Katrina
Kizenbaha

This House Will Outlive Us

Residents change, but the house remains. Everyone is changed by the house, and the house, in turn, is changed by its visitors.

A board game in which players tell the stories of the inhabitants of a house. The narrative is prompted by flipping a coin onto the game board, with heads or tails determining the timeline of events. The game is flexible and genre-agnostic, giving players the freedom to collaboratively create a unique world and history.

Published as a print&play edition on Itch.io and presented in Museumsnacht Köln 2023.

Sea Map

A pixel art tileset I made in my spare time to learn pixel art basics. The tiles all fit together seamlessly, and the set includes fancy borders and map markers. Useful for game assets or homebrew mapmaking. Published on itch.io

Come Closer

Interactive multi-channel audio installation using coordinated speakers, stage lights and distance sensors. Collaboration with Pia Laabs and Klara Tekath. The tracks of a musical composition were played through separate speakers, the volume triggered by distance sensors mounted under the speakers. Interaction facilitated by DMX512 and OSC protocols on Arduino, orchestrated over WiFi in Max by Cycling '74. I took care of the code, networking, sounds and lights, while Klara and Pia worked on the musical composition.

Exhibited in LABOR gallery, part of Köln Passagen 2024 design festival.

Starling migration – a journey across Europe

The common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) makes two great journeys every year – one in the spring and one in late summer. Between the Baltics and the United Kingdom, over 1500km travelled over the course of a few weeks.

We share the same coasts, the same roads and islands. How do they see the land which we consider ours? And how much can we really know about the secret lives of birds?

A zine I made for a design seminar about imagining non-human perspectives. I enjoy birdwatching, and have been fascinated by their complex societies, of which we still have such narrow knowledge. Removing national borders from the map of Europe and tracing a journey across diverse landscapes as though planning an itinerary, I invite the reader to change their perspective and open up to the idea of sharing a land with non-humans.

Zine, 24 pages, edition of 5, printed on 120gsm, hand-bound.

Ezera skaņas 2024

Floating installation for the music festival "Ezera Skaņas" ("Sounds of the Lake"). The design prompt "A place to meet" resulted in a large-scale object resembling a bonfire - the original gathering place. I worked with plexiglass and iridescent film, and these materials continue to intrigue me.

Phaoscope

“Phaoscope”, a compound word made of Greek verbs meaning “shine” and “examine”, is a decorative lighting object of 3D printed gothic windows. The window panes are interchangeable. Some are opaque, some transparent, and some are covered in colour-shifting iridescent film, casting kaleidoscopic shadows or a muted glow, depending on the user's preference.

Shrine for keys

Once everyday activities are observed through the lens of ritual practice, new design opportunities present themselves. By inserting the design language of sacred spaces and objects, the most mundane habits can become ritualised. Grounded in research of rituals of passage between spaces and times, my Intermediate thesis aimed to elevate the act of coming home, giving each homecoming the dignity and reverence of a sacred ritual, while also highlighting the privilege of it, using the keys as a fetish object.

Update: Blue Shift – multimedia festival

In this project in organised by RTU Liepajas University, students from 5 international universities (Tampere University in Tampere, Caspar David Friedrich Institut in Greifswald, Kunsthochschule für Medien Cologne, Vilnius Tech and Köln International School of Design) spent a week in Liepāja, Latvia participating in various workshops exploring topics of ecology, pollution and sustainability in the Baltic Sea. I was one of 7 KISD students participating, and I chose a workshop regarding empty space and sound led by sound artist Jeesoo Hong. At the end of the 1 week, there was an exhibition of the workshop outcomes. In my case, a series of sketches and photographs of the Karosta site, accompanied by a sound piece from underwater field recordings.