07.03.2026

3pm to open end

Marcello Lussana has been working on the “Innovations for Artistic Education – InKüLe” project at the Berlin University of the Arts in the field of experimental media didactics since September 2024.

Since earning his master’s degree in Sound Studies in 2012, Marcello has dedicated himself to the research and development of interactive sound systems. His work on projects such as MotionComposer and Metabody from 2012 to 2019 has deepened his expertise in this field.

In 2016, Marcello co-founded the Sentire project, a participatory performance that transforms closeness and touch into sound and promotes body awareness. Sentire was also tested in therapeutic settings. Following an intensive application phase, the project evolved into a research project at Humboldt University in Berlin from 2019 to 2023, where Marcello served as a research assistant and project coordinator. His responsibilities included conducting scientific studies, organizing and evaluating interviews, as well as comprehensive data analysis and software development.

Sentire is a body–machine interface that sonifies motor behaviour in real time and a participatory, interactive performance in which two people use their physical movements to collaboratively create sound while constantly being influenced by the results. Based on our informal observation that basal social behaviours emerge during Sentire performances, the present article investigates our principal hypothesis that Sentire can foster basic mechanisms underlying non-verbal social interaction. We illustrate how coordination serves as a crucial basic mechanism for social interaction, and consider how it is addressed by various therapeutic approaches, including therapeutic use of real-time auditory feedback. Then we argue that the implementation of Sentire may be fruitful in healthcare contexts and in promoting general well-being. We describe how the Sentire system has been developed further within the scope of the research project ‘Social interaction through sound feedback–Sentire’ that combines human–computer interaction, sound design and real-world research, against the background of the relationship between sound, sociality and therapy. The question concerning how interaction is facilitated through Sentire is addressed through the first results of behavioural analysis using structured observation, which allows for a quasi-quantitative sequential analysis of interactive behaviour.