Virus Dice

In a metaphorical way, the project makes the delicate, extremely vulnerable nature and complexity of human health visible. We roll the dice of our own health every day. Our immune system does an incredible job - most of the time. Virus Dice is an analogue dice game accompanied by a video about the infection pathway of SARS-CoV-2. The rules of the dice game are pretty easy to learn - and they can be learned through a game master while playing. Like in real life - anything can happen - with a certain probability. For the full experience, the game can be also set up in an art installation with a game master as performer. The setup with projection mappings looks a little bit like a mixture of a casino and the kitschy, sparkling tent of a fortune teller - you play and the dice decide whether your cell lives or dies!

Virus Dice @ MQ Vienna

Virus Dice was part of the exhibition Expeditions to Hidden Worlds in the MuseumsQuartier Vienna. There you could see the computer-animated science viz as well as the awesome scientific recordings of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by Stefan Mereiter et al.

Play the Virus Dice

Virus Dice is a psychic media installation that uses video mapping, a scientific model of the virus and a dice game to tell you the future of the health of
one of your cells attacked by SARS-CoV-2 viruses. It shows the probability that plays into getting sick or staying healthy.

Virus Dice Installation at Schmiede Hallein

During the "Virus Dice Interaction Lab" at Schmiede Hallein, the importance of the vaccination against COVID-19 could be explored playfully. For the exhibition "Werkschau", a first prototype of an installation with projection mapping and game play was presented.

The virus dice data and phages in TV report

The scientific data used for Virus Dice and animations of bacteriophages from the Science Visualization Lab of the University of Applied Arts were part of the new TV report series of national broadcasting station ORF 2. Several visuals were shown to convey the visual appearance to the audience.

New virus model in collaboration with Nanographics

In line with the principles of the Science Visualization Lab, we were able to establish a collaboration with the company Nanographics in order to use their latest data from virus scans in the Virus Dice project.
See more about the data and model here:
https://nanographics.at/projects/coronavirus-3d/

Virus Dice Teaser online

The project makes connections visible using innovative visual and interactive means. A central issue is a certain feeling for chance as well as the fuzziness and uncertainty that lies behind probability information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-Cxh93dr4

Virus Dice Teaser at PIXELvienna 2020

The first public appearance and exhibition of the Virus Dice project took place at PIXELvienna 2020 in the curated exhibition titled "Corona and Climate Change". A teaser of the project's main visuals - dice and the SARS-CoV-2 virus was presented.

Knowledge of life, which we cannot see with the naked eye, is essential for survival and increased awareness is urgently required. The “Virus Dice” project will make connections visible using innovative visual and interactive means. In the project a central issue is a certain feeling for chance as well as the fuzziness and uncertainty that lies behind probability information. Visitors take on the role of a SARS-Covid-2 virus and can stochastically receive different scenarios. Virus spread depends on many factors, but it is important to reduce the likelihood of serious infections.

The teaser shows one shot of the “Virus Dice” project. You can see a corona virus that is blocked with ACE-2 molecules (APN01 medicine), but one of these molecules is kicked away again – by a cube, as a symbol for the randomness and the interaction in the upcoming art installation. Because one spike is not blocked with ACE-2, the virus can dock onto the cell membrane – end of the shot.