Category: Conferences & events

New Visual Narratives in Łódź is now over!

3 days filled with debates on technology, film, art and changes in contemporary culture landscape, a VR exhibition and film screenings. Thank you for being with us!

New Visual Narratives – the slogan that guided the first edition of the conference, and around which we are focusing our contemporary thinking again today, refers to completely different associations and meanings than just a few years ago. The idea of how stories can be told using immersive media and the language of film and visual arts has been subjected to many tests and has had to be revised. Every artistic expression that goes beyond the existing means of expression and questions the limits of the medium is born in a constant process of trial and revision – a process that starts again and again. The laboratory we established in 2019 was a testing ground for dozens of artists and producers from around the world. It has also been the site of many discussions, discoveries, surprises and failures, without which no creative process would be complete. However, we were not working in a laboratory environment isolated from our surroundings. Reality is changing in front of our eyes and both the creative process itself and the themes taken up in the works by artists resonate with it.

We want to capture these moments and discuss them with an international group of artists and theorists interested in the interface between film and digital media.

fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś
fot. Maciej Bernaś

IO1 – study program

The project assumed the development of four intellectual outputs, which are expected to allow the introduction of educational content concerning immersive technologies into the curricula of studies conducted by the partner universities.

It was assumed that the study program (IO1) will include an analysis of the following issues:

  1. profile of the graduate,
  2. matrix of educational results with a description of the assumed educational results for the study program,
  3. curriculum with calculation of the number of ECTS credits,
  4. study plan.

In addition, it was agreed that IO1 would be the basis for further work on the intellectual outputs, and at the same time it must be based on a thorough review and research on the expectations of the labor market as to the specific profile of the graduate, his competences, and skills necessary to manage immersive experiences or create and develop immersive content. The partners also agreed that a graduate would move freely in a new dimension of culture, a generative culture that would not treat audiences “as viewers or listeners, but as users. It would take as its model the laboratory or designer’s workshop, and such models of operation as the experimental or rapid prototyping process. Its activities would be based on the principles of openness, networking, and non-hierarchical cooperation among participants – mapping the models of cooperation developed online, in free software and free culture projects.”

These assumptions have been reflected in the presented program, with the caveat that the change in the form of presentation of learning outcomes is no longer in the form of a cross table linking the subjects to the outcomes but will put a more general tabular statement (matrix). The coordination of the working group working on the first result was handled by Dr. Katarzyna Kopeć – director of didactics at the Institute of Culture representing the Project Leader.

The full document can be consulted HERE (in Polish).

Take part in the New Visual Narratives conference, July 1–3, 2022

Three days of intense debates, meetings, and discussions among an international group of creators, artists, producers, researchers, and enthusiasts of technology and film art. The New Visual Narratives conference is an event that will summarize and open a new chapter in the activities of the vnLab and Łódź Film School.

REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE

New Visual Narratives
1–3 lipca 2022
Szkoła Filmowa w Łodzi + online

Program and registration: konferencja.vnlab.org

The conference is free of charge.

New visual narratives are changing the landscape of today’s media. While the 20th century was the century of film, the present day is being defined before our very eyes. We will talk about what is currently most interesting in the field of audiovisual arts, present the results of vnLab’s research, and showcase our productions.

The event program is filled with presentations on topics that we deal with on a daily basis at vnLab Studios – VR, interactive narratives, immersive media, film essays, audience and perception research, 3D animation, and stereoscopy.

Among the invited guests are:

Ariel Avissar – film essayist, lecturer at Tel Aviv University, editor-in-chief of [in]Transition, the Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies.

Gary Hall – media philosopher working at the intersection of digital culture, politics, art, and technology, professor at Coventry University in the UK.

Hartmut Koenitz – from HKU University of Arts Utrecht, researching the use of interactive narratives.

Lena Thiele – creative director specializing in interactive music production, creator of the award-winning NetWars.

Joanna Żylińska – cultural studies scholar, literary scholar, artist, and lecturer at King’s College London.

SEE THE FULL EVENT PROGRAM

Organizers: Łódź Film School, Visual Narratives Laboratory (vnLab)

New Visual Narratives conference

The first edition of the conference “New Visual Narratives” is the starting point for the activities of the Visual Narratives Lab at the Łódź film School, whose task is to explore and develop the new forms of visual narration that have been flourishing in the contemporary media landscape. The time for such an effort seems appropriate: the landscape in question has not only experienced a strong diversification over the last decade, but it is expected that in the coming years, as a result of the introduction of 5th generation wireless technology, we will face a real revolution. While the 20th century was without a doubt the age of film, today it seems that the future of visual narration will be multidirectional; it is shaped at the intersection of traditional film, theatre, television and photography with the contemporary, digital tools of visual communication. This development is also driven by the new needs and expectations of the recipients of these dynamically changing media, which also have to be thoroughly researched.

The presentations of and discussions with recognized artists, experts and researchers from the areas of interest of the vnLab’s studios will allow us to recognize the current state of research on visual narratives changing under the influence of technology and to present the most important artistic achievements in this field, and thus – to set the directions for further explorations, research and debates.

The material result of the conference will be a multi-media publication containing essays and papers written in response to the debates held during the conference, texts by invited authors, audiovisual research works, as well as records of these debates.

The programme of the conference will be divided into three modules:

Module 1: The future of film?

Module 2: Visual essay and interactive narratives

Module 3: Audience and business models

Roundtable

Roundtable discussion with all guests, concluding the symposium, will be moderated by Krzysztof Pijarski.

Join us!

Module 1: The future of film?

We will begin with a reflection on the issues surrounding changes in the film and audiovisual language and the ways of constructing narratives in the context of the developing immersive media. We place special emphasis on cinematic VR and stereoscopy, but remain open to areas such as augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI) and video games. This part of the conference will be an attempt to examine the narrative, artistic and cognitive potential of immersive media, as well as address questions regarding technology, production and research. It will also be an opportunity to reflect on where cinema is going and how it is changing under the influence of the new technologies. In the context of spherical film, we will ask, among other things, how to give the viewer a sense of agency without giving up the artistic and narrative ambitions of the director, how to negotiate the relationship between immersion and interactivity without breaking the viewer’s sense of presence, how to direct the viewer’s attention while recognizing the deconstruction of the notion of frame in the experience of filmic virtual reality? In the context of stereoscopy, it is worth looking (again) at the possibility of stereoscopy growing beyond a post-production effect and towards artistically ambitious applications of real stereoscopy, and to consider whether and how the addition of the third dimension to the experience of film can be a carrier of emotional content, whether it can enrich the artistic message, etc.

One thing seems obvious: we face the need to redefine the means of film in terms of how we film and edit, how we direct the viewer’s attention and work with actors, how we narrate and build dramatic structure, and finally, how we produce.

Module 1 participants:

Domna Banakou – “Being somebody else: the future of narrative storytelling”

Ludger Pfanz – “Space-Time Narratives”

Sylvia Rothe – “Timeline vs Spaceline”

Pola Borkiewicz – “New XR Narrative Paradigm”

Join us!

 

Module 2: Visual essay and interactive narratives

In this section we would like to discuss new forms of narration created through the use of interactive and digital technologies, such as interactive documentaries, film essays, trans- and cross-media projects or participatory narratives. The basic question is how to understand narration in the face of genres that undermine the classic approach to narration understood in terms of a set of events unfolding in a specific time span. Is there such a thing as an essayistic narrative, understood as an constellation of thoughts and affects rather than a sequence of events? How can we construct narratives that are not contained in a work but are created in the course of experiencing them, as is the case with interactive film? Moreover, we will be interested in the influence of interactive and digital technologies on character development, as well as on the viewer’s perception of the work.

Module 2 participants:

Kuba Mikurda – “An essay in space”

George Legrady – “From hardwired to automation: visual narrative through computation”

Sara Kolster – “To click or not to click?”

Roderick Coover – “Cinema of immersion, interaction and database”

Kevin B. Lee – “Exploring Farocki. Three approaches to videography”

Join us!

  

Module 3: Audience and business models

It can be said that the closing module serves as the binder of the conference, bringing together all the topics already discussed on a slightly different level. Here we will focus on the changing models of film financing and the need to find a way to monetize digital and interactive content. We will try to think about the reasons why some filmmakers and financing institutions or investors are interested in non-linear, interactive or participatory narratives and to answer the question: who are the contemporary audience: where, on what devices, and how do they watch films and other audiovisual content? How do they experience them, how is their attention formed, what are their habits and where do they come from? All this, of course, is connected with a further question: how to reach this new audience effectively? We will also be interested in how new narrative media change the processes of creating works, how the status of the creator changes in this context (especially in the face of the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning), how the behavior of cultural participants changes in the era of social and economic virtualization, what role the internet plays in the decision-making processes of cultural participants, and to what extent access-based culture displaces culture based on ownership.

Module 3 participants:

Marta Materska-Samek – “Cinematic VR Business Model – A disruptive or a sustaining change?”

Patrick von Sychowski – “Cinema is an experience”

Grzegorz Mazurek – “Business models in media in the times of digital transformation”

Piotr Francuz – “Virtual worlds from the evolutionary, neurocognitive, methodological and axiological perspective”

Katja Schupp – “Back to the future – interactive and immersive formats as an opportunity for non-fiction storytelling”

Join us!

Katja Schupp: “Back to the future – interactive and immersive formats as an opportunity for non-fiction storytelling”

Just ten years ago, interactive storytelling formats were the acclaimed panacea to access the highly contested market of younger recipients in the field of journalism and non-fiction. But despite award-winning productions sweeping success with users failed – to an extent that editors like Alexander Knetig of “arte creative” e.g. said in 2016: “I think (…) that concerning the future of the genre interactivity and non-linearity will no longer be the big buzzwords. … We have to be careful not to just go back to the classic video.” Now immersive formats such as 360 degrees and VR productions are hyped within the non-fiction community. As ten years ago in the context of interactivity, design criteria for these productions currently are developed along the line of what producers perceive as the best possible immersion. But again, first user data reveal a gap between immersive production enthusiasm and reluctant, even skeptical recipients. In our session, we would like to discuss findings explaining the lack of success concerning interactive formats and try to transfer them to current questions in the context of the reception of immersive formats. Since we understand our research as a contribution closely linked to practical production, we suggest a project to collect data on the reception of immersive formats in the context of a design-thinking process. The aim is to find design criteria oriented to the needs of the recipients.

Katja Schupp
Katja Schupp is a professor at the Seminar of Journalism, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz. Her main areas of teaching and research are audiovisual journalism, transformation and development of audiovisual formats, storytelling, mobile journalism, journalism and the public. 

Piotr Francuz: “Virtual worlds from the evolutionary, neurocognitive, methodological and axiological perspective”

Man, and in particular his mind, is the product of evolution, its most perfect child, and at the same time it does not keep pace with the results of the technological revolution which he himself initiated. Nowadays, the human mind is exposed to experiences with which it has never had contact before. Our brain, which is best prepared to live in nature, has to face adaptation issues on an unimaginable scale. On the one hand, the human mind is a powerful generator of imaginary (virtual) worlds, and on the other hand, it is almost completely helpless against them when they are created by other people. Understanding this phenomenon is extremely difficult. Research in this field is only in the bud. We are barely beginning to understand multisensivity at the level of sensory experience, and already we have to face the questions that modern technology poses today about the possibility of interfering in human identity. In addition to presenting important points concerning the biological and mental condition of contemporary man in confrontation with multimodal technologies, I would also like to draw attention to the possibilities and traps associated with research in this area and, at least, touch the problem of the responsibility of creators, using new media, for the state of mind of their recipients.

Piotr Francuz
Prof. dr hab. Piotr Francuz, psychologist, head of the Department of Experimental Psychology and Perception & Cognition Lab; director of the Institute of Psychology of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin; member of the Psychology Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences; scholarship holder of American and European universities; author, editor and co-editor of 22 books and over 140 articles published in international and national media; head, supervisor and main executive of numerous research grants; interested in the issues of understanding audiovisual and visual expressions, in particular paintings, as well as perception and visual and kinesthetic imagination from the cognitive and neurocognitive perspective.  

Grzegorz Mazurek: “Business models in media in the times of digital transformation”

Disruptive innovations such as social media, augmented and virtual reality, mobile technologies, and cloud computing are rapidly changing the socio-economic landscape. Huge changes are taking place in various industries, but also in people’s behavior, including how they create, consume, evaluate, and monetize cultural content. Customers are co-creators of value rather than passive recipients of what the market supply side has to offer. New media are changing the way content is created and consumed. Many new players – often very powerful, given their market strength – are not only joining the media world, but also changing the way that world works and the business models used in it. Who decides whether something is artistically valuable? Is there a set of variables that determine the success of an artistic performance? Is there still public trust in intermediaries who assess the value of a cultural product? Finally, is art and cultural content creation different in the age of digital transformation, and if so, who can benefit from it? And who should only see the threats of the modern digital age?

Grzegorz Mazurek
Professor Grzegorz Mazurek is a researcher at the Kozminski University, a lecturer and consultant specializing in digital transformation of marketing and organization. A graduate of, among others: IESE Business School and University of Tilburg.