[Up]Loaded Bodies XR Matinee
Meta.Morf 2024 – [up]Loaded Bodies / LantarenVenster, Otto Reuchlinweg 996, 3072 MD, Rotterdam / Matinee / September 20
An afternoon with conversations about the impact of XR technologies.
How we experience digital content is changing rapidly with the emergence of extended reality technologies. XR brings together virtual, augmented and mixed reality to create a blended reality in which data seamlessly mingles with the physical environment. The impact of this new integrated world is becoming evident across society in domains such as education, health care, industry and culture. Inevitably, the opportunities XR presents also introduce critical issues relating to sustainability, ethics, data privacy, and unequal access to technology, to name a few examples. XR tools offer creatives and artists compelling possibilities for building upon and challenging existing modes of content creation and storytelling while helping to develop original methodologies for producing new artistic media.
Registration
This free event has limited places, please reserve your seat for this event by filling out the following form.
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The XR Matinee is part of ‘Realities in Transition’, a Europe-wide project that researches the impact of ‘extended reality’.
This XR Matinee is an afternoon full of presentations on extended reality with:
Ágnes Karolina Bakk, the head and lead researcher of Immersion and Interaction Hub at the Innovation Center of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest. Ágnes Karolina Bakk is also a narrative designer focusing on immersive theatrical formats, immersive storytelling & the science of magic. She currently leads research projects on romantic relationships in Metaverse-like environments and on psychological restoration in a nature-simulation VR and its clinical use. She is the founder of the Zip-Scene conference that is running since 2018 in Budapest and Prague, and cofounder of Random Error Studio which focuses on creation of VR productions. She is also the co-curator of Vektor VR section, Hungary’s first VR-focused event. She teaches immersive storytelling, and speculative design and offers talks at various conferences from Kobe (JP) to Montreal (CA) including festivals (Stereopsia, DokLeipzig). She is also a narrative designer for several video games. She co-edited the book Designing Immersive Environments – Enchanting Spaces, together with Péter Kristóf Makai, which will be published in October 2024 by Palgrave Macmillan.
Maria Engberg, an Associate Professor / Reader of Media Technology at Malmö University. Her research interests include emerging media technologies (eg. Virtual, Mixed and Augmented Reality), digital reading practices, digital writing and aesthetics, and multisensory media. Recent publications include the edited volume The Digital Reading Condition (2023, Routledge, with Iben Have and Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen), Reality Media: Augmented and Virtual Reality (2021, MIT Press, with Jay David Bolter and Blair MacIntyre). Engberg holds a Ph.D. in English from Uppsala University (2007).
Joris Weijdom, a researcher and designer of extended-reality (XR) experiences focusing on interdisciplinary creative processes and performativity. He designs site-specific performative mixed-reality installations and functions as a technical dramaturge in other artistic and applied design projects. As an experienced speaker, he talks about embodiment, immersion, and presence in performative mixed-reality experience design. Working as an associate professor at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, he leads the HKU Artistic Extended Reality Lab and teaches several BA and MA courses. His PhD project develops the performative prototyping methodology using embodied design techniques in collaborative mixed reality environments to create novel experiences for/through XR in professional and educational settings in collaboration with the University of Twente.
Realities in Transition
The XR Matinee is part of ‘Realities in Transition’ (RiT), a Europe-wide project that researches the impact of ‘extended reality’. RiT is an international community that aims at both exploring and supporting alternative Extended Reality (XR) productions, and experimenting with new narratives and creative processes. RiT aims at building a strong, independent European XR creative and activist community, a think tank to tackle current and future challenges in the digital sector. Realities in Transition is co-funded by the European Union. Realities in Transition consists of Seconde Nature (France), L.E.V. (Spain), KONTEJNER (Croatia), Ars Electronica (Austria), Dark Euphoria (France), V2_ Lab (The Netherlands), and iMal (Belgium).
Koka Nikoladze (GE/NO) is a composer, artist, and associate professor of music theory, composition, and music technology at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH). Koka composes for orchestras, and builds musical machines as well as expressive performance interfaces. Koka explores the interplay between sound, objects, and performance. Koka also gives public lectures on music and technology.
Gyrid Nordal Kaldestad (NO) is a composer and performer from the island of Stord in Sunnhordland. In the spring of 2024, she will complete her artistic fellowship at NTNU, Department of Music, Department of Music Technology. Among her positions, she has been the leader of MU in NKF, head of the scholarship committee for composers, as well as a board member in Periskop, nyMusikk Trondheim, Nuts and Bolts, and Notam. She is currently the local leader for nyMusikk Trondheim and the deputy chair of the board for the Norwegian Society of Composers.