrenwacht
Brussels Planetarium Poetry Fest
Colloquium
Planetarium Dome
Live Drawing with FRAMED
Framed Project
https://framed.ap-arts.be
Under the banner of Urban Travel Machines (UTM), live drawing performances with FRAMED took place in the planetariums of A Coruña and Brussels. These sessions explored how real-time digital drawing practices relate to immersive spaces and live interaction within a dome environment.
In A Coruña, during the Urban Travel Machines festival, each evening was concluded with live drawing by students of Graphic Design, in dialogue with the live poetry of Philip Meersman. The combination of spontaneous visual improvisation and 360° projection created a layering in which voice, image and space merged. The architecture of the dome thus became an active part of the performance, a visual sounding board in which drawing and poetry reinforced each other.
In Brussels, a similar session was set up during the closing Poetry Fest . Here, live drawing functioned as a performative element during the entrance, breaks and closing moments. Here too, young artists worked live. The evening before the big Poetry Fest , an Open Mic session took place, where Milena Sonneveld and Joana Estrela drew live as a visual accompaniment to the performances. In this context, drawing was used as a form of visual storytelling—a process in which the images developed in real time and moved with the dynamics of the poetic and spatial context.
The technical set-up offered the necessary challenges: translating a digital drawing into a dome projection is not self-evident. Thanks to the collaboration with the planetarium technicians, the live drawing work could be seamlessly integrated into the projected environment, optimally exploiting the curvature and scale of the dome.
These experiments demonstrate how FRAMED can be a platform for live visual improvisation in immersive environments. They position digital drawing practices not as static media, but as fluid, spatially responsive forms of expression. The sessions functioned as a case study within UTM and open new perspectives on the role of live digital art in site-specific settings.
Within Urban Travel Machines, an experiment around public participation emerged: the Applause App . A web application that enables subtle but collective appreciation within the context of a planetarium.
Featuring a minimalist, dark interface—optimized for a space where darkness is essential—the app replaces classic applause with a subtle tap on the screen. Inspired by the soft finger snap often used as silent applause in poetry performances, each tap generates a visual feedback: a pulsating circle in a random color.
This visual data was projected onto the dome in real-time, creating a dynamic digital applause. The audience inside the dome could participate in the experience in this way, but people outside the dome who were listening to the poetry performances live were also given the opportunity to make their appreciation visible via the app. The original idea was to have the feedback appear as rising bubbles along the edges of the dome, but for technical reasons this was converted to an additional projector that made the digital applause visible on a specific zone of the dome.
The Applause App is a design by Janna Beck, realized by Kris Meeusen ( Lab 101 ). This experiment with digital interaction offered an alternative form of audience participation—a fluid, shared experience that blurred the boundaries between performer and spectator.