DOK Exchange XR
DOK Exchange XR will take place in a hybrid form on 13 October 2023.
This year our programme focuses on:
- generative AI and its impact on human creativity and society;
- opportunities and threats associated with using AI tools in the film industry and XR;
- behavioral data in XR storytelling and programming;
- the future of AR within the context of gaming and the development of site-specific documentary storytelling;
- and AI-user generated content and assets for XR prototyping
DOK Exchange XR gives you the opportunity to connect with cutting-edge experts, consult your work-in-progress projects and keep in touch with the international XR community.
Weronika Lewandowska
exchange [at] dok-leipzig [dot] de
DOK Exchange XR Conference is a hybrid event with speakers presenting an in-depth look at the various aspects of XR development. We will critically look at and analyze new directions for XR and storytelling in the context of generative AI to better understand and take sustainable decisions on design, production and distribution processes.
Language:
English
Access:
Guests with accreditations and a day-pass are welcome.
Pre-registration is required by email to: exchange [at] dok-leipzig [dot] de
Each presentation will be followed by a Q&A. If you wonder how to shape ethical XR projects with generative AI tools and work with AR site-specific projects, join us.
When & Where
Keynote Speakers
There is an AI behind the scenes
“In this talk, I will give a sprawling overview of the available novel AI tools of today, demoing some in real time, and subsequently discuss the underlying potential and problems of human-machine co-creation.”
Creative producer/director focused on developing powerful narratives, utilizing new technology. The founder of Makropol where from he produced 10+ ambitious artistic immersive experiences and started several new companies, including the app startup Recho that won the prestigious Venture Cup in 2015. CEO and creative producer at Kaspar AI – a company focused on using AI to co-create AV storytelling. Producer of “The Shadow and End Of Night”, which won for “best Immersive Narrative” in Venice. Currently he is producing the world's first feature film “About a Hero” written by an AI. Head of Studies at the European Creators’ Lab. He gives lectures, leads workshops and teaches masterclasses all around the world.
In collaboration with the European Creators’ Lab – Prototyping Lab
Generative AI: The birth of a new medium or the next evolution of tools
“This technology carries a great responsibility. We need to understand its workings and what is at stake, while also fostering artistic experimentation to uncover new creative opportunities.”
Anna Giralt Gris is a filmmaker and researcher. She is the co-founder of the film production company GusanoFilms and the interdisciplinary center for creation and research Artefacto, which investigates the intersections between technology, cinema, and politics. She has directed and produced films that have been selected and awarded at festivals such as CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, HotDocs, SXSW, and IDFA, among others. She co-directs the FEST section of the +RAIN Film Festival, the first European film festival for AI-generated films, coordinates the course "Cinema, Algorithms, and AI" at the UAB and is an associate professor at the UPF in Barcelona.
Playing with AI for Creativity: The future of digital assets for games, XR and Web3 in the context of the marketplace
“Digital assets are still in the mids of the transformation period, with new formats and use cases flooding the market almost constantly. The question remains about the distribution methods and marketplace strategies that can be implemented now and in the future.”
Her work at G2A focuses on researching topics connected to Digital Trade (trends etc.), Digital Assets (NFTs, in-game items etc.), internet communities (meme creators etc.), and gaming as an experience/entertainment and a metaversal platform. Previously at Outlier Ventures, she supported early-stage founders building gaming-related products within the Web3/Metaverse ecosystems. Her background includes e-commerce, entertainment, marketing, and media. Joanna uses her spare time to write about digital culture (focusing on the intersection of Web3, AI, and digital culture and trade) on her Digital Data Glitch blog and used to co-host Metagame podcast – both in her native Polish language.
Audio for Augmented Reality
“How to approach sound design for AR? We’ll look at the authoring for hardware device playback vs binaural audio on headphones, balancing the sense of realism and authenticity with the entertainment factor and mitigating the differences in scale between the visuals and sound.”
Oliver Kadel is a multi-award-winning 3D sound designer, recording and mixing engineer based in London. Since 2014 he’s worked on over 200 projects delivering spatial and interactive audio for immersive media including VR, MR, AR and 360, covering a broad range of sectors from virtual training and branded content to documentary films, gaming, and location-based installations. Oliver has published papers for the AES and SAGE Publications on Spatial and Interactive Audio for XR media. He is currently undertaking a PhD program at the AudioLab, doing research in Spatial Psychoacoustics, assessing the impact of spatial and interactive audio on cognitive load and information retention.
Changing spaces and minds through AR
“While VR made headlines and captured imaginations, AR quietly built its foundation. Now, with giants like Apple leading the charge, AR is setting the stage for something big: hybrid reality storytelling.”
XR storyteller & filmmaker splitting his time between Budapest & San Francisco, interested in what XR can do for documentary and humanity. He is a graduate of Stanford University, where he also lectures on XR storytelling. Barna’s documentary work has been acquired by The Guardian and PBS, screened at DOC NYC, DOK Leipzig. His XR projects have been part of IDFA & NewImages markets; as a CPH:LAB fellow he’s developed Kvöldvaka, a multi-sensory AR doc that aims to redefine our relationship with nature, and If These Streets Could Talk, a pan-European site-specific Mixed Reality experience that changes how we perceive our cities and - hopefully - AR storytelling in general.
XR creators will present their cutting-edge projects in development in front of an online audience, followed by feedback by around 20 experts from the fields of research, funding, distribution, art and technology. We focus on building openness and equality in the process of knowledge exchange. It will be a great opportunity to develop fresh ideas and build a bridge between the creators and the community of XR experts.
Language:
English
Access:
Invitation only (online) – limited capacity*
*If you hold an accreditation or one-day pass, and you would like to join the showcase, please contact us for the access: exchange [at] dok-leipzig [dot] de.
Brigid O’Shea started at the Berlin International Film Festival, working for various departments including Berlinale Talents, Berlinale Co-Pro Market and the EFM. She went to DOK Leipzig in 2010 and was appointed head of DOK Industry in 2014. She left in 2021 to establish the Documentary Association of Europe. She freelances for many documentary institutions in Europe and production companies and tutors across the globe on international co-financing and pitching as well as festival strategies and cultural management. She moderates and curates programmes on non-fiction filmmaking as an internationally-respected consultant with a wide and diverse network. She serves on the advisory boards of B2B Doc, Dokufest and Circle: Women Doc Accelerator, and is a programmer at Docs Barcelona.
Experts
Jutta Brendemühl is an international arts programmer & writer. Engagements: Goethe-Institut; EU Film Festival Toronto; Toronto Arab Film; North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative; Toronto Cultural Leaders Lab. Juries & mentoring incl. Toronto Jewish Film Festival; DOK Leipzig; Kassel Documentary Festival; ArtworxTO.
XR Curator and Producer currently responsible for Immersive programming at Tribeca Festival. In 2020-22 Head of Studio at Kaleidoscope. She collaborates with public funds (Creative Europe MEDIA), NGO, universities and business. Former Discovery Group Producer and Director, and Multimedia Lead at the Grand Theatre–National Opera in Warsaw. The author of awarded documentary and VR projects.
Awarded experimental creator and producer based in Los Angeles. Since 2019, she’s been a part of Sundance Institute, acting as Program Manager of New Frontier Story Lab, before taking on the same role for New Frontier Festival. For the 2022 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, she produced and hosted the immersive platform, “The Spaceship,” which won a Webby Award in the best in Arts and Culture category.
Tom C. Hall is an award-winning producer and virtual-reality filmmaker. He creatively produced “The Choice,” a VR documentary which won the Audience Award at SXSW 2022, Best XR for Impact at Games For Change 2022 and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. He is currently co-producing a DEI VR experience with Johns Hopkins University and a new interactive documentary experience about the Holocaust.
Gabriella (Gabs) is cofounder & CCO of the award-winning Austrian applied immersive entertainment studio vrisch, the founder of the XR community XRVienna, Austrian Ambassador of Women in Immersive Tech EU, and a South American momtrepreneur, as well as one of Forbes’s 2018 top 20 EU Women Founders.
Creative XR Producer specializes in transmedia projects and multimedia performance that deal with interactive media such as VR, AR and Games. She works as a freelancer for national & international companies, contributing to production of projects like “Cabinets of Wonder VR”, “Urania Culture Palace”, “Dans Drauganna” (VR Experience WIP). She is currently working for Reynard Film and Yaga Studio in Leipzig.
Dr Rob Eagle is a lecturer, researcher and artist, working across performance, film and interactive and immersive media. Rob is currently a Teaching Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Leeds. Previously, they were a Research Fellow with the British Film Institute and XR Stories (University of York) and lecturer in virtual and extended realities at the University of the West of England.
Uta Eberhardt, professional experience includes production and distribution of film, games and new technologies. Following a Master’s Degree in European Media Politics she started working for Creative Europe MEDIA in 2005. The Creative Europe MEDIA Programme programme supports AV-projects with European dimension and encourages the use of innovative business models and new technologies.
Anna Giralt Gris is a filmmaker, producer and researcher. She is the co-founder of the film production company GusanoFilms and the interdisciplinary center for creation and research Artefacto, which investigates the intersections between technology, cinema, and politics. She co-directs the FEST section of the +RAIN Film Festival, the first European film festival for AI-generated films.
Oliver Kadel is an Emmy-nominated, multi-award-winning sound designer based in London. Since 2014 he’s worked on over 140 projects specialising in spatial and interactive audio for new generation immersive media for virtual training, 360 films, games and immersive location-based entertainment. Currently, Oliver is undertaking his PhD program at the AudioLab, University of York, doing research in Spatial Psychoacoustics focusing on assessing the impact of spatial and interactive audio on cognitive load and information retention in virtual training.
As the founder and CEO of INVR.SPACE GmbH and reallifefilm Sönke Kirchhof has been involved in more than 500 projects. Having worked in the field of documentary filmmaking and XR documentaries for more than a decade, Sönke has produced astonishing documentaries such as Kusunda, Ernst Grube, Blended Isolations and African Space Makers.
Fabian Mrongowius is an independent producer for all things XR and new media. Through his career, Fabian has worked with many different formats such as VR, AR, volumetric video, metaverse and web3 experiences with diverse partners including content brands, creative agencies or cultural institutions.
Dr. Joanne Popinska is an award-winning Polish-Canadian XR filmmaker. Her documentary, “The Choice”, premiered at IDFA and SXSW and has received the Audience Award at SXSW, Best XR for Impact at Games for Change, and many others. She is currently co-producing a DEI VR experience with Johns Hopkins University and working on a new interactive documentary experience about the Holocaust.
Mandy Rose is Professor of Documentary & Digital Cultures at UWE Bristol. Her research examines evolving documentary aesthetics, ethics, audiences. Mandy is Co-Investigator on the UKRI My World programme, she was Co-Investigator on the EPSRC Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters project. She is Co-Convenor of i-Docs.
Lars is a queer curator, networker, and community builder for XR. Lars curates exhibitions (eg. Neuland/DOK Leipzig), conferences, and workshops for several international festivals and institutions. He focuses on XR and playful new media as democratic tools and contributes to the ethics behind it. He explores how XR exhibitions can be seen as new forms of cultural techniques.
Barna is an XR storyteller & filmmaker splitting his time between Budapest & San Francisco, interested in what XR can do for documentary and humanity. He is a graduate of Stanford University, where he also lectures on XR storytelling. Barna’s work has been acquired by The Guardian and PBS, screened at DOC NYC, DOK Leipzig; as well as IDFA & NewImages markets, and CPH:LAB.
Nim Shapira is a multidisciplinary artist and a creative director working at the intersection of storytelling and innovative technology. His innovative works were featured at TED 2023, Tribeca Film Festival, SIGGRAPH, Slamdance, and more. Over the past few years, he has been a research fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, an alumni of NEWINC, and a graduate of Venice Biennale’s College Cinema.
Awarded artist and filmmaker with a focus on technology, the politics of media and immersivity. The Artistic Director and Co-Founder of CSC Immersive Arts. A Centre for The Expanded Moving Image – a new XR department of the National Film School of Italy. She held various panels on XR storytelling (“Bodies, Movement and AI in VR” at Goldsmiths, “Future Narrative” with Laurie Anderson at Film Festival Gothenburg). Co-founder of the VR Pavilion, an independent curatorial project.
Ludovico Vignaga is an entrepreneur, engineer and designer. He is founder of INTORNO LABS, a company specialized in immersive sound technology and spatial audio tools. He is member of the Academic Board for SAE Institute and post-master Fellow at Berklee College of Music.
Pola Weiß works at Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg’s New Media Funding division as Funding Executive for Innovative Audiovisual Content/ XR. Previously, she was a journalist, blogger and speaker specialized in immersive storytelling and wrote copy for companies revolving around tech and XR. She also worked for about 4 years as commissioning editor of award-winning interactive transmedia projects, documentaries and web-videos in television (SWR/arte, Deutsche Welle).
Research scientist and founding director of the MIT Open Documentary Lab. She is the founder and editorial director of Docubase, co-founder and a member of the editorial collective of Immerse, and co-founder of the Co-Creation Studio. Her publications include “Creating Community in Hybrid Festivals” as author and “Collective Wisdom: Co-creating Media for Equity and Justice” as co-author. Wolozin has long had an interest in exploring new platforms for storytelling and social change.
Partner of DOK Exchange XR 2023:
Co-Partner of DOK Exchange 2023:
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the MEDIA sub-programme of Creative Europe. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
