The workshop sessions were led by artist Mathieu Pradat. Inspired by the questions raised in the shows, the goal of the workshop was to create a fictional video in which we follow the story of teenagers both in their own reality and in a virtual reality world they have built to meet up. The participants were a high school class of 24 students who specialize in Fine Arts. The idea was to help them develop their artistic creativity in close connection with the world of new technologies, to experiment with collaborative artistic work and to educate them about the images that surround them, by making them aware of the different contexts in which they are produced and distributed.
To do so, the participants used Gravity Sketch, a drawing software used in VR, and VR Chat, an online virtual world platform, to build their virtual reality world from scratch. They also used shooting equipment to film such as cameras and audio equipment (microphones, headphones, sound recorders…). Lastly, they used Premiere Pro, a video editing software to edit the video.

The workshop took place in Gignac-la-Nerthe, in Saint-Louis Sainte-Marie high school. It took place from November 2022 to June 2023, over the course of 8 different sessions of 2 to 4 hours each, making it a 24 hours workshop in total. This workshop introduced students to the VR technology through the prism of the arts, providing them with a fundamental understanding of the digital age, as well as exploring the creative possibilities of this new medium. The project provided an education in images, making students aware of the different production and post-production contexts, and encouraging them to read them critically, both through encounters with works of art and professionals, and through hands-on practice.

More about Mathieu Pradat

Writer, director and architect, Mathieu Pradat’s practice is rooted in the growing interaction between virtual and real worlds, as territories that carry stories and emotions. His virtual reality experiences and films (The Roaming, Proxima) have been selected and awarded prizes at numerous festivals, including Venice Virtual – La Mostra de Venise, the Geneva International Film Festival, the Frankfurt Biennale, and the Rotunda at the Locarno Film Festival. Mathieu Pradat founded and manages La Prairie Productions. A doctoral student at the Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, he is conducting research into the notion of narrative spaces in virtual realities.