RIT XR Camp Extended Worlds – Zagreb
The XR Camp in Zagreb brings together the core of a new extended reality community.
The technology of extended reality (XR) should have long ago transitioned from a futuristic context into the living room of an average citizen and become a part of our everyday lives. Where are we today in relation to Baudrillard’s predictions and the dystopian visions inspired by them, such as in The Matrix? XR may no longer be foreign or distant to us, but the social and ethical questions it and its counterparts, such as the metaverse and video games, raise have never been more relevant. It undeniably impacts the world in which we live and our lives, but we need to ask ourselves how to take the helm and consider if and how we can shape it. How can we become active co-creators of the whole plethora of new realities unfolding before us?
As part of the European project Realities in Transition, the XR Camp in Zagreb (October 24 – 29, 2023) brings together the core of a new extended reality community. Seven partners from across Europe – Ars Electronica (Linz, AT), Dark Euphoria (Marseille, FR), iMAL – Art Center for digital cultures & technology (Brussels, BE), KONTEJNER (Zagreb, HR), L.E.V. Festival (Gijón, ES), CHRONIQUES, lead partner (Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, FR), and V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam, NL) – guided by ideas such as open-source technologies, the democratization of technological tools and resources, knowledge sharing, and mutual learning, come together in their ambition to create an inclusive, open, and sustainable XR community.
The project’s goal is to explore the potential of XR technology, especially in the artistic and creative sphere, which has always nurtured a critical and reflexive approach to new phenomena. Extended reality tools can serve artists and other creatives in shaping new creative narratives, modes of artistic storytelling, and worldbuilding. KONTEJNER’s program Realities in Transition XR Camp – Extended Worlds brings immersive artistic experiences that open new realms to us but also anchor us in our reality, making us aware of the advantages and risks of this technology and emphasizing the need for its responsible and ethical use.
The hybrid program of the XR camp includes an exhibition, audio-visual and XR performances, numerous workshops, an exciting discursive program, and explores topics such as artificial intelligence, the idea of augmented reality as a new default reality, the use of this technology in education and arts, reimagining public space, expanding the field of performing arts, getting to know established as well as emerging XR artists, and many more. The art projects presented in the exhibition deal with these technologies in various ways, from 3D printing sculptures based on our biometric data to immersion in the world of video games or selling fragments of our own bodies in the form of NFTs. But what they all have in common is a progressive vision of creating new worlds and, essentially, the idea that expanding horizons does not always require VR goggles; sometimes it is enough to look at things through a different ‘lens’.
XR technology raises numerous ethical dilemmas, from social (in)equality, the impact on education, threats to privacy and mental health, to all the so-called ‘still unknown social risks’. Will we spend our lives glued to screens while the tech giants drain our attention and data? A positive filter could be sought precisely in this alternative XR framework that resists the dominant capitalist paradigm in order to create its own oasis of action. Slavoj Žižek stated in one of his recent texts that besides escaping from reality into fantasy, we have now also started retreating into reality to avoid the devastating truth about the futility of our fantasies. Perhaps the answer to this pessimistic premise lies in a third path – in imagining new, equally real worlds (beyond the fantasy-reality binary) created through joint efforts within a potent, open, and collaborative community.
Ana Bedenko
TUESDAY 24.10 – SCHEDULE
19:00
XR exhibition opening, Museum of Contemporary Art
19:30
Rebecca Merlic & Željko Beljan, Viktorija, 3D live performance, Museum of Contemporary Art
20:00
Schnitt (IT): SCANAUDIENCE, site-specific audio/video performance, Museum of Contemporary Art
WEDNESDAY 25.10 – SCHEDULE
10:00 – 12:00
Education workshop led by Vanessa Hannesschläger (Ars Electronica), KONTEJNER venue
11:00 – 19:00
Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art
11:00 – 14:00
Hackathon, School of Applied Arts and Design
12:30 – 14:00
RIT Meet & Greet LUNCH – consortium members and hosts – outside of KONTEJNER venue
14:00 – 19:00
Workshops, Museum of Contemporary Art
14:00 – 19:00
Mathieu Pradat (FR), Public Space & Augmented Reality
14:00 – 19:00
Xsenofemme (NL) & Nika de la Loncha (DE/NL), Minting yourself!
15:00- 19:00
Gad Baruch Hinkis (IL/IT), Building Musical Worlds in VR
17:00 – 19:00
Nicol Colga (NL/PL), Introducing the 2.5D
16:00 – 19:00
Afternoon discursive programme, Museum of Contemporary Art
16:00 – 16:10
RIT project presentation by Aurelie Delater + KONTEJNERintroduction into the discursive program and topics by KONTEJNER
16:15 – 16:45
Sander Veenhof (NL), When is AR going to be our default reality?
17:00 – 17:30
Panel Creating Extended Worlds – Good Practices in Producing XR Artworks: Lola Baraldi (MUTEK, CA), Christl Baur (Ars Electronica, AT), Julien Lomet (LAVAL Virtual, FR), Marie Point (Dark Euphoria, FR); moderator: Boris Debackere (V2, NL)
17:45 – 18:15
Panel Entering New Realities – Educational Models in XR: Jesús Jara (L.E.V. Festival, ES), Ivana Matanović (Incubator of Gaming Industry PISMO, HR), Gjino Šutić (UR Institute, HR), Sara Tirelli (Polo Immersive Arts, Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia), moderator: Vanessa Hannesschläger (Ars Electronica, AT)
18:25 – 18:45
Valdemar Danry (DK/US), presentation about MIT research on AI use in education – online presentation/lecture
19:00 – 19:30
Christina “XaosPrincess” Kinne (DE), presentation of Quantum Bar – Creating a GPT-3 driven Chatbot for Social Virtual Reality
21:00
Martin Messier (CA), Elusive Matter, light and sound performance, Peti Kupe + DJs sets
THURSDAY 26.10 – SCHEDULE
10:00 – 15:00
Hackathon, School of Applied Arts and Design
11:00 – 19:00
Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art
11:00 – 14:30
XR networking brunch + Manifesto workshop, KONTEJNER venue
14:00 – 19:00
Workshops, Museum of Contemporary Art
14:00 – 16:00
Hugo Pilate (FR/US) & Pedro Gil Farias (PT/NL), What a Mess (duration: 2 h)
14:00 – 19:00
Jean Dellac (FR) + Raphaël Chenais (FR), XR & Performing arts
15:00 – 19:00
Gad Baruch Hinkis (IL/IT), Building Musical Worlds in VR
15:00 – 15:20
Talk, Xsenofemme (NL) & Nika de la Loncha (DE/NL), exhibition space 3rd floor, Museum of Contemporary Art
15:30 – 18:00
Afternoon discursive programme, Museum of Contemporary Art
15:30 – 16:15
Panel Realities in Transition – XR for emerging artists: Florian Weigl (V2) moderator, artists: Nicol Colga (PL/NL), Eva Iszoro (PL/ES), Calin Segal (RO/FR), Leon van Oldenborgh (NL), Marlot Meyer (NL), Leo Scarin (IT/NL), Hugo Pilate (FR/US), Pedro Gil Farias (PT/NL), Rebecca Merlic (AT)
16:30 – 17:30
Panel Artistic Practices in the New Expanded Field: Lucía García (iMAL), moderator, artists: Isjtar Vandebroeck (CREW, BE), Yann Deval (BE), Adelin Schweitzer (FR), Mathieu Pradat (FR)20:00 – 22:00 h performance by Anna Pompermaier (AT) & Cenk Guzelis (AT), Be My Guest!, KONTEJNER venue
FRIDAY 27.10 – SCHEDULE
10:00 – 13:00
Hackathon, School of Applied Arts and Design Zagreb
11:00 – 19:00
Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art
14:00 – 19:00
Workshops, Museum of Contemporary Art
15:00 – 19:00
Gad Baruch Hinkis (IL/IT), Building Musical Worlds in VR
14:00 – 19:00
Željko Beljan (HR) & Rebecca Merlic (AT), Become a football player: 3D live scanning
15:00 – 18:00
Fero Kiraly (SK), The New Kind of Beauty: Collaborative Music Making in the Age of Algorithms
SATURDAY 28.10 – SCHEDULE
11:00 – 18:00
Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art
12:00 – 17:00
Workshops, Museum of Contemporary Art
12:00 – 15:00
Fero Kiraly (SK), The New Kind of Beauty: Collaborative Music Making in the Age of Algorithms
12:00 – 17:00
Gad Baruch Hinkis (IL/IT), Building Musical Worlds in VR
19:00 – 20:00
Presentation of workshop (and hackathon ?) results and participants live performances (Patch XR and Live Coding), KONTEJNER venue
20:30
Fero Kiraly (SK) live coding performance/concert, KONTEJNER venue
SUNDAY 29.10 – SCHEDULE
11:00 – 18:00
Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art
WORKS FOR THE EXHIBITION
- Željko Beljan and Rebecca Merlic – Viktorija (installation in the form of a video game for two players)
- Xsenofemme – Mint me! I’m an artist. (a VR environment and installation that will showcase a virtual crypto market, in which the audience will be able to simulate buying a piece of the artist as a singular NFT)
- Lovro Ivančić – Altermorrow (an immersive installation that will focus on motion detection of visitors)
- Artworks produced during the V2 residency – Calin Segal: Binary Deconstruction, Hugo Pilate & Pedro Gil Farias: What a Mess, Studio Comrades: The Distraction 5
- MUTEK Immersive collection:
- Entanglement XR – France Jobin (CA/QC) & Markus Heckmann (DE/CA)
- Collaboration with LEV – Planet LEV
Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb + Peti Kupe + KONTEJNER new venue
Date
October 24 – 29, 2023
Venue
KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis
Savska cesta 42, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Tickets
Free entrance
