SΫS has become a nickname for persons who develop an embodied consciousness of interdependencies, precious equilibria and fragile beauty of all life. In other words: SΫS characters evolve an embodied systems awareness. It is also an acronym and stands for Sense Your Senses – also to understand the systems that are relevant to one's own life – to Sense Your Systems.
SΫS SPACE is the SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS' multisensory scenography. The SΫS SPACE facilitates a physical experience of one's own embeddedness within living systems, within complex interrelationships – within a greater whole. It paves the way for relational sensing and thinking – the development of an embodied systems awareness, that can help in coping with complexity, challenges, and uncertainties, and in making good decisions towards sustainable futures. SΫS SPACE deliberately reduces the dominance of the sense of sight, placing the emphasis instead on smell, touch, and hearing.
SΫS SPACE is the SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS' multisensory scenography. The SΫS SPACE facilitates a physical experience of one's own embeddedness within living systems, within complex interrelationships – within a greater whole. It paves the way for relational sensing and thinking – the development of an embodied systems awareness, that can help in coping with complexity, challenges, and uncertainties, and in making good decisions towards sustainable futures. SΫS SPACE deliberately reduces the dominance of the sense of sight, placing the emphasis instead on smell, touch, and hearing.
CONCEPTION OF SŸS – The Smell of a Mythological Being
Series of Scenographic Studies / Part V
What does a being smell like that effortlessly coped with the complexities of the world? What scents emanate from a body attuned to systems awareness?
In the fifth part of the Series of Scenographic Studies, visitors were invited to encounter SŸS – a mythological and yet potentially contemporary, real being that embodies what we call systems awareness – an understanding of the fundamental principles of living systems, and of the fact that all life is interdependent and influences one another.
CONCEPTION OF SŸS – The Smell of a Mythological Being explored how identity and imagination can be enhanced through scent. What would a being smell like that is fully in tune with living systems?
SŸS (they/them) is such a being: resilient, joyful, and radically present. They celebrate their body and trust all their senses. Their skin, nose, ears, and entire physical presence act as instruments of perception. They are not separate from their surroundings, but embedded in and shaped by the systems around them – natural, social, and technological. And because of this awareness, they cannot help but act with compassion toward all forms of life.
At the AIL Art Cabin, visitors were asked to participate: to smell six different scent compositions and imagine what THE SŸS might smell like. On a voting sheet, they responded to the question:
“Imagine a being that knows and feels everything about connectedness and interactions. How would it smell like? Please vote for a scent.”
The responses were collected and fed into the artistic research on olfactory scenography and systems awareness.
Through scent – rather than words or images – this scenographic study opened a new way of interacting with complexity. SŸS is not just a being; they are an invitation: to become more connected, more present, and more alive in the living systems we are part of.
February – May, 2025 – AIL Art Cabin, Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab – University of Applied Arts Vienna
Series of Scenographic Studies
The Series of Scenographic Studies is a key format within SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS. It merges artistic research activities and systems science knowledge in participatory, multisensory installations. Each study explores how systems principles become tangible through scent, sound, touch, and space.
The installations, shown at the AIL Art Cabin (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Georg-Coch-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna), offer insights into the project’s research practices and questions, and simultaneously generate new ones: visitors are not only observers but active contributors. Through their interaction, they help shape both the experience and the research process. The installations change about every 3 to 4 months. Designed as experimental environments, the scenographic studies transform key system principles and project’s findings into multisensory experience.
