Fraunhofer MEVIS welcomes Gregory Alliss to the STEAM Imaging VI residency programme: “Resonant Connections through Design and Data.” The glass artist and engineer will be a guest at Fraunhofer, where he will focus his creative work on glass, the world of MR scanners, data, and design.

Glass is transparent—which is why we usually look through it without paying much attention. Gregory Alliss wants us to look closely into it to explore the fascination of this transparent material. The British artist and engineer conceives and designs unusual objects that show glass in a new light. He will now be coming to the institute in Bremen for two weeks as part of the STEAM Imaging residency program. STEAM Imaging VI is being organized this year with the Institute for Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen and the Oberschule am Waller Ring secondary school, supported by Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. Working alongside researchers, Alliss will focus on an important medical imaging technique, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

MRI is an indispensable diagnostic tool, but the programming of the sequences that control image acquisition is complex and requires specialized expertise. MEVIS simplifies this process with so-called no-field scanners and compact tabletop MRI devices, as well as large research scanners, and its in-house software platform gammaSTAR, which makes the programming of MRI sequences more accessible through modular tools tailored to different MRI systems. Alliss wants to make the methods accessible in an artistic way: explorative, sensual, and with low-threshold access to the new mini scanners. Together with the MEVIS experts, he aims to develop new forms of communication and open up the world of MRI to school students and the general public in a STEAM workshop. The result will be presented in spring 2026 at Inspace during the renowned Edinburgh Science Festival as an immersive installation.

Gregory Alliss moves between many worlds: art, engineering, and science. He studied physics and initially worked in the medical field before expanding his technical career into complex systems. “My job is to understand how people use and interact with these systems and how the interfaces between humans and machines can be optimised,” says Alliss, who has worked as an expert for various companies. He is able to draw on his previous experience, bringing an innovative and refreshing perspective to his art.

Alliss found his way to art as a collector of unusual glass objects. He then taught himself to work with glass supported by masterclasses including one at Corning Museum of Glass in the USA. Finally, he completed a master's degree at Edinburgh College of Art, where he is currently pursuing a doctorate. His topic: sustainable practices for the creation of glass art. He is focusing on the question of how contaminated waste glass can be processed into art objects and how ecological pragmatism can be combined with artistic experimentation. Gregory Alliss works primarily with waste glass, such as old television picture tubes: “This glass is contaminated with substances such as lead and barium,” explains Alliss. “That makes it difficult to work with, and the results are often more unpredictable. And that's exactly what I like!” The result is a working method that deliberately accepts uncertainties, which Alliss then brings into shape through targeted post-processing of the objects.

“One of my artistic aims is to bring the viewer inside the glass,” explains Alliss. One of his previous projects, “What’s Inside?”, for example, translates micro-sections of a glass object into a walk-in, immersive projection in which people can virtually wander through the material. The theme of the two-week STEAM Imaging VI residency at Fraunhofer MEVIS in Bremen expands on this approach and involves not only scientists but also students from the new upper secondary school specialization ”digital medicine,“ which MEVIS offers in collaboration with the Oberschule am Waller Ring in Bremen. The project title: “Play to Demystify—Creating Access to and Understanding of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technology.” For Alliss, this is a return to his roots in medical physics and, at the same time, a field of experimentation for playfully exploring new developments in complex MR software, user interfaces, and patient experiences.

An integral part of the residency is the two-day STEAM workshop with school students, which provides insights into the world of new possibilities in MR sequence programming in an exploratory and creative way. Together with MEVIS researchers, Gregory Alliss aims to make complex science clear and understandable. The aim is for young people to experience how glass art and science can work together to make the invisible visible, and how creative experiments can help to increase access to medical technology and help influence the underlying topics from science, design and data that will shape the medicine of tomorrow. The workshop uses so-called tabletop MRIs, small, simplified models that fit on a table and do not require strong magnetic fields. This allows participants to try out how signals are generated, how data is converted into images, and how materials behave in the scanner. For Gregory Alliss, these mini-MRIs are ideal tools for making technology tangible: they combine the playful nature of his artistic approach with the scientific aspiration to convey complex processes in an understandable way. And they give young people the opportunity to literally look inside the images.

For Gregory Alliss, glass objects and MRI scanners are two ways of making the invisible visible and translating complexity into tangible forms. Specifically, he is thinking of so-called MRI phantoms. These are test and teaching bodies that simulate certain materials and geometries in the MR scanner. “I want to develop glass modules that I can modify on site—phantoms that I can place in the scanner and that may produce different imaging effects.” He envisions his collaboration with the MEVIS researchers as follows: he wants to learn about their new MR tools and then reflect them artistically. “I'm looking forward to getting to know these new tools,” explains Alliss. “Then I want to see if I can help the researchers find new ways to make them accessible—hence the title Play to Demystify.”

Fraunhofer MEVIS is committed to science communication through projects such as the creators’ residency and the STEAM workshop, which aim to make its research topics and unique research culture accessible to a wider audience. To achieve its goals, the institute operates within an open, collaborative structure that promotes flexibility and exchange across disciplinary boundaries; a principle that is also reflected in its communication approach: participatory, decentralised, and project oriented. “Instead of simply imparting knowledge, the aim is to arouse curiosity, create emotional access to complex topics, and inspire people to get involved,” explains Bianka Hofmann, Head of Science Engagement, who leads the residency programme at MEVIS. Collaborations with art and education open up new forms of cooperation in which science is not only explained, but experienced and contextualised.

With a focus on fusing design, and creative methodologies with data, data science and data-driven technologies, the Institute for Design Informatics is partner for this year’s STEAM Imaging VI Program. The theme, “Resonant Connections through Design and Data,” evolved out of shared interests across our Institutes, inviting this year's creator in residence, Gregory Alliss, to delve deeper into MRI technology, through the combining design thinking and data science. The installation he creates during his stay in Bremen will be presented in 2026 in the exhibition and event venue “Inspace” during the Edinburgh Science Festival—as an immersive installation that merges science, light, space, and material into a shared narrative. Visitors are invited to engage playfully and creatively with MRI tools and technologies.

STEAM Imaging VI, hosted by Fraunhofer MEVIS, Germany, in collaboration with the Institute for Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, creates a unique opportunity to explore the potential for application of creative multi- and transdisciplinary approaches in digital medicine. The collaboration involves the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen and the Oberschule am Waller Ring in Bremen, supported by Ars Electronica, Austria.