Speaker Info & Talk Descriptions
FRI, Mar 17, 2023
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- Dr Bryan Carter
- Dr. Bryan Carter received his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri-Columbia and is currently the Director of the Center for Digital Humanities and an Associate Professor in Africana Studies, at the University of Arizona. He specializes in African American literature of the 20th Century with a primary focus on the Harlem Renaissance. His research also focuses on Digital Humanities/Africana Studies. He has published numerous articles on his doctoral project, Virtual Harlem, an immersive representation of a portion of Harlem, NY as it existed during the 1920s Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. Dr. Carter’s research centers on how the use of traditional and advanced interactive and immersive technologies changes the dynamic within the learning space. Dr. Carter has completed his first book entitled Digital Humanities: Current Perspectives, Practice and Research through Emerald Publishing, and has just completed his second manuscript through Routledge Press, entitled: AfroFuturism: Experiencing Culture Through Technology (June 2022). His current work has also led to exploring the African American, and expatriate experience through immersive and augmented technologies using handheld devices and wearable technologies.
- A Focus on Presence: redefining “being there” in the metaverse - This talk will relate lessons learned and research design using volumetric and holographic video capture and streaming in an online general education course. There will be discussion of platforms explored and used as part of an ongoing study and initial study design.
- Dr. Bryan Carter received his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri-Columbia and is currently the Director of the Center for Digital Humanities and an Associate Professor in Africana Studies, at the University of Arizona. He specializes in African American literature of the 20th Century with a primary focus on the Harlem Renaissance. His research also focuses on Digital Humanities/Africana Studies. He has published numerous articles on his doctoral project, Virtual Harlem, an immersive representation of a portion of Harlem, NY as it existed during the 1920s Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. Dr. Carter’s research centers on how the use of traditional and advanced interactive and immersive technologies changes the dynamic within the learning space. Dr. Carter has completed his first book entitled Digital Humanities: Current Perspectives, Practice and Research through Emerald Publishing, and has just completed his second manuscript through Routledge Press, entitled: AfroFuturism: Experiencing Culture Through Technology (June 2022). His current work has also led to exploring the African American, and expatriate experience through immersive and augmented technologies using handheld devices and wearable technologies.
- Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson
- Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson are a husband and wife filmmaking team who founded Rada Studio in 2006 with a mission: to think radically about storytelling and disrupt the imaginary in non-fiction spaces. They tell compelling, deeply personal stories created by, for and about BIPOC communities that reimagine and challenge the status quo. The duo draws on fiction, immersive and hybrid forms of storytelling to build their worlds and narratives. Stephenson and Brewster’s feature documentary, Going To Mars, just won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and American Promise, won the Jury Prize at Sundance. The film was nominated for three Emmys, and their work, Stateless, was nominated for a Canadian Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Their magical realist virtual reality trilogy series, The Changing Same, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won Best Immersive Narrative story at the Tribeca Festival. The project was also nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Interactive Media Innovative category, their fourth project to be Emmy nominated. Both filmmakers are Guggenheim fellows and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. Brewster has been a Spirit Award Nominee, and Stephenson is Creative Capital Artist.
- Nick Fox-Gieg
- Nick Fox-Gieg is an experimental animator in Toronto. His awards include a 2017 Engadget Alternate Realities grant, Eyebeam and Fulbright Fellowships, and the jury prize for Best Animated Short at SXSW 2010; his videos have also been shown at the OIAF, Rotterdam, and TIFF festivals, at the Centre Pompidou, and on CBC TV. His XR work includes projects for the Verizon 5G EdTech Challenge, NYT T Brand Studio, the University of Waterloo, Google Creative Lab, and Framestore; his art practice has been supported by grants from Bravo!FACT, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the arts councils of Ontario, Pennsylvania, Toronto, and West Virginia. Fox-Gieg holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.
- Latk-video: An Open Solution for Streaming 3D Point Clouds - Latk-video is an open-source project to encode and decode 3D point cloud data in an mp4 file, so volumetric video can leverage the vast existing infrastructure already available for streaming video. This solves a persistent problem with distributing volumetric video footage, which is that it breaks many fundamental assumptions of a traditional 3D pipeline. Most 3D animation is done by sculpting a single mesh and driving it around with animation keyframes, not by creating a new set of mesh data for every frame of video. If every frame is stored as an independent mesh (as with the Alembic file format) the resulting files are huge, and therefore difficult to view on the web. Similar volumetric video codecs are already being used in production, in particular the sophisticated Microsoft MRCS format, which can reproduce full rigged meshes. However, as far as I know, Latk-video is the first open-source solution that uses a single standard mp4, and I hope it can offer a foundation for future research directions.
- Nick Fox-Gieg is an experimental animator in Toronto. His awards include a 2017 Engadget Alternate Realities grant, Eyebeam and Fulbright Fellowships, and the jury prize for Best Animated Short at SXSW 2010; his videos have also been shown at the OIAF, Rotterdam, and TIFF festivals, at the Centre Pompidou, and on CBC TV. His XR work includes projects for the Verizon 5G EdTech Challenge, NYT T Brand Studio, the University of Waterloo, Google Creative Lab, and Framestore; his art practice has been supported by grants from Bravo!FACT, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the arts councils of Ontario, Pennsylvania, Toronto, and West Virginia. Fox-Gieg holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.
- Paul Milaire
- Paul is the Technical & Innovation Producer for UBC Faculty of Medicine's Educational Technology group. He earned both his BASc in Mechanical Engineering and MET (est. 2024) at UBC. Paul currently supports learners and faculty distributed across the many Medicine-connected teaching sites of BC in developing immersive, innovative educational learning experiences.
- Virtual Environments, Real Patients, Real Life - Keeping Humans a part of Medical Training - When seeing patients was not a possibility during the Pandemic, UBC Faculty of Medicine employed volumetric capture to recreate in-person learning experiences for 2nd year medical students. Learners were safely given the opportunity to experience a realistic patient interaction via Virtual Reality to mitigate the risk of Covid-19 transmission. Now in its 3rd year, the learning experience is a highlight for learners who repeatedly ask us for new patient cases.
- Paul is the Technical & Innovation Producer for UBC Faculty of Medicine's Educational Technology group. He earned both his BASc in Mechanical Engineering and MET (est. 2024) at UBC. Paul currently supports learners and faculty distributed across the many Medicine-connected teaching sites of BC in developing immersive, innovative educational learning experiences.
- Dr Andrew Hogue
- Dr. Andrew Hogue is an Associate Professor at Ontario Tech University in the Game Development and Interactive Media program within the Faculty of Business and Information Technology. His research encompasses a variety of disciplines, including the creation of new VR interfaces for traditional artists and the application of Volumetric Video in healthcare education. His main research interests currently revolve around the development of new technologies and experiences that utilize Volumetric Video and is exploring the current state of visual realism in VR, the impact of varying realism on the user experience and implications on self-efficacy and knowledge retention in virtual learning environments. Working with industry and artistic partners, Dr. Hogue is pushing the boundaries of digital media and transforming the way we create animation in games, enhance realism, and engage users in training and simulation environments. He is committed to improving the way we create animation in games and enhance realism in training and simulation environments in meaningful ways. Dr. Hogue's passion for innovation and new technologies positions him at the forefront of advancing the field of digital media.
- Future of Volumetric Video & A.I. - AI has taken the world by storm. With a very rapid succession, we have seen the “Prompt Engineer”. With Stable Diffusion and the recent advancement with ControlNet we now have the ability to create high quality realistic and stylized images with high degrees of artistic control. These and other advancements have shown that Volumetric Video from simple video generation is coming soon reducing the need for large expensive capture stages or specialized equipment. This brief presentation will discuss the current state of relevant AI methods and the implications they have for Volumetric Video creators and artists from a technological perspective.
- Dr. Andrew Hogue is an Associate Professor at Ontario Tech University in the Game Development and Interactive Media program within the Faculty of Business and Information Technology. His research encompasses a variety of disciplines, including the creation of new VR interfaces for traditional artists and the application of Volumetric Video in healthcare education. His main research interests currently revolve around the development of new technologies and experiences that utilize Volumetric Video and is exploring the current state of visual realism in VR, the impact of varying realism on the user experience and implications on self-efficacy and knowledge retention in virtual learning environments. Working with industry and artistic partners, Dr. Hogue is pushing the boundaries of digital media and transforming the way we create animation in games, enhance realism, and engage users in training and simulation environments. He is committed to improving the way we create animation in games and enhance realism in training and simulation environments in meaningful ways. Dr. Hogue's passion for innovation and new technologies positions him at the forefront of advancing the field of digital media.
- Olivia McGilchrist
- Olivia Mc Gilchrist is a white French-Jamaican multimedia artist and doctoral candidate exploring how colonial legacies extend their reach to Virtual Reality (VR) technology. She has exhibited in Canada, Jamaica, USA, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Austria, France, Switzerland, UK. Building on her experience as a white Euro-Caribbean and research in the portrayal of her hybrid identity within contemporary Jamaican culture, Mc Gilchrist explores how this can be represented in VR. Working with Professors MJ Thompson, Lynn Hughes and Alice Ming Wai Jim at Concordia University, her Individualized PhD thesis project is entitled Virtual ISLANDs, postcolonial hybrid identities in Virtual Reality.
- Virtual ISLANDS: Submersion and Hybrid Identity in Virtual Reality - Virtual ISLANDs explores the relationship between the experience of virtual immersion in VR and the physicality of being submerged, offering viewers audio-visual interpretations of the ebb and flow of water around them. In the 6 DOF VR experience, viewers enter an aquatic scene to observe the choreographed movements of Newfoundland aerial performer Keely Whitelaw, rendered as a particle effect. This was created on a floor based aerial structure allowing us to record a choreography using Depthkit’s latest 10 sensor depth camera system through the support of Zú.
- Olivia Mc Gilchrist is a white French-Jamaican multimedia artist and doctoral candidate exploring how colonial legacies extend their reach to Virtual Reality (VR) technology. She has exhibited in Canada, Jamaica, USA, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Austria, France, Switzerland, UK. Building on her experience as a white Euro-Caribbean and research in the portrayal of her hybrid identity within contemporary Jamaican culture, Mc Gilchrist explores how this can be represented in VR. Working with Professors MJ Thompson, Lynn Hughes and Alice Ming Wai Jim at Concordia University, her Individualized PhD thesis project is entitled Virtual ISLANDs, postcolonial hybrid identities in Virtual Reality.
- Christopher Remde
- Christopher Remde is a software developer/game designer from Berlin fascinated with volumetric capture. He is currently working as a XR-Developer/Researcher for a local hospital in Berlin. Chris is a big advocate for open-source / open-access and loves to develop tools for the community!
- LiveScan3D: On the way to free and open source volumetric capture - I'm currently developing new features for the open source VV capture tool Livescan3D, and aim to ease the workflow for content creators. I'd love to show the new features I added to Livescan, a VV Unity Playback solution, share the Roadmap for the future, and announce a public beta test for the new version!
- Christopher Remde is a software developer/game designer from Berlin fascinated with volumetric capture. He is currently working as a XR-Developer/Researcher for a local hospital in Berlin. Chris is a big advocate for open-source / open-access and loves to develop tools for the community!
- Allison Moore
- Based in Montreal, Allison Moore is a new media artist working in expanded cinema. Her work has been presented at Tokyo Arts and Space (Japan), le Grand Théâtre du Québec, Society of Art and Technology (Montreal), Place des Arts (Montreal), OBORO (Montreal), Traverse Video (France), Museu de Arte de Belem (Brazil), Festival of Nouveau Cinéma (Montréal), FIFA Experimental (Montréal), MAPP Festival, MUTEK Montreal and ISEA 2020. Her recent projects are inspired by themes of narrative storytelling in digital arts, video-mapping, VR, site-specific public art, and performance. Moore's works reinterpret and rebuild the world as a metaphoric landscape in which sensitive beings are in synergy with their allegorical macrocosm. Moore works as a freelance editor, compositor, animator, and workshop facilitator in New Media practices. www.allisonmoore.net
- Cloud Bodies - Allison Moore’s CLOUD BODIES is a generative immersive experience presented in the Satosphere dome at Society of Art and Technology in Montreal. Using live volumetric capture, dancer Lucy Fandel’s choreography is tracked by sensors during the performance. The geometric metadata collected is processed and reconstructed in the virtual environment projected on the dome where Fandel’s body and movements merge with photo scanned digital landscapes. The elements are imaged in point clouds, a system of data representation organized in three-dimensional spaces.
- Based in Montreal, Allison Moore is a new media artist working in expanded cinema. Her work has been presented at Tokyo Arts and Space (Japan), le Grand Théâtre du Québec, Society of Art and Technology (Montreal), Place des Arts (Montreal), OBORO (Montreal), Traverse Video (France), Museu de Arte de Belem (Brazil), Festival of Nouveau Cinéma (Montréal), FIFA Experimental (Montréal), MAPP Festival, MUTEK Montreal and ISEA 2020. Her recent projects are inspired by themes of narrative storytelling in digital arts, video-mapping, VR, site-specific public art, and performance. Moore's works reinterpret and rebuild the world as a metaphoric landscape in which sensitive beings are in synergy with their allegorical macrocosm. Moore works as a freelance editor, compositor, animator, and workshop facilitator in New Media practices. www.allisonmoore.net
- Kerryn Wise & Ben Neal
- Kerryn is a UK-based dance artist, performer, and researcher, exploring dance, film, physical theatre, and digital technologies. Kerryn’s current work explores live performance and VR using volumetric capture. http://www.kerrynwise.co.uk
- Ben is an Arts-focused creative technologist, digital artist, programmer, games/gadget builder and educator. His work often uses audio-visual and digital technology to create interactive art, bespoke electronic devices, musical instruments and immersive content such as Virtual / Augmented Reality. http://www.psiconlab.co.uk
- Both have been working in the arts in the UK for over 20 years and have shown work across the UK and Internationally.
- Perceiving Facades - Speaking from a technical perspective and also from a physical performers perspective, we can offer two angles of knowledge and experience when working with volumetric capture, Kinect Azure cameras, virtual reality production, and live immersive art. We can also speak about the more artistic and philosophical concepts contained in the work. http://www.displace.org.uk
Facades is an Immersive VR Dance Theatre experience which utilises Volumetric Capture. Throughout 2021-2022 we have toured over 15 venues including 3 international festivals and 2 major UK film festivals. Inspired by iconic moments from film, Facades uses the architectural features of windows, mirrors and doors as metaphors for duality, reflection and portals. This surreal 'VR noir' presents hauntingly beautiful choreography from unique perspectives, inviting the viewer to look behind the scenes, move beyond the veneer and take a closer look. Challenging the norms and rules of VR this surreal artwork allows the rough edges of volumetric capture to act as a metaphor for how we present ourselves through digital media - asking what is found? what is lost?The performer has one perfect angle but behind this is a void. Often a melancholic experience, it shows how through digitisation we can dissolve into data or make new relationships. Features impossible choreography, Facades asks the audience to cross barriers, look into and through objects. Utilising proximity and unusual filmic perspectives to experiment with positional relationships, the choreography highlights the fabricated intimacy that can be achieved in virtual space between performer and spectator. http://www.facades.info
- Perceiving Facades - Speaking from a technical perspective and also from a physical performers perspective, we can offer two angles of knowledge and experience when working with volumetric capture, Kinect Azure cameras, virtual reality production, and live immersive art. We can also speak about the more artistic and philosophical concepts contained in the work. http://www.displace.org.uk
- Ian Garrett, Robert Motum & Jacquie P.A Thomas
- Jacquie P.A. Thomas (she/her) founded Theatre Gargantua in 1992, inspired by her experiences training and working with international creation-based companies. She has maintained an unwavering commitment to producing original Canadian theatre and to the development and support of the artist. Since its inception, Theatre Gargantua, a pioneer of Canadian multi-disciplinary devised theatre, has used an evolving methodology to create award-winning works. Melding provocative text, acrobatic-like choreography, live vocal compositions, and media into a signature style, Ms. Thomas’ work explores socially relevant themes through dynamic theatricality that engages a broad and diverse audience. Her works are created in a two-year cycle involving co-creators and audience through multiple phases of development before premiering a work. Ms. Thomas’ work with Gargantua has been seen in multiple Canadian districts; across the UK where the company also held residencies at The Royal Exchange in Manchester and The Riverside Theatre in London; as well as at the Portland International Performance Festival in Oregon. At home her work has been presented in environments such as the caves and the ruined mill of the Rockwood Conservation Area, and in Toronto at The Theatre Centre, Artword Theatre, The Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, the Harbourfront Theatre Centre and by Mirvish Productions at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. This year Jacquie P.A. Thomas celebrates her 31st Season as the Artistic Director of Theatre Gargantua. She is one of the longest serving female Artistic Directors in the country. Other selected credits include the Ossetynski Actors Lab in Los Angeles, Roy Hart Theatre in France, The National Theatre of Greece and the Gardzienice Theatre Association of Poland. She was awarded a Harold Award for contributions to Toronto’s independent theatre community, the prestigious George Luscombe Award for Mentorship and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for contributions to Canadian Culture and Community.
- Ian Garrett is a designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. He is producer for Toasterlab, a mixed reality performance collective. He is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University, where he is Graduate Program Director for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. He maintains a design practice focused on ecology, accessible technologies and scenography. Recent work includes I am a Child of... with Keaja d'Dance at the Harbourfront Centre, the exhibition design for World Stage Design 2022 in collaboration with Patrick Rizzotti, and the most recent versions of the locative immersive media projects Parkway Forest Time Machine and STEPS' From Weeds We Grow both in Toronto Parks. Other XR projects include multiple works with DLT Experience, including: Spectators Odyssey at TO Live, The Right Way at the Venice Biennale and The Stranger 2.0 at the Columbus Centre Toronto. HIs documentary Groundworks which broadcast nationally on PBS in the US through October and November 2022, looking at four of the contributing artists to the locative and site-specific performance of the same name presented on Alcatraz on San Francisco's first Indigenous People's day with Dancing Earth Creations. Other creative interactive projects include the mixed-reality project Transmission at the FuturePlay Festival in Edinburgh and Future of Storytelling Festival in New York, Theatre Panik’s durational performance, Peep, at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche; Erika Batdorf’s Micro-theatre for Burnish at the Theatre Centre and Venice Biennale, the set and energy capture systems for Zata Omm Dance Projects’ Vox:Lumen at the Harbourfront Centre, and Silo No. 5 on Maria Island, Tasmania. He has worked on installations such as DTAH Architects’ Ravine Portal and on the lighting team for the Crimson Collective’s Ascension, a 150’ wide, origami-style crane sculpture at the 2010 Coachella Music Festival.
- Robert Motum (he/him) is a playwright, director, and researcher. With a background in site-specific performance, Robert has staged work on an active city bus, in a gallery, in a castle, in a vacant Target store, in augmented reality, and occasionally even in a theatre space. His work has been supported by the Stratford Festival Playwright's Retreat, Why Not Theatre, Studio 180, the Ontario Arts Council, and others. He is the playwright of A Community Target (Outside the March / Convergence)—a verbatim look into Canada's precarious retail climate. He holds an MA in Performance from Aberystwyth University (Wales) and is a SSHRC-funded PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance at the University of Toronto where he studies site-specificity and notions of nationhood. He has published on his practice is Theatre Research in Canada. Canadian Theatre Review, and in forthcoming collections from Routledge and Palgrave MacMillan.
- Emplaced Volumetric Performance in Urban ARTeries - Urban ARTeries is an ambitious, multi-disciplinary digital public art experience. The project involves multiple locations and dozens of artists from diverse practices, including live performance, media & digital arts, as well as research and development teams. The project will allow the public to view live action art superimposed on the local landscape when viewed through their phones (in the style of Pokémon Go, with live action replacing animations).
Urban ARTeries will be an exploration of place, where the work takes inspiration from storied locations throughout urban Toronto. Different playwrights, musicians and choreographers will create 12 short (approx. 5 min) site-specific works inspired by, or related to, the urban landscape and the people that inhabit or pass through it. These performances, volumetrically filmed, will be completely accessible to the public, free of charge, using location-based technology or QR codes to access the content on their personal devices. It will bring art and performance to new and exciting corners of the city: a dance piece at a bus stop, spoken word poetry at Jurassic Park or musicians playing a haunting melody while floating on the harbour off of Ireland Park.
IAN: In 2021 Toronto's Theatre Gargantua approached Ian Garrett of Toasterlab and York University with an ambitious idea to use volumetric performance to create geolocated performances across Toronto. This anthology project commissioned a dozen Torotno Artists to create short scenes which were then captured on a SOAR Volumetric Capture Stage with the support of Dr. Andrew Hogue at Ontario Tech. They are now in process to attempt to share them in summer 2023 via WebXR platform 8th Wall through an integration with Toasterlab/ Place Lab LTD's Maptool for emplaced media, and a bespoke wrapper from Theatre Gargantua's web team. This talk will discuss the process thus far, and the planned next steps on delivering these integrated technologies.
ROBERT: Using Theatre Gargantua’s ongoing ‘Urban ARTeries’ anthology project as a case study, this brief talk will center intersections of virtual embodiments and physical place. I will discuss my history as a site-specific theatre practitioner and examine the development of ‘Ballet Train’—a three-minute dance piece filmed in volumetric capture.
- Emplaced Volumetric Performance in Urban ARTeries - Urban ARTeries is an ambitious, multi-disciplinary digital public art experience. The project involves multiple locations and dozens of artists from diverse practices, including live performance, media & digital arts, as well as research and development teams. The project will allow the public to view live action art superimposed on the local landscape when viewed through their phones (in the style of Pokémon Go, with live action replacing animations).
- Jacquie P.A. Thomas (she/her) founded Theatre Gargantua in 1992, inspired by her experiences training and working with international creation-based companies. She has maintained an unwavering commitment to producing original Canadian theatre and to the development and support of the artist. Since its inception, Theatre Gargantua, a pioneer of Canadian multi-disciplinary devised theatre, has used an evolving methodology to create award-winning works. Melding provocative text, acrobatic-like choreography, live vocal compositions, and media into a signature style, Ms. Thomas’ work explores socially relevant themes through dynamic theatricality that engages a broad and diverse audience. Her works are created in a two-year cycle involving co-creators and audience through multiple phases of development before premiering a work. Ms. Thomas’ work with Gargantua has been seen in multiple Canadian districts; across the UK where the company also held residencies at The Royal Exchange in Manchester and The Riverside Theatre in London; as well as at the Portland International Performance Festival in Oregon. At home her work has been presented in environments such as the caves and the ruined mill of the Rockwood Conservation Area, and in Toronto at The Theatre Centre, Artword Theatre, The Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, the Harbourfront Theatre Centre and by Mirvish Productions at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. This year Jacquie P.A. Thomas celebrates her 31st Season as the Artistic Director of Theatre Gargantua. She is one of the longest serving female Artistic Directors in the country. Other selected credits include the Ossetynski Actors Lab in Los Angeles, Roy Hart Theatre in France, The National Theatre of Greece and the Gardzienice Theatre Association of Poland. She was awarded a Harold Award for contributions to Toronto’s independent theatre community, the prestigious George Luscombe Award for Mentorship and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for contributions to Canadian Culture and Community.
- Pierre-Henri Barralis, Clémentine Brochet & Chélanie Beaudin-Quintin
- Pierre-Henri Barralis. For the past ten years, Pierre-Henri oscillated between graphics programming and technical arts in the video games industry. He contributed to outstanding projects within companies like Ubisoft and Square-Enix, as well as many indie studios. Collaborating with artists is what he loves most, and that led him to start exploring VR starting back in 2013. Since then, he has helped many VR and AR experiences come to life, an example being the AR module in the mobile game Jurassic World: Alive (Ludia). More recently, he decided to tie his two passions together, technology and music, by joining the music composition program at the University of Montreal (UdeM). Almost immediately, he started contributing to two VR projects related to sound spatialization, one of them in collaboration with the Centre des Musiciens du Monde and the Observatoire Interdisciplinaire de Création et de Recherche en Musique (OICRM). Still at UdeM, he has been part of the Pocket Opéra project(Opera de Montréal and Chaire de recherche du Canada en création d’Opéra) as technical director since summer 2022; where he guides the choice and use of technology that serves the creative teams, including volumetric capture and augmented reality.
- Clémentine Brochet is a protean artist currently pursuing a research-creation master’s degree in Arts, Creation and Technologies at the University of Montreal in which she explores how to create a sensory immersion to meet a non-human perception. This ecosophical and conceptual exploration brings her to create an audio-interactive story and to experiment with the mobilisation of the body and the potential of collective interactions through which she calls into question the continuation of our way to inhabitate. This project is part of a collaboration with the scientific research group of Clément Chion (UQO) focusing on noise impact on the endangered beluga population of the St. Lawrence River. Since 2021, she is both working on the creation of the volumetric capture system for the Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation and co-directing the pocket opera “A House in the Hand”. Furthermore, with the help of the LAB_ARTENSO incubator, she is currently collaborating on an AR project exploring the muses who inspired famous artists presented in our museums.
- Chélanie Beaudin-Quintin (she/her) is a visual artist and filmmaker currently pursuing a research-creation PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Concordia University (Montreal). Through her project entitled “Technological animism: thinking the body in relationship with humans and robots through immersive cinedance,” she works with dance, cinema, and anthropology to explore individual and collective bodies, investigating spaces of exchange and cohabitation. Over the last few years, she has devoted herself to short films, video art, augmented and virtual reality experiences. Through dance and film, she seeks to create a new dramaturgy whose narrative form, by moving away from classical codes, seems rather sensory and embodied. Her work has been presented in exhibitions and events in Quebec, Ontario, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the United States. Her VR film “21-Gun Salute” (2020) was presented at the Rendez-vous du Cinéma Québécois (Montreal). Amongst other projects, she currently directs an underwater stereoscopic and ambisonic cinedance choreographed by Caroline Laurin-Beaucage (Art et Essai), a short VR animation film in collaboration with Justice Rutikara (Inaru Films), looking at children's issues with ADHD, and collaborates as a cinematographer on the OpéRA de poche project “A House in the Hand” (Opera de Montréal and Chaire de recherche du Canada en création d’Opéra).
- What happens at the crossroad of Opera, Augmented Reality and volumetric capture? Stemming from a partnership between the Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation and the Opéra de Montréal, our project aims at the creation of operas for extended reality, to be experienced in the domestic space.
In addition to briefly present the project, its objectives and technological stack, Pierre-Henri (our technical director) would like to discuss the technical challenges encountered when testing, iterating and planning for such an ambitious endeavor (five different teams, each creating a 15mn long opera, including text, music, scenography and film direction). Such difficulties are both technical, like how to record, process and distribute 15mn long volumetric experiences, and relational like how to work with non-tech people to turn technological limitations into artistic inspiration. Pierre-Henri would also touch upon the proposed solution we envision for our specific project, that we might or might not have tested yet, which could open for a broader discussion during the Q&A.
Part of the Pocket OpeAR project, “A House in the Hand” is an augmented reality Opera using volumetric capture. As floods threaten the homes of a neighborhood, a daughter tries in vain to convince her father to abandon his house. This hybrid work, which entangles opera and 6 degrees of freedom immersive experience, addresses the themes of expropriation, natural disasters, and family. As the work unfolds in the domestic space, the performers come to life in a miniature house. Clémentine and Chélanie, the directors of the work, will be discussing their experience and the process involved in creating this OpeAR.
The creation of a prototype allowed them to better understand the pipeline, the technological issues - both potential and limitations of volumetric capture - and to explore the narrative strategies that best serves the work. The technological and artistic challenges influence the work being created, including the choice of the costumes (color and texture), and the expression of the mise-en-scène. The limited space of the capture requires an adaptation of the staging, of the interaction between the singers and of their movements, to better contribute to the performer's sense of presence.
- What happens at the crossroad of Opera, Augmented Reality and volumetric capture? Stemming from a partnership between the Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation and the Opéra de Montréal, our project aims at the creation of operas for extended reality, to be experienced in the domestic space.
- Maxwell Lander
- Maxwell Lander is a photographer, feminist pornographer, gamemaker and interactive media artist. He has been winning awards and exhibiting internationally since 2007, has a published book of photography and in May of 2019, completed his Master of Design in the Digital Futures program at OCAD University.
- Queers in space: alternate histories with volumetric portraiture - This a quick walkthrough of the though process and philosophies for making queer portraiture from a photographic lens, onto volumetric work. It is the beginning of a WIP piece about historical fictions and spatial narratives and is a little bit about resisting the documentary nature and authenticity of these mediums.
- Maxwell Lander is a photographer, feminist pornographer, gamemaker and interactive media artist. He has been winning awards and exhibiting internationally since 2007, has a published book of photography and in May of 2019, completed his Master of Design in the Digital Futures program at OCAD University.
- Linda Zhang
- Linda Zhang (she/her) is a registered architect (OAA, AIA), interior designer (NCIDQ), drone pilot (RPAS advanced operations), principal at Studio Pararaum (Toronto—Zürich) and an assistant professor (Waterloo Architecture). Her work explores how community memory, cultural heritage, and identity can be embodied through emergent technologies (including VR, AR, machine learning, robotics and 3D scanning), lived experience (affect theory), matter (ceramics), and material processes (slip casting).
- Speculative Volumetric Imag(in)ing: Community Heritage in Chinatown - This talk entitled “Speculative Volumetric Imag(in)ing: Community Heritage in Chinatown” will explore how volumetric imaging can be used for community heritage building and storytelling. Specifically, we will focus the use of UAV and lidar 3d scanning in the creation of the web-browser based “Build Your Own Chinatown Game” as well as in the short documentary film “Chinatown 2050: Reimagining Toronto's Chinatowns through pan-Asian Speculative Fiction”. For a more detailed description of the two projects, see below:Build Your Own Chinatown Game is a multi-player board game that prompts participants to put their heads together to negotiate what is worth preserving as heritage in Toronto’s Chinatown East and West. Zhang partnered with research technology officer in TMU’s Library Collaboratory, Jimmy Tran, to fly drones over Toronto’s two downtown Chinatowns, photographing hundreds of individual buildings and subsequently turning each one into a board-game sized model. To play the game, participants can select only about 10 of the buildings to include in their future Chinatowns. Centred on questions of heritage preservation within the community, ChinaTOwn asks players to have a conversation about what is important to them and the future of their community, a topic that is relevant now more than ever as Chinatown’s across the country face unprecedented challenges and change.
Chinatown 2050: Reimagining Toronto's Chinatowns through pan-Asian Speculative Fiction seeks to transform Chinatown by telling stories. In contrast to the news stories being told about Chinatown and Asian Canadians in the early months of 2020, community participants, (mostly young Asian-Canadians), took part in workshops where they wrote speculative fiction stories imagining what Toronto’s Chinatowns might look like 30 years post-pandemic. They were encouraged to radically break from the present moment through fantasy and science fiction. By removing any limits on how they might imagine the future, the artists hoped to create more generative possibilities for new worlds to emerge: to open up the present moment to new stories. Zhang partnered with research technology officer in TMU’s Library Collaboratory, Jimmy Tran, to 3D scan Chinatown during lockdown in May 2022. These 3D scans were used to reconstruct the future Chinatown worlds imaged by the community authors. These stories and their architectures were published in a short fiction anthology (forthcoming Mawenzi House), a short documentary film (premiered at San Diego Asian Film Festival 2022), as well VR art installation (premiered at Nuit Blanche Toronto 2022).
- Speculative Volumetric Imag(in)ing: Community Heritage in Chinatown - This talk entitled “Speculative Volumetric Imag(in)ing: Community Heritage in Chinatown” will explore how volumetric imaging can be used for community heritage building and storytelling. Specifically, we will focus the use of UAV and lidar 3d scanning in the creation of the web-browser based “Build Your Own Chinatown Game” as well as in the short documentary film “Chinatown 2050: Reimagining Toronto's Chinatowns through pan-Asian Speculative Fiction”. For a more detailed description of the two projects, see below:Build Your Own Chinatown Game is a multi-player board game that prompts participants to put their heads together to negotiate what is worth preserving as heritage in Toronto’s Chinatown East and West. Zhang partnered with research technology officer in TMU’s Library Collaboratory, Jimmy Tran, to fly drones over Toronto’s two downtown Chinatowns, photographing hundreds of individual buildings and subsequently turning each one into a board-game sized model. To play the game, participants can select only about 10 of the buildings to include in their future Chinatowns. Centred on questions of heritage preservation within the community, ChinaTOwn asks players to have a conversation about what is important to them and the future of their community, a topic that is relevant now more than ever as Chinatown’s across the country face unprecedented challenges and change.
- Linda Zhang (she/her) is a registered architect (OAA, AIA), interior designer (NCIDQ), drone pilot (RPAS advanced operations), principal at Studio Pararaum (Toronto—Zürich) and an assistant professor (Waterloo Architecture). Her work explores how community memory, cultural heritage, and identity can be embodied through emergent technologies (including VR, AR, machine learning, robotics and 3D scanning), lived experience (affect theory), matter (ceramics), and material processes (slip casting).
- Asabe Mamza
- My name is Asabe Mamza, a Nigerian-born graphic designer and multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Toronto, Canada. I had my first degree in Industrial Design and currently pursuing an Interdisciplinary Masters in Art, Media and Design at OCAD University Toronto, ON.
My artistic style is influenced by my cultural and traditional background, which I interpret using various traditional and digital techniques. I work with ceramics, acrylic and digital painting to create traditional-inspired art and design. Additionally, my work explores 3D modelling, scanning, AR/VR technologies and printing to interpret cultural heritage in the virtual space.
Art itself is a statement that holds memories of important events and using it as a means of communication and a form of expression is something that I am constantly exploring and practicing while simultaneously passing down lived experiences and ancestral knowledge. As someone with a diverse cultural background, I have had the opportunity to experience various cultures and witnessed the gradual erosion of these cultures at different points in my life which has significantly influenced my perspective on identity in art and design.
My passion lies in creating culturally inspired art and design in the virtual space. My work seeks to create new perspectives and interpretations of cultural heritage and promote its richness and diversity.- NEMA - Cultural Preservation and ways it can intersect with 3D modelling and simulation to create an immersive experience - My talk will cover how the various digital techniques and ways of thinking can intercept the traditional methods of making culturally inspired art and design. My work covers the exploration of various digital techniques like 3D scanning, Printing, modelling, AR and VR installations.
I will be speaking on the use of clay (sculptures) to create cultural items that hold the significance of traditional heritage, beliefs, power, and ancestral knowledge within them and how these objects were transferred into the digital space through scanning.
- NEMA - Cultural Preservation and ways it can intersect with 3D modelling and simulation to create an immersive experience - My talk will cover how the various digital techniques and ways of thinking can intercept the traditional methods of making culturally inspired art and design. My work covers the exploration of various digital techniques like 3D scanning, Printing, modelling, AR and VR installations.
- My name is Asabe Mamza, a Nigerian-born graphic designer and multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Toronto, Canada. I had my first degree in Industrial Design and currently pursuing an Interdisciplinary Masters in Art, Media and Design at OCAD University Toronto, ON.
- Nikita Shokhov
- Nikita Shokhov is a creator working with immersive video, born in Russia and based in the United States. In his art practice, he studies the human condition in the 21st century by applying philosophical agendas, documentary approach, and immersive environments.
His augmented reality experience 'Dragzina' was officially selected at DOK Leipzig 2022 (Germany), VRE22 Virtual Reality Experience (Italy), and Athens Digital Arts Festival (Greece). His VR film 'Klaxon. My Dear Sweet Friend' was presented at Loop Barcelona 2022 with Osnova Gallery, was officially selected at the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories Festival (Canada) and was a finalist at Cannes XR Development Showcase (France). He is the recipient of the World Press Photo (Netherlands) and Nova Art (Russia) awards. Studied immersive environments at Virginia Tech; experimental filmmaking at California Institute of the Arts; documentary photography at the Rodchenko Art School Moscow; and worked in The Watermill Center theater residency (New York).
He had shows in such institutions as Spring/Break Art Show (Los Angeles and New York), Redcat Cinema (Los Angeles), GRAD Gallery (London), ACM IMX (online), Photoquai Biennale (Paris), Manifesta Biennale (St. Petersburg), Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art.- Dragzina AR: an immersive experience to challenge perceptions of hetereonormative spaces - This immersive experience challenges your perception of space. The LGBTQIA+ community is often disoriented within heteronormative spaces, and this work reverses that dichotomy by disorienting the audience.
Through the poetics of augmented reality and cinematic holograms, the Dragzina community and I work together to amplify their voices toward freedom of human individuality. You are about to become a part of this performance that I created in collaboration with Masha Vorslav, a leader of the gender play community in Moscow. Besides Masha, you will see Lorina Rey, Anoche Xenon, Skinny Jenny with Robert, and the Home Drag Race collective of Vanessa Diziai, Ramona Vile, and Vannet.
This virtual magical environment represents a typical underground queer party that allows disruption of the state dictatorship. This is where an image of a better future is born. The length of the performance is 12 minutes.
- Dragzina AR: an immersive experience to challenge perceptions of hetereonormative spaces - This immersive experience challenges your perception of space. The LGBTQIA+ community is often disoriented within heteronormative spaces, and this work reverses that dichotomy by disorienting the audience.
- Nikita Shokhov is a creator working with immersive video, born in Russia and based in the United States. In his art practice, he studies the human condition in the 21st century by applying philosophical agendas, documentary approach, and immersive environments.