EMPAC Launches Interface, a New Series Connecting Artistic Practice and Scientific Research
TROY, N.Y. — The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) launches Interface, a monthly series of talks examining how artists and researchers approach questions they do not yet know how to answer.
Beginning September 10, 2026 the Interface series brings artists, engineers, scientists, and designers together to share how they actually make and think. Rather than presenting only finished work, each program opens their creative processes to public audiences through experiments, demonstrations, prototypes, performances, code, sound tests, and works in progress.
The series begins with artist and composer Rucyl Mills and quantum physicist Chris Lirakis asking how quantum physics might help us think about living with uncertainty. Programs throughout the 2026-2027 academic year will explore immersive audio, cognitive science, robotics, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, and a new EMPAC-designed digital platform that allows for previsualization of audio, sound, video, and lighting environments.
“Some of the most consequential ideas emerge before a field has settled on the language to describe them,” said EMPAC Executive Director Dena Beard. “Interface creates a space for artists and researchers to think together in public—to share the experiments, failures, intuitions, and discoveries that redirect their work. At a research university, those exchanges can generate immense possibilities.”
The premise is simple: researchers discuss their creative processes, while artists reveal the research embedded in their practices. Across disciplines, series participants consider how people test an idea, make meaning from uncertainty, and follow what they do not yet understand.
Each program is followed by refreshments and informal conversation in Evelyn’s Café at EMPAC, extending the exchange beyond the stage. Over time, Interface aims to become a regular gathering place where people from across RPI and the wider community can meet, share ideas, and build a culture of curiosity across disciplines. Interface programs are offered at no cost. All are welcome.
INTERFACE Series Schedule
Chris Lirakis & Rucyl Mills on Quantum
Thursday, September 10, 2026, 6–7PM | EMPAC Concert Hall
Artist and composer Rucyl Mills joins experimental physicist and quantum computing pioneer Chris Lirakis to explore how artists and scientists grapple with phenomena that exceed ordinary perception—from states of possibility and emergence to the unseen forces shaping our world.
Felix Deufel & Matthew Goodheart on Immersive Audio
Thursday, October 8, 2026, 6–7PM | EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman
Sound artist and developer Felix Deufel joins RPI composer and technologist Matthew Goodheart to discuss how spatial sound locates us, shapes our relationships to our surroundings, and becomes an instrument for composition, perception, and experimentation.
Brett Fajen & Heidi Latsky on Cognitive Science
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 6–7PM | EMPAC Studio 2
Choreographer Heidi Latsky and RPI cognitive scientist Brett Fajen consider the relationship between perception and bodily action, examining how the body learns, adapts, and makes meaning when perceptual systems change.
Qiujiang Levi Lu & John Wen on Robotics
Thursday, January 14, 2027, 6–7PM | EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman
Musician, composer, and instrument-builder Qiujiang Levi Lu joins robotics professor John Wen to explore machines as collaborators, instruments, extensions of the body, and platforms for artistic experimentation.
Lars Jan & Talis Reks on Mixed Reality
Thursday, February 11, 2027, 6–7PM | EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman
Multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan and MIT.nano Immersion Lab Manager Talis Reks discuss ROAM, an outdoor performance in development at EMPAC that combines live performance with synchronized mixed reality for 40 people moving together across a stadium field.
Haruna Lee, Jared Mezzocchi & Kento Morita on AI
Thursday, March 18, 2027, 6–7PM | EMPAC Theater
Theater maker Haruna Lee, multimedia director and designer Jared Mezzocchi, and AI strategist Kento Morita examine whether artificial intelligence can resurrect the past through DADBOT, a new performance project that uses archival materials, interactive media, and AI to conjure Lee’s deceased father. Presented as part of Corpus Festival 2027.
Steve McLaughlin & Andrew Schneider on Previsualization
Thursday, April 1, 2027, 6–7PM | EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman
EMPAC researcher and engineer Steve McLaughlin joins artist Andrew Schneider to demonstrate a portable “digital twin” that allows artists to experiment virtually with a venue’s audio, video, lighting, and staging systems before entering the physical space.
About EMPAC & RPI
The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) understands human relations as our most important technology. Artists and scientists come here to expand the limits of what we can express to one another through investigative residencies, ambitious commissions, and experiments open to all. We are a laboratory and a living instrument: we believe in the generative space of failure, the power of play, and we are not afraid of the unknown. Join us.
RPI educates the leaders of tomorrow for technologically based careers. We celebrate discovery and the responsible application of technology to create knowledge and global prosperity.
Contact
Dena Beard, Executive Director, 518.276.2560, dena.beard@rpi.edu
Chris Lirakis & Rucyl Mills, courtesy the speakers.
Felix Deufel, courtesy the artist; Matthew Goodheart, photo: Annette Hornischer, courtesy the artist.
Brett Fajen, courtesy the speaker; Heidi Latsky, courtesy the artist.
