OPENING
SELECTIONS
SONA Festival 2025
Step into new worlds and unique experiences at SONA Immersive Storytelling Festival.
Our selection showcases the depth and diversity of immersive storytelling, bringing together works that challenge perspectives, spark conversation, and push the boundaries of VR, AR, and 360° media.
We chose these experiences for their artistic innovation, emotional impact, and ability to engage audiences in new ways. This program reflects SONA’s mission to explore immersive media as a space for bold, meaningful storytelling and to highlight voices that are often overlooked. You will see these pieces throughout the festival, in our VR Spaces, Immersive Room, and featured at our evening events.
FEATURED EXPEREINCE
Flow (16:00)
Director: Linaixuan Wang
Special showings at the ETC
(off campus - Directions)
Thursday March 27th, 2025, 10am - 1pm;
Friday March 28th, 2025, 10am - 12pm;
Saturday March 29th, 2025, starting from 3:30pm
Flow is an interactive immersive experience that leads the guests into a traditional Chinese folklore through dance, light, and music. It combines digital installation and movements, utilizing light and virtual engines in a curved 270-degree screen.
RESERVE YOUR VR EXPERIENCE
In the weeks leading up to the festival and throughout the event, you can book 30-minute VR sessions using our priority online booking system.
You may reserve as many sessions as you like over the three days. If you arrive more than 10 minutes late, your session may be given to a walk-in attendee.
Walk-ins are available on a first-come, first-served basis if headsets are free. Our staff will guide you in using the headset and selecting an experience.
A Woman’s War (Жіноча Війна) is an audiovisual work about the untold stories and experiences of Ukrainian women who were forced to flee their homeland following the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. Historically, the effects of war are rarely communicated from women’s perspectives, and the impact on people outside the front line is often overlooked.
A Woman's War (4:57)
Directors: Natália Štojková,
Kornélia Nemcová
Screening in the Kenner Room
A Woman’s War (Жіноча Війна) is an audiovisual work about the untold stories and experiences of Ukrainian women who were forced to flee their homeland following the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. Historically, the effects of war are rarely communicated from women’s perspectives, and the impact on people outside the front line is often overlooked.
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Natália & Kornélia conducted 12 detailed interviews with Ukrainian women, aged 19 to over 60. Amongst them were family members, university students, artists, professors, scientists, business women, and more... Some of them fled the country with their children, while others had to settle into their new lives completely alone. Most of them have only seen their families in Ukraine a few times since 2022, and some will never see them again. A key theme of A Woman’s War was expressed by one of our anonymous respondents: “In this war, there exists a woman confronting her harsh realities. The true woman’s war unfolds itself in the act of emigration—a struggle women must often deal with on their own. This is their frontline: to safeguard lives and seek refuge abroad.”
Visually, our project employs 3D scans from Ukraine to craft immersive particle-cloud graphics, narrating individual stories by capturing the ephemerality of places and the fleeting nature of abandoned objects. Musically, it blends traditional Ukrainian and Slovak folk and choral music with contemporary sound design, amplifying the emotional resonance of these women’s experiences.
A Woman’s War also holds particular significance in revitalising the discussion around the Russo-Ukrainian War, which started in 2014. Coming from Slovakia, a post-communist country directly neighbouring Ukraine, Natália & Kornélia understand the ongoing aggression and threat that Russia’s regime has been posing on many European countries for about a century, not only through physical violence and occupation but also by ongoing propaganda, destabilisation of society and erasure of Ukrainian culture and heritage.
Natália Štojková is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and digital designer from Bratislava, Slovakia, and a recent graduate from the Royal College of Art, with MA in Digital Direction. Her work focuses on urgent global issues in Central and Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on female perspectives, challenging gender stereotypes, and exploring traditions and historical conventions. Before RCA, Natália studied Graphic Design at Kingston University, where she explored motion graphics, creative coding, and robotics. As part of an artist duo with Kornélia Nemcová, Natália specialises in art direction, visual identity, audio-reactive graphics, marketing communication, and stage & set design—offering a unique blend of interdisciplinary approaches.
Kornélia Nemcová is a Slovakia-born, London-based composer and musician. Her work spans across genres and media, but is primarily focused on acoustic and electro-acoustic music, rooted in contemporary classical background. She composed for many ensembles, including the contemporary groups Terra Invisus and The Ruffians, Trinity Laban String Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra and members of the ZOE Chamber Orchestra. Her upcoming year includes projects with Royal Scottish National Orchestra and National Youth Choir of Great Britain. Besides composing, Kornélia was the musical director and conductor of the Apollo Consort Society of Contemporary Music. In 2023, they recorded an album of new music in the Tonmeister’s studios at the University of Surrey. Kornélia graduated from Trinity Laban Conservatoire in 2024, holding a BMus (Hons) in Composition.
Natália and Kornélia’s latest project, ‘A Woman's War’, won the Trinity Laban Innovation Award 2024 and has been exhibited at Blackheath Halls, BBC Television Centre, Outernet Global London, and Riverside Studios as part of the London Breeze Festival, with many more exhibitions and performances to come.
amniotic artheraπ (8:05)
Director: Konrad Mihat
An artistic interpretation regarding amniotic therapy that tries to convey in words and feeling the interior and exterior processes of this therapeutic method, aimed mainly for battling psychosis, but with therapeutic effects for any participant.
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In 2023 the Entuziart Association, actively promoting introduction of art, dance, new media, and other innovative therapies in Romania, introduced through the Outsider Amnio Art cultural project, sessions of Amniotic therapy formation, in collaboration with Centro Amnios (Perugia, Italy) to the teachers at Sf. Ștefan special school in Bucharest, and to various artist working with neurodivergent and special needs persons.
Outsider Amnio Art (2023) was a project developed by Entuziart Association and co-financed by AFCN (Romanian National Cultural Fund Administration).At the initiative of Entuziart association's Loredana Larionescu, IndieBox's artistic director Alexandra Bălășoiu and coVR Video's producer Konrad Mihat, the panoramic 360 film was created as a voluntary collaborative workflow between artists, mainly in the contemporary dance scene, teachers, psychology students and practitioners, that participated in the training, as a way to express and simulate the knowledge, and emotions that surfaced in these formative sessions, presented and voiced through the understanding of teacher, dancer, choreographer, and Feldenkrais practitioner Valentina de Piante’s experience.
Konrad Mihat is a visual media creator with the main focus on panoramic photography and video creations. He studied film production at Babeș-Bolyai University Film and Theatre faculty in Cluj Napoca, until 2009. During college he co-directed Armand, Marie and Global Warming (2007) short black and white silent film, showcased at TIFF Transylvania International Film Festival (2008) Cluj, Romania, and at Giornate del Cinema Muto (2008), Pordenone, Italy. After moving back To Bucharest in 2011 he became an active member of the Casa Lupu cultural community, an apartment with 40 members creating events from movie nights, workshops parties and all manner of cultural activities. He co-founded in 2012 the Calup project, proposing urban regeneration through cultural events in unused historical villas and later generally unused spaces in the city of Bucharest. Within the Calup project’s scope in 2013 he started working with the panoramic medium through experimenting with panoramic photography for the emerging virtual reality through virtual tours for spaces and events. In 2017 he started coVR Videos company, focusing on creating panoramic video and photography in collaboration with other cultural projects and for media installations. In 2021 his interest in contemporary dance led him to collaborate with IndieBox on the project Danstopic with the creation of the Danstopic Panoramic dance film for virtual reality headsets. 2021 Also marked the first project for panoramic video as a tool for therapy, with the collaboration of Loredana Larionescu dance therapist (Entuziart), and a project concerning a Romanian folklore dance’s therapeutic background. Collaboration with artistic and therapeutic panoramic projects by Entuziart, IndieBox and Areal (continued) and in 2023 within the context of Amniotic therapy training in Bucharest together with a volunteer group of dancers and participants created the Amnio Arthera(pi) panoramic film about Amniotic therapy. His currently ongoing projects mostly continue on the path of existing collaborations on therapeutic use of new technologies mainly 360 video, VR tours, and the artistic content creation for such endeavors.
Garden for Drowning Descendant (14:00) Director: Eva Davidova
Screening in the Hunt Media Lab
Garden for Drowning Descendant by Eva Davidova is an experimental, participatory mixed reality work on ecological disaster and interdependency. Based on four distinct dreams on our descendants in their very different worlds, it explores the emergence of collective action from the mixture of individual ones, resulting in a “dance of agencies” between the audience, virtual animals, and performers from the past.
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This immersive work uses Computer Vision to sense movement and proximity through depth sensors, and features drone footage from Trinidad by MX Oops, 360° footage from an aerial dance studio, interlinked 3D spaces, Motion Capture by British choreographer Kristen McNally, and particle systems made from elements found in Jane Bennet’s book Vibrant Matter : stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash.
Lead artist/ Producer: Eva Davidova
Creative technologist: Sidney San Martín
Sound: Bergsonist (Selwa Abd), Matthew D. Gantt and Dafna Naphtali
Performers: MX Oops, Catherine Kirk, Vinson Fraley, and Danielle McPhatter
Motion Capture files from Eve, by choreographer and dancer Kristen McNally
Team in Trinidad: Choreography, Performance, Costume: MX Oops
Camera: Arnaldo James
Location Scouting & Coordination: Jalaludin Khan
Team at green screen studio: RD ContentGarden for Drowning Descendant was made with funds by New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA) Individual Artist Film, Media & New Technology Grant, and the generous support of Harvestworks, NEW INC, ONX Studio, EY Cognitive Human Enterprise, Align Studio, Lovely Lioness Dance studio, IEA, Residency Unlimited, DepthKit, ISSUE Project Room, Silver Art Projects, and Triangle Arts.
Eva Davidova explores behavior, ecological disaster, and the political impact of technology through absurdist, performative works. Blending ancient mythology with modern technology, her practice challenges singular narratives and addresses ecological collapse. Her work spans research, performance, 360 video, 3D sculpture, game engines, participatory VR, and site-specific immersive installations. Davidova has exhibited at the Bronx Museum, UVP at Everson Museum, Buffalo AKG Museum, MACBA, CAAC Sevilla, and La Regenta, ISSUE Project Room, Harvestworks, Instituto Cervantes in New York and the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI).
Looking Glass: AR Archive
Director: Adrian Jones
Download the App at the reception desk
Looking Glass is an app-based archive of Black life in Pittsburgh, which uses augmented reality to connect the present to both the past and imagined futures.
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Adrian Jones is an artist, creative technologist and archivist whose practice is shaped by a commitment to those living in society’s margins. Utilizing his formal background in electrical engineering and software development, Adrian's creative work explores the power of speculative imagination and intergenerational storytelling within digital spaces.
In 2021, Adrian began developing Looking Glass, an app-based archive of Black life in Pittsburgh, which uses augmented reality to connect the present to both the past and imagined futures. Looking Glass is built on the belief that the practices of remembering and imagining have the power to transform. By changing our perspective on time and envisioning the city as a space where Black life can be celebrated, Looking Glass aims to open new pathways toward healing and collective action.
Adrian was named Collective Action School’s inaugural Community Technologist in 2023 and he is currently a member of the New Museum’s cultural incubator, NEW INC.
Permanent Visibility (11:07)
Director: Nica Ross
Screening in the Kenner Room
A VR based essay that celebrates the failure of surveillance and nonhuman vision when applied to the human form. The work is the result of capturing gender non-conforming bodies practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Carnegie Mellon's Panoptic Dome - a sensor-free motion capture studio. As the name implies the technology's intention is to fully capture and render the "truth" of a body's performance. Throughout the piece Jeremy Bentham's musings on the perfection of the Panopticon's form are juxtaposed against the Dome's raw data.
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We see the noisy shadows of bodies moving across the Dome's walls, digital skeletons popping in and out of sight as their movements shift outside of a machine's understanding and we are left with the impression of their contact recorded in millions of point clouds. Bentham's words describe an omnipotent yet focused power harnessed by surveillance while queer bodies jump in and out of understanding in pursuit of joy rather than legibility.
Nica Ross is a visual artist whose work challenges normative ideologies that are reinforced by technology and game play. Their current practice is an evolving pursuit of pleasure checked; or perhaps bolstered, by the failure of representation. This work takes multiple forms: video installation, performance, gayming, sporting and more. The continuity across these forms is an invitation that is inherent in each piece. They currently work as a professor in the Video Media Design option within the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, Nica Ross is a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training out of GF Team Pittsburgh under Jacob Miclot. Nica identifies as trans masculine and uses they/them/theirs pronouns.
“I've heard the word "failure" throughout the process of making this piece. The movements we performed in the Dome, "failure", the ability to work with this data, "failure" and so on. And those failures have become the heart of this work. Failure of representation is something that trans and gender non-conforming people experience on a daily basis. Finding beauty in our "failures" and celebrating them is key to our survival. And in the context of the Panoptic Dome this piece celebrates the beauty of our raw embodied data while speaking to the anxiety of becoming "objects of information, never a subject in communication" (Bentham, 1787).” - Nica Ross
The Abandoned Library (14:00)
Directors: Judi Alston,
Andy Campbell
In a future Northern England devasted by climate change, an environmental worker uncovers an abandoned library where books and technology have fused into the architecture and landscape to create new stories.
19-year-old CJ is working to salvage valuable resources from the flooded and haunting remains of a once-thriving coastal town. The world she inhabits leaves her feeling angry and displaced. She is living through the catastrophic consequences of previous generations’ mistakes.
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Taking shelter from an approaching storm, CJ ventures inside the old library, where she discovers a bizarre ‘living’ fusion of nature, language, and technology. At its heart is The Librarian, a malfunctioned AI that has been gathering data and archive film from its turbulent surroundings.
Affected by years of extreme temperatures and abnormal weather conditions, The Librarian is forming its own unique work of literature: a story of connectedness and hope that needs a strong and resilient protagonist.
Dreaming Methods is a multi award winning studio that creates immersive and compelling fictional experiences through VR, 360 film, digital art and games, with a strong focus on reimagining writing and literacy.
Judi Alston is the co-director of Dreaming Methods and CEO of One to One Development Trust. A digital artist and filmmaker, she has been producing films, making collaborative digital fiction and writing for narrative-based video games for over two decades.
Andy Campbell is the Founder, Director, and Lead Developer of Dreaming Methods. His work as a digital artist combines literature, gaming and immersive technologies spanning over 20 years and has won many international awards.
The Abandoned Library is created by Dreaming Methods (digital artists/documentary film-makers Judi Alston and Andy Campbell). Working with archive film, real-time 3D graphics, and combining film, text, spoken word, and soundscapes, we playfully fuse documentary film with game based technology, forming a distinctive ‘literary’ style.
The Abandoned Library is a provocation for people thinking about the climate crisis, and the impact that positive actions can have. With guidance from The Librarian, a malfunctioned AI, the audience will be encouraged to construct a better outcome for the future through a story of connectedness and hope.
Whispers (2:31)
Director: Yu Yan
Screening in the Kenner Room
"Whispers" is a video work that reimagines monuments as both literal and symbolic shelters, questioning how we seek refuge in history, memory, and symbols of power. It examines how the erosion of these shelters reflects the impermanence of the narratives we rely on for a sense of belonging and identity.
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Through an intimate, peep-hole visual style reminiscent of 19th-century stereoscopes, "Whispers” offers an immersive experience that captures 42 colossal presidential heads at a secluded construction site in Virginia, U.S. These monuments, with their punctured heads and exposed internal structures, symbolize not only the fragility of power but also the vulnerability of the narratives and identities they once sheltered.
The work is paired with a soundscape of whispers recorded from visitors on U.S. Memorial Day. These voices, filled with curiosity, skepticism, and introspection, create a dialogue between the monumental silence of the statues and the personal reflections of those who encounter them.
In "Whispers," the concept of shelter takes on a dual meaning. The statues themselves are shelters of history and ideology—structures meant to safeguard collective memory. Yet, as these symbols deteriorate, the very idea of shelter becomes tenuous, reflecting the displacement and erosion of the ideals they once embodied. The video invites viewers to engage with these monuments not as static relics, but as breached shelters, exposing the uncertainties and instabilities within the narratives of power and leadership. It compels us to reconsider the narratives we inherit and the shelters—both physical and ideological—that we construct to protect them, asking what remains when those structures decay, displace, and are reinterpreted.
Yu Yan is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in New York, holding a Master’s degree from Harvard University and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Studio Arts from Smith College. Her research-driven and image-based practice explores the intricate layers of space, memory, and migration in both natural landscapes and human societies. Combining archival research, photography, video, and installation, her recent work investigates how monuments, symbols, and natural environments function as shelters—both physical and ideological—while reflecting on their impermanence and transformation over time.
Yu’s art has been exhibited across the United States, Greece, the UK, Scotland, Poland, South Korea, Japan, and China. Notable exhibitions include Sound 2024 at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester, Sight/Geist at The 8th Floor, Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation in New York, her solo exhibition Epidermis at Yi Art Institute in Hefei, and Materialism in Reminiscing at BLANC Gallery in New York.
Yu has held roles at prominent institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Magnum Photos, and the Aperture Foundation, where she has contributed to global art conversations and collaborations.
Address Unknown: Fukushima Now (25:00) Director: Arif Khan
Fukushima Now is an immersive VR documentary that takes audiences to the heart of Fukushima to meet the survivors living in the shadow of the crisis today. Using volumetric capture & photogrammetry technology, the project transports viewers into an experience that explores the disaster and the lasting impact it's had on communities and the environment. We reveal how a community endures in the aftermath of trauma and recalls memories of homes they can longer return to. Through local voices, the experience also examines the meaning of home and how it may be redefined in the face of disaster.
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ARIF KHAN is a British writer & director, based in Los Angeles and Tokyo. He’s held roles at Airbnb Creative Studio, Warner Bros. Animation and Oculus Story Studio, the Emmy Award- winning Facebook team dedicated to the research and development of virtual reality storytelling. His short films and VR projects have screened at genre festivals all over the world including the Sitges International Film Festival, Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, and Imagine Film Festival. His latest project, Black Ice VR, had its world premiere at SXSW 2022. Prior to receiving his M.F.A. in Film Production at USC - School of Cinematic Arts, he earned his Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge.
“What is home to you? Is it our birthplace? The place of our happiest memories? Or maybe where our friends or family live? Regardless of place or culture, home is core to human life. We wish for this project to explore the meaning of home across different families and perspectives. What happens to a person or a family or a community when disaster disrupts that delicate core? This is the fundamental question at the heart of FUKUSHIMA NOW, a project which ultimately asks the universal question to the audience… What is home to you?” - Arif Khan
FuZhu's Garden (1:09)
Director: Stacey Cho
Screening in the Kenner Room
An interactive immersive film installation exploring the Chinese mythology of FuZhu, a magical deer that summons water and floods.
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Stacey Cho is a current graduate student at Harvard University studying Learning Design, Innovation and Technology. She recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2024 with studies in Art, Human Computer Interaction and Game Design. Stacey is overall a passionate interactive media designer, developer, and Human Computer Interaction researcher.
“I love blurring the boundaries between fantasy and reality utilizing technology to create dynamic and interactive environments. Many of my projects encourage the audience's interactivity or have aspects of whimsical imaginations seeping into everyday moments of life!” - Stacey Cho
Jelly Invasion (5:00)
Director: Stacey Cho
Get ready to embrace yourself from a Jelly Alien Invasion from an alternate alter ego universe! As a certified secret agent, your mission is to clear the space of all aliens with your specialized weapon. This is overall an experimental Mixed Reality application connecting the physical architectural environment into the context of interactive immersive experiences.
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Stacey Cho is a current graduate student at Harvard University studying Learning Design, Innovation and Technology. She recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2024 with studies in Art, Human Computer Interaction and Game Design. Stacey is overall a passionate interactive media designer, developer, and Human Computer Interaction researcher.
“I love blurring the boundaries between fantasy and reality utilizing technology to create dynamic and interactive environments. Many of my projects encourage the audience's interactivity or have aspects of whimsical imaginations seeping into everyday moments of life!” - Stacey Cho
Meridian Transmissions (12:56)
Director: Eric Patrick
A quotidian meditation on surveillance and the decay of modernity.
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Eric Patrick has been creating short animated films, infographics and children's media for over 30 years, both independently and commercially. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and over 100 grants, fellowships, and awards at international film festivals and arts organizations. His design work in industry has won Clio Awards, a Peabody Award, several Emmy nominations, and a grant from the National Institute of Health.
He has screened extensively both domestically and internationally at festivals, museums and on television, including screenings at the Rotterdam Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He was an animator for the seminal Nickelodeon program “Blues Clues,” and writes about information design, educational media, and animated documentary.
Streets of Change VR (8:40)
Directors: Judi Alston,
Andy Campbell
"Streets of Change VR" is a powerful Virtual Reality film that shines a light on the often-overlooked lives of the homeless, challenging stigmas and stereotypes.
Amid escalating homelessness and housing crises, the experience humanises rough sleepers, highlighting their resilience and sparking crucial conversations.
By placing viewers in the role of a rough sleeper, the experience uses hyper-realism and spoken word poetry to explore the impact of drugs, alcohol, and mental health issues, fostering compassion and understanding through a compelling, creative lens.
This VR immersive story inspires empathy and drives positive community action.
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Alston & Campbell are a creative duo who create films and XR projects.
Their recent VR project "The Abandoned Library" won the Game Republic Award for Most Innovative Use of Technology and was officially selected for Bolton International and Aesthetica Film Festivals in the UK. It was also featured at the Beyond Conference in London.
They were the Lead Developers/collaborators on "Monoliths" with Pilot Theatre which was nominated for the Immersive Art/XR award at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival, and screened at Sheffield Doc Fest, Melbourne IFF, Aesthetica and Belfast XR Festival.
Andy Campbell has been producing electronic literature, digital art and experimental narrative experiences for over 25 years. Andy is the Founder/Co-Director of Dreaming Methods a Wakefield based multi-award winning studio that creates immersive and compelling fictional experiences through XR, and games, with a strong focus on reimagining writing and literacy.
Andy is also the Digital Director for One to One Development Trust and the Interface Developer for Orient Foundation for Arts and Culture working on the world’s largest online archive of digitised Tibetan cultural resources.
Judi Alston has a long track record as a documentary film maker with broadcast credits as a camera person, director, producer, and editor. Her career spans many changes in technology from analogue to digital, but she embraces it all with an unwavering passion for authenticity, innovation, good storytelling and meaningful audience/user engagement.
Judi is the Founder and CEO of arts organisation One to One Development Trust who use film, game design, XR and other creative approaches to work with communities, increasing opportunities and aspiration, breaking down barriers and inspiring positive societal change.
Judi is also the Co-Director and Creative Producer of Dreaming Methods an immersive storytelling studio.
“We made "Streets of Change VR" to illuminate the often-overlooked lives of the homeless, challenging the stigmas and stereotypes that surround them. With homelessness and housing crises escalating, it’s crucial to humanize these individuals and share their stories. By highlighting the resilience of rough sleepers we aim to spark important conversations, inspire empathy, and drive community action.
This Virtual Reality experience is a call to action to recognize our shared humanity and to understand that nearly everyone is only a step away from facing similar challenges. Our aim is for it to foster compassion and inspire change about how society views and supports its most vulnerable members.
While making a documentary film of the same name, we used the creative process of making a VR experience to fictionalise/anonymize some of the stories we had been gathering through our research.
Putting people into an immersive experience where they take on the role of a rough sleeper is a strong use-case for VR. It acts as a provocation to make people see life through the eyes of one of three characters on a cold wet street at night.
Drugs, alcohol, and metal health are important challenges for many people living rough. The hyper realism of VR means the world through the eyes of someone with these conditions can be explored in an uncompromising but creative way.” - Judi Alston & Andy Campbell
The Endless Mile (15:00)
Director: Johannes DeYoung
"The Endless Mile" is a video mural and computational artwork that affords interaction and interpretation by sound artists, live performance, and/or ambient audience interaction. The artwork takes the form of a non-repeating and infinitely scrolling shadow play. Each time the artwork is presented, new arrangements of visual elements are assembled in unique combination. Elements within the work "listen" for sound-input and kinetically respond to audio frequencies, enabling the artwork to be performed live in collaboration with sound artists or musicians. Given the artwork’s computational affordances, its presentation format and duration are both adaptable.
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The fulcrum of this project considers contemporary computational media affordances in relation to pre-cinematic forms of shadow theater and panoramic displays, as well as in relation to the Expanded Cinema forms of mid-twentieth century neo-avant-garde artists. Looking to historical examples of the scroll, I observe rich and various instances of its mediated panoramas in the service of constructive social relations. I am interested to explore such socially binding experiences through mediated affordances that resist the alienating potentials of contemporary technologies. The prospects for advanced technologies to further hybridize and dissolve silos across media forms present opportunities for people to reevaluate their relationships to the world, unfix perspectives, and experience the world (and each other) with new sensitivities.
This video offers documentation of various public installations and live performances of "The Endless Mile", while also highlighting the artwork's underlying processes, to help better illustrate the adaptability of its presentation in various contexts.
Johannes DeYoung is an internationally recognized artist and filmmaker who works at the intersection of computational and material processes. His moving-image works have been exhibited internationally at venues such as: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante, Alicante, Spain; Festival ECRÃ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; B3 Biennale of the Moving Image, Frankfurt en Main, Germany; Hesse Flatow (Crush Curatorial), Jeff Bailey Gallery, Robert Miller Gallery, Interstate Projects, Eyebeam, and MoMA PS1 Print Studio, New York, NY; as well as numerous festival screenings in countries such as Australia, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Turkey, and Vietnam. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, and Dossier Journal.
Crafting the Unreal (20:00)
Director: Amber Marie Johnson
Showing in the Kenner Room
This project reimagines Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia as an immersive surrealist stop-motion VR experience. By combining the tactile, dreamlike aesthetics of traditional stop-motion animation with the interactivity of VR. Users begin by interacting with a physical cabinet containing stop-motion-inspired props, which they manipulate to unlock elements of the story. Through the use of photogrammetry and game engine technologies, these physical objects transition seamlessly into the virtual space. In VR, users embody a character of the story, exploring surreal environments that reflect the eerie and tragic love story of Ligeia.
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The experience is enhanced by a custom controller designed to align with the surrealist aesthetic, creating a sense of immediacy and presence. By blending traditional and digital mediums, the project demonstrates new possibilities for immersive storytelling, offering an innovative way to experience both classic literature and surrealist stop-motion animation in virtual reality. The prototype for the project is complete and functional and I can provide a working demonstration or presentation and will be competed by the time of the festival.
Amber Johnson is an Associate Professor in Simulation and Game Development at Wake Tech Community College. She has worked in the game industry as an artist and level designer since 2007. She began teaching at Wake Tech in 2014, developing a curriculum that utilizes modern game asset creation techniques. She currently teaches courses in digital art, game programming, photogrammetry, tech art, and VR. On top of teaching, she does freelance work in photogrammetry and 3d renderings.
Haenyeo (6:45)
Director: Jaehee Cho
Experience the incredible world of the Jeju Haenyeo, female divers off the coast of South Korea, as you immerse yourself in a virtual reality film that explores this ancient culture where women dive for shellfish without the aid of oxygen tanks.
Experience the incredible world of the Jeju Haenyeo, female divers off the coast of South Korea, as you immerse yourself in a virtual reality film that explores this ancient culture where women dive for shellfish without the aid of oxygen tanks.
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This VR piece was funded by the Google-Tribeca Film Festival's "5 Elements of Nature" Immersive Film Program. Additionally, Vituccio's documentary on the Haenyeo has been selected for both the Doctors Without Borders Film Festival and the Rome Independent Film Festival.
Jaehee Cho, a film school graduate from Seoul Institute of the Arts, worked in music video production before coming to Carnegie Mellon University for graduate school. While in his graduate studies with CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center, he worked with the emerging platform of VR, creating VR films Imago (2015) and the interactive VR Film Injustice (2015). His VR work was showcased and recognized at Tribeca Immersive 2016, SIGGRAPH 2016, CHI Play 2016 and Games for Change 2016. He will present his VR work with Stitchbridge VR this August at SIGGRAPH 2018 Educator’s Forum, presenting the VR piece Journey through the Camps, a VR experience about the Holocaust made for Carnegie Mellon University. His previous work also includes working for Universal Creative on their media team in Orlando, FL.
Max Q (17:30)
Director: Joel Benjamin
Screening in the Kenner Room
Max Q is an animated 6DOF virtual reality film about a deep space survey team that finds their relationships pushed to the brink when they embark upon a dangerous search and rescue mission on an unexplored alien world.
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Transplanted to Chicago atop rampaging bison from northwest Iowa, Joel Benjamin is an animator and film maker of both short and feature-length animated films. Most of his time is spent working on moving things around pixel by pixel and developing carpal tunnel.
Joel started the minuscule but Emmy-Nominated Motion Graphics company Electric Beard Studios and works as a motion designer on corporate, commercial, and independent projects. He is also an Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, teaching 2D and 3D animation. Most of his time is spent working on moving things around pixel by pixel and developing carpal tunnel.
Pre-game (9:00)
Directors: Yvette Granata,
Alina Nazmeeva
Screening in the Kenner Room
You are invited to the Pre-game – North American slang for a social event that happens before a sports event. As a visitor, you will move in between Augmented and Virtual Reality and through a poetic deconstruction of the production of digital bodies set against the backdrop of football spectatorship. Pre-game is a surreal depiction of how our bodies become represented by technology and what it takes to do so. Ultimately, everyone is reminded that they are also a part of the web of digital and physical community - for better or worse.
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Yvette Granata is a media artist and filmmaker. She creates immersive installations, interactive environments, VR films, video art, and hypothetical technological systems. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at The Harvard Carpenter Center for the Arts, the EYE Film Museum, the McDonough Museum of Art, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, and at international film festivals including Slamdance, CPH:DOX, the Melbourne International Film Festival, Annecy International Animation Festival, Images Festival, FIVARS Festival of Augmented and Virtual Stories, FilmGate Interactive, and others. In 2023, Yvette received an Honorable Mention Award for her VR project, I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs, at Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. She is Assistant Professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of Michigan in the department of Film, TV and Media and the Digital Studies Institute. Yvette lives in Detroit in the North End Neighborhood.
Alina Nazmeeva is a designer, digital artist and an educator. She is a graduate of the Master of Science in Urbanism, MIT (2019); a fellow of the New Normal program at Strelka Institute of Media Architecture and Design (2017), and a Canadian Centre of Architecture fellow (2022). She was a lead researcher at MIT Future Urban Collectives Lab, working on design for physical and digital spaces for emerging collectives, and a researcher at MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab, studying the economies of virtual worlds and prototyping urban-scale digital twins. Her work was exhibited at the Liberty Annex Gallery at Taubman School of Architecture, Venice Biennale of Architecture, Art on the Marquee in Boston and at Augment Seattle Festival. In her work Alina examines entanglements and overlays between physical and digital spaces and objects, and their cultural, economic and political implications. Using gaming engines, CGI software, machinima, found footage and installations, she exposes and examines the increasing oscillation between cities and videogames, images and spaces, life and animation.
Yvette and Alina focus on digital technology both as a medium of creative practice and as the site of critical inquiry.
Pre-game (2024) is both an immersive installation and a meditative essay about the ambivalent role of digital animation, the construction of digital bodies, and the experience of spectatorship. The piece was conceived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Alina and Yvette both work as colleagues nextdoor to the largest football stadium in the United States. During football games, the city of Ann Arbor doubles in size.
Throughout the piece, we move between the perspective of the spectator in the sports arena to the player on the field, and through a commentary on the digital individual versus the masses. It makes an inquiry into our existence between the digital, the individual, and the physicality of collective Being. Merging the physical and digital, Pre-game reflects on the broader implications of digital embodiment and collective behavior.
The Arena is an immersive documentary about a Mass Vaccination Site during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cinematic VR experience captures a historic moment during the fight against COVID-19, and serves as an essential visual record of our times. The overarching objective of the project is to tell a story of collaboration, resilience, focus and service. The narrative not only acknowledges and celebrates the accomplishments made possible by this mass vaccination site, but also serves as a historical record, a potential training tool, as well as an inspiration to help us overcome similar challenges in the future.
The Arena (12:44)
Director: Cigdem Slankard
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Cigdem Slankard is a filmmaker based in Cleveland, OH. She was born and raised in Turkey and received her BA in translation and interpreting from Bogazici University (Istanbul, Turkey) in 1999. She first came to the United States in 1998 to study film and video at State University of New York in Binghamton. In 2002, she received a Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking from Ohio University. Her creative work dwells on popular culture and identity issues. Recent works include short documentaries, virtual reality cinema and video art pieces.