Design & research
MSc in Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab
MA in Product Design, Weißensee Academy of Arts
See my CV for more background on my experience, education and selected activities.
About / Karsten Schuhl
A practice between
inquiry and making.
I’m Karsten Schuhl, a designer, artist and researcher working with sound, space, material and movement. I develop questions and ideas through making, using physical experiments to discover how an experience might take shape.
I am interested in how a work can draw us into its own world. Sound, visual detail and physical surroundings can create an atmosphere in which another setting or perspective becomes tangible—something we can spend time with, explore and sometimes become part of.
My practice includes self-initiated artworks, research, teaching, collaborative projects and services as a creative technologist and technical design lead. Across these contexts, I connect conceptual development with material and technical decisions, moving from early experiments to physical realisation.
My current focus is the artistic potential of spatial sound and its relationship to materials, movement and perception. Through Sonic Envelopes, I explore how listening might suggest a space beyond the room we see. Future experiments may take the form of installations or instruments, working with composed sound, environmental sound or both.
Background
Selected work
Teaching
Tools for asking
better questions.
Alongside my practice, I teach and mentor across design, physical computing, materials and sound. My teaching includes appointments and workshops at Berlin University of the Arts, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and Braunschweig University of Art.
Publications
2025 · Conference paper · Author: Karsten Schuhl
Proceedings of the 31st International Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV31), Incheon, South Korea. International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration. ISBN 978-89-94-02142-3.
2025 · Exhibition Catalogue · With Verena Bachl
Artha – art & heritage books, Belgium. ISBN 978-94-6436-829-1
“What is for Sure?” AI as an Artistic Tool and Its Consequences on Our Conception of Creation
2024 · Book chapter · With Verena Bachl
In Synthetic Realities – New Frontiers in AI-driven Design, Fabrication and Materiality. AADR / Spurbuchverlag. Text pp. 148–152; images pp. 193–195. ISBN 978-3-88778-108-8.
2024 · Conference paper · Author: Karsten Schuhl
In Wim van Keulen and Jim Kok (eds.), Proceedings of the 30th International Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV30), Amsterdam. International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration. ISBN 978-90-90-39058-1. ISSN 2329-3675.
Talks & Presentations
Adaptable Architectural Acoustic Surfaces: Actuation and Material Advances for Dynamic Adjustment
2025 · ICSV31 · Incheon
Presentation extending the conference paper.
Dynamic Acoustic Environments – A Designer’s Perspective
2024 · ICSV30 · Amsterdam
Presentation based on the conference paper, with an expanded design perspective.
Actuating the World – A Designer’s Toolbox for Interactive Designs
2023 · Braunschweig University of Art
DesignForum: Sonic Envelopes – Researching Adaptive Acoustics
2022 · Anhalt University of Applied Sciences · Dessau
Selected exhibitions
Mythos Wald - Global Sunrise
March–November 2026
Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany. With Chris Watson, Theresa Baumgartner and Verena Bachl.
INTELLIGENCE, IT’S AUTOMATIC!
February–June 2025
New Technological Art Award Exposition 2025, Zebrastraat, Ghent, Belgium. With Verena Bachl.
Planet Ozean - Notes from the Sea Floor
March 2024–November 2025
Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany. With Chris Watson, Theresa Baumgartner and Verena Bachl.
Himmel unter Berlin Vol. 2
May–June 2023
O.T. 1190 & Where we find the end, MaHalla, Berlin, Germany. With Stefan Reiss.
superpose
August & September 2021
MIT Media Lab and MIT Wiesner Student Art Gallery, Cambridge, USA.
Music for Diary
May–August 2014
8th Berlin Biennale, Ethnological Museum of Berlin – Dahlem, Berlin, Germany. With FELD studio, Nils Frahm and Mario García Torres.