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2026
03.26

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WS25/26





SS25/26


Information

FAiR 2026

Law, Technology and Humans Journal


HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT:
THE OPS ROOM

Aarhus 25 / Paper

VINCI 25 / Paper
VINCI 25 / Art Track

OIC Masterclass
re:publica / Panel
STS Hub / Panel


Teaching
Fundamentals of Innovation

Interdisciplinary Projects I

Evolution of Disruptive Technologies


   © Metaverse Lab 2026 / website: Kristina Tica
Metaverse Lab


Linz Institute for Transformative Change [LIFT_C]
Johannes Kepler University Linz

LIT Open Innovation Center
Altenberger Straße 69
4040 Linz

Metaverse Lab is a research group at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. This is an online portfolio and an archive of research projects, conferences, papers and teaching that is developed at the Metaverse Lab up-to-date.

The digital space, along with its interfaces to the analog world, can be understood as the "Metaverse"—a space beyond ("meta") the (physical) universe ("universe"). Social media, AI-driven chatbots, and cryptocurrencies are current manifestations of the Metaverse. In this space, there are no (state) borders, meaning that state sovereignty, with its power to enact laws, can only be exercised in a very limited way. In practice, sovereignty primarily lies with the tech giants of Silicon Valley, which has significant consequences for the rule of law and its liberal democratic order. Led by Professor Meinhard Lukas, the goal of the Metaverse Lab is to explore the transformation within and through the Metaverse using a radical, root-focused, interdisciplinary approach.
 

TEAM


 Univ.- Prof. Dr. Meinhard Lukas / head of the lab
Dr. Joaquín Santuber / research group lead
Kristina Tica MA MA / university assistant
Mariana Costa Morais MSc BSc / university assistant

Further Links:
metaverselab [at] jku.at
jku.at 


NEWS



19 July 2026CONFERENCE PRESENTATION
Kristina Tica presenting Art Paper "From Computer Vision to the Vision of Law: Human Overs[a]ight" at SIGGRAPH 2026, Los Angeles, CA. Tica, K., Santuber, J. 2026.
https://s2026.conference-schedule.org/presentation/?id=artpl_233&sess=sess232

29 June 2026
ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN ACM DIGITAL LIBRARY
From Computer Vision to the Vision of Law: Human Overs[a]ight. Tica, K., Santuber, J. 2026. Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, Vol. 9, No. 3, Article 37, pp. 1–10.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3816088

25 June 2026 BOOK PUBLISHED
The Socio-Politics of Legal Design and its Epistemic Consequences. Edited by Siddharth Peter de Souza and Joaquín Santuber. Oñati International Series in Law and Society, Bloomsbury.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/sociopolitics-of-legal-design-and-its-epistemic-consequences-9781509990085/  

26 March 2026  AI Cafe #3: Your Machines, Their Rules? – Legality, Rights, and Accountability in Algorithmic Society // with Kristina Tica, Raphael Albert & Joaquín Santuberservus x theater phoenix / stadtwerkstatt | 18:00-19:30

15 March 2026
Article published in Law, Technology and Humans Journal
Dis/ordering AI–Human Oversight: Materialities, Aesthetics and Contestability. 2026. J. Santuber, M. Morais, K. Tica.
https://doi.org/10.5204/lthj.4170 

4 March 2026 BOOK LAUNCH
Mariana Morais had launched as co-writer and co-editor the book “Legal Design > Visual Law: a prática do Design Jurídico” in Brazil.

March 2026 VISITING PROFESSORSHIP
Joaquin Santuber has been appointed Visiting Professor at the School of Design of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
14 February 2026 CONFERENCE PRESENTATION
Reading the EU AI Act as a Cultural Artefact
Joaquín Santuber, 2026, presented at  the 9th International Conference “Legal Perspectives on the Internet” (COPEJI 9.0), hosted by the  Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania.
13 February 2026 GUEST LECTURE
Law, Design, and Transformative Change
Joaquín Santuber, 2026, at the Go Digital with Law Winter School, hosted by the  Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania.
https://www.jku.at/ec2u/news-events/news/detail/news/gemeinsam-eine-digitale-zukunft-gestalten-highlights-der-ec2u-winter-school-in-iasi/ 


_

ARCHIVE



19 December 2025 RESEARCH ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN ACM DIGITAL LIBRARY
Visualizing AI Operations for Human Oversight: The Ops Room.
Joaquin Santuber and Kristina Tica. 2025.
In Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI '25).
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 39, 1–5.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3769534.3769580

HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM. [Art Track]
Joaquin Santuber and Kristina Tica. 2025.
In Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI '25).
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 75, 1–3.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3769534.3769583

-
15 December 2025 OIC MASTERCLASS #2: CREATIVE PRACTICES AS KNOWLEDGE GENERATION
JOAQUÍN SANTUBER AND KRISTINA TICA / BLOG POST

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01-03 December 2025VINCI 2025 Conference, Linz
Visualizing AI operations for Human Oversight: The Ops Room (short paper) /
Human Overs[a]ight: the Ops Room (art track)
Joaquín Santuber and Kristina Tica

–27 November 2025 OIC MASTERCLASS #2: CREATIVE PRACTICES AS KNOWLEDGE GENERATION
JOAQUÍN SANTUBER AND KRISTINA TICALIT OPEN INOVATION CENTER  JKU
 LIT Open Innovation Center 
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14-16 October 2025X Coimbra International Conference on Human Rights (CIDHCoimbra 2025)
Paper presentation: How user-centered design drives neoliberal logic in public institutions.
Mariana Costa Morais

September 2025  PANEL Legal Design Summit 2026, Helsinki
Opening Up Possibilities for Legal Design,
Joaquín Santuber

–03-07 September 2025 EXHIBITION
HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM at the Ars Electronica Festival Kristina Tica & Joaquín Santuber, 2025

18 August 2025
RESEARCH ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN ACM DIGITAL LIBRARY:
COMPUTING HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT:LAW/APPARATUS\VISION/AGENCY / 
Proceedings of the sixth decennial Aarhus Conference: Computing (X) Crisis

19-22 August 2025COMPUTING HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT:LAW/APPARATUS\VISION/AGENCY
research paper 
presented at The sixth decennial Aarhus Conference: Computing (X) Crisis


OUR PROJECT WEBSITES:

/ JUDICIAL RUINS:
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF 
PUBLIC INNOVATION IN COURTS 

/ NEW BOOK: THE SOCIO-POLITICS OF LEGAL DESIGN AND ITS EPISTEMIC CONSEQUENCES

/ PROCESSING BODIES

03.262026 Law, Technology and Humans Journal

Dis/ordering AI–Human Oversight: Materialities, Aesthetics and Contestability

Joaquin Santuber, Mariana Costa Morais, Kristina Tica  
2026.

 Journal Article

Open Access:
https://lthj.qut.edu.au/article/view/4170

https://doi.org/10.5204/lthj.4170

Abstract: This article aims to dis/order the concept of human oversight as established in Article 14 of the EU AI Act through an alternative ontological lens. By inquiring into the modes of existence of the law and digital objects, we imagine that human oversight can serve as a form of contestation rather than merely as a supervisory mechanism. This reconceptualisation offers a pathway to overcome the alienation between law and technology. This alienation, we argue, is rooted in the law’s alienation from image and the sensorial, resulting in alienation between humans and technological systems. We address this issue by materialising oversight in the form of an artistic project and installation, HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM. We propose a shift in perspective – specifically, we suggest that aesthetics, through image and art, can foster critical engagement and open up new avenues for imagining human oversight beyond the legal frameworks currently in place. They can do this by dis/ordering AI–human oversight.
01. 26 FAiR 2026
Feeling All Rights in the Digital World

Jan Schlütler, Joaquín Santuber, Mariana Costa Morais, Nikita Lvov, Valentin Bernauer.

People spend an increasing amount of time on digital platforms. In contrast to the physical world, these platforms lack cues that allow people to construct an understanding of legality. We propose to fill this gap with software that runs on
a user's device and reacts on the user's actions to foster an understanding of legal aspects in their online activities, in a tangible, creative, perhaps even entertaining way. What form these reactions should take – be it textual, visual, vocal, auditory, tactile – and what reactions can be delivered automatically at the right time is the subject of our research, combining law, computer science, and design. Users play a central role in the process, not merely as test subjects, but as co-designers. If you are interested to join forces, you're welcome!Research Project 2026-2028

JKU Institute for Computational Perception

Website: https://www.jku.at/en/institute-of-computational-perception/research/projects/fair-world/
01. 25HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM

Artwork and Research Project
Kristina Tica / Joaquín Santuber
2025

Project Website:

humanoversaight.cargo.site

 Date Exhibited:

03-07/09/2025
Ars Electronica Festival Linz


HUMAN OVERSAIGHT: THE OPS ROOM is a real-time generative, interactive audio-visual installation that questions the role of human oversight of high-risk AI systems, established according to the European  Artificial Intelligence Act: Article 14. This Article suggests that in high-risk AI systems, a person must observe the automated processes within the system and be able to intervene in the system or ‘bring the system to a halt’ via a human-machine interface, such as a stop button.

We envision an actual setting proposed by the law, taking it from abstraction to a real-world setting. The visitors are invited to take on a role in human oversight of a high-risk AI system and are encouraged to engage with a human-machine interface and operate the system's processes.
1/2    HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM.  Kristina Tica, Joaquín Santuber [Metvaverse Lab]. 2025. Installation view. Ars Electronica Festival Linz. Photo: Reinhard Zach
02.2025 Aarhus 2025 Computation (X) Crisis Decennial Conference
18-22/08/25
Aarhus University, Denmark

COMPUTING HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: LAW/APPARATUS\VISION/AGENCY

Kristina Tica, Joaquín Santuber
2025


Research Article

In Proceedings of the sixth decennial Aarhus conference: Computing X Crisis (AAR '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 244–251. https://doi.org/10.1145/3744169.3744187 
Computing Human Overs(a)ight is a conceptual exploration of human responsibility for oversight in high-risk AI systems, as introduced in the European Artificial Intelligence Act (Art. 14). Investigating the legal and computational framework of the high-risk systems, and human responsibility within, we amplify possible enactment and embodiment of this article — we extract it as a phenomenon from the law so to understand the political and ideological notion of agency in the automated systems. The accelerated dissemination of the tools, models and products under the roof term AI in the scope of the last decade, has led us to their legitimacy in the eyes of the law, even in high-risk operations. Article 14 invokes the setting for the problematization of current intertwinements between computational and legal acts and abstractions. Such an approach can help us to understand the soci[et]al consequences of human-machine operations, addressing the depositions between computation and human agency, transparency, responsibility, and dignity. Relying on critical media studies that address the computational processes through a distinction between operational and representational notions of a computational image, we are questioning the [f]actuality of what is seen and what can be overlooked in the human oversight of high-risk AI systems.

2/2    The sixth Decennial Aarhus Conference: Computation (x) Crisis. 2025. Paper presentation. Photo: Samantha Hookway
03.2025 VINCI 2025 Conference
01-03/12/25
Linz, Austria

Visualizing AI Operations for Human Oversight: The Ops Room

Joaquin Santuber, Kristina Tica  
2025.

 Conference Paper

In Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 39, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3769534.3769580
Abstract: This paper adopts an artistic research approach to the visualisation of AI operations within the legal framework of the EU AI Act's human oversight mechanisms for high-risk AI systems. Starting from the law, we address issues understandability, awareness, interpretation, monitoring, and intervention across technical and social systems the machine and the human. Our artwork HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM for high-risk AI systems bring to attention the materialities and technologies through which the law becomes perceivable and experienceable. It deals with questions of control, invisuality, and the cultural techniques of the law. This paper puts in dialogue this artwork with previous artworks and research such as the World Rehearsal Court by Judy Radul, investigating the ways in which information is visualized and communicated to make this interface tools for control meaningful and politically relevant.
Joaquín Santuber. Metaverse Lab. Paper Presentation VINCI 2025. 
04.2025 VINCI 2025 Conference
01-03/12/25
Linz, Austria

HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM
Joaquin Santuber, Kristina Tica.
2025.


Art Track/Extended Abstract

In Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 75, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1145/3769534.3769583 
HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM is a real-time generative, interactive audio- visual installation developed as a human oversight department for high-risk AI systems. It is established according to the European Artificial Intelligence Act [EU AI Act], as described in Article 14, which suggests that in high-risk AI systems a human-machine interface such as a “stop button” is needed, to bring the system to a halt. Can the system be stopped by a button, and why not? We investigate how humans can oversee and evaluate these processes, by visualizing the internal operations of an automated system. We invite visitors to take upon a central role in human oversight of high-risk AI systems and encourage them to engage with a human-machine interface to oversee the systems’ operations. We provide possibilities for action for people to claim back their political agency to stop or affect the system.

4/1 Installation Detail. Photo: Reinhard Zach
05.2025 OIC Masterclass #2
Linz Institute of Technology
Open Innovation Center
Linz, Austria

Creative Practices as Knowledge Generation

Joaquín Santuber, Krisitna Tica Keynote & Masterclass

blog post

organised by Florian Wiencek
Interreg AT-CZ / EU Project
On November 27, 2025, the LIT Open Innovation Center (OIC) hosted the second OIC Masterclass as part of the Interreg project „KreATivita&InovaCZe“. Under the title “Creative Practices as Knowledge Generation”, ” Dr. Joaquín Santuber - legal scholar, design researcher, and head of the Metaverse Labs at the Linz Institute for Transformative Change (LIFT_C) at JKU - discussed together with artist and researcher Kristina Tica (LIFT_C, JKU), how creative practices can not only create things, meanings, and change, but also systematically generate knowledge. 

At the heart of the Masterclass was the project „Human Oversight – The Ops Room“, opens an external URL in a new window, an interactive installation that makes the concept of “Human Oversight” from the EU AI Act (Art. 14) tangible—situated between interface and collective negotiation. The project was developed by Joaquín Santuber, Kristina Tica, and their team within the framework of the LIT Special Call 2025 and was exhibited for the first time at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz in September 2025.


/from blog post
06.2025 re:publica: Generation XYZ
STATION, Berlin


Joaquin Santuber, Kristina Tica  
2025

 Conference Panel 

Web Announcement:
https://re-publica.com/de/session/who-pressed-red-button-imaginaries-eu-legislator-human-oversight-ai-systems
This talk brings together perspectives from the arts and law to playfully interrogate the legal imaginaries of human-oversight in the EU AI Act.  The regulation of AI systems came with many threats, tricks, and treats for artistic exploration. The references to human-machine interfaces and stop buttons by the EU legislator open up possibilities to speculate how would they look like. By reading the legal provisions, it becomes clear that many of these concepts are grounded in science fiction films and literature. By means of visual content, the talk draws a puzzle of pop culture and sci-fi media references to envision the materiality of such legal concepts. As seriously as we can take the topic, it invites us to take it with irony, humor, and a bit of recklessness.  
This talk is a showcase of our academic research on the legal implications in application and regulation of the AI-based systems, specially tailored to address a broader audience.

This programme section is supported by Stiftung Mercator.
07.2025 STS Hub 2025: Diffracting the Critical
11-14/03/25  
Humboldt University, Berlin


Judicial Ruins: an archeology of public innovation in courts

Joaquín Santuber, Pablo Hermansen, Marcos Chilet, Kristina Tica
2025

 Conference Panel

Pure


https://sts-hub.de/25/panels.html
Abstract: What happens to all those digital records and pilot projects that end too soon? Do they simply disappear, or do they lie dormant, waiting to be reactivated? Is there a kind of cemetery for digital artifacts created by failed public innovation projects, or do these artifacts hibernate, ready to resurface? What do we do with discarded platforms, prototypes, and interfaces that continue to linger online, gradually forming an informational geology with latent, volcano-political potential? We examine the case of thousands of video recordings of judicial hearings stored on platforms like Facebook or YouTube, remnants of Facebook Live’s streaming service once used by the Chilean judiciary. This innovation allowing users to comment on these judicial hearings livestreams was shut down after a prosecutor’s private address was widely shared among thousands of comments, leading to armed right-wing groups showing up at her home to threaten her and her family. By viewing public innovation as radically open-ended, we propose that citizens and communities might appropriate, remix, and reinterpret these recordings from past innovation projects. These abandoned digital layers become raw material for political action, allowing new meanings to emerge from public trials and reconfiguring notions of justice in unexpected ways. Our proposal for an archaeology of public innovation opens up new forms of political action at a time when public institutions, like the judiciary, may appear increasingly ruined by the innovation imperatives.
Joaquín Santuber. Metaverse Lab. Paper Presentation VINCI 2025.