Change for the Machine: An XR Symposium | 24.05.19 (10:30-18:00)

PAST EVENT

About the Event
Organizers: Helen Kennedy, Donna Close & Daniel Hardley (Ph.D. Student)

Change for the Machines is a symposium that will draw together key critical thinkers and makers in order to materialize an emergent ‘Critical XR Studies’ network. The event will showcase critical research and practice to examine the design, production, and use of virtual, augmented, and mixed realities. This symposium will also provide the launchpad for funding in order to support further networking events and workshops as the organizers seek commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion in order to ethically shape the future of these new technologies.

If 2016 was the year that multinational corporations promoted the viability of a consumer VR market, then 2019 is a serious tipping point in the elaboration and circulation of critical practices and discussions that seek to challenge the technoevangelistic discourses within which these new technologies are so ubiquitously framed. Just this year there has been the Virtual Realities + Alterities symposium at the Royal College of Art, The MA Virtual Reality Manifesto for Immersive Storytelling from UWE Bristol, and Lisa Nakamura’s critique of empathy discourse at the University of Michigan and the Designing Interactive Systems conference.

Whilst this event will showcase current projects and practices it will also move discussions forward around a set of key critical questions: What is needed to ensure the maintenance of a ‘Critical XR network’?  What are the practical, everyday challenges in developing such a network, and what resources can we provide to support this work and these communities of practice? What commitments to equity, diversity, inclusion can we offer? What changes and impact do we want to make?

Exhibitors:
*Verity Mackintosh, Programme Lead MA VR, Pervasive Media Studios Bristol
*Simon Wilkinson, Director Circa 69
*Sarah Ticho, Director Hatsumi VR
*James Turnbull, Curator and Producer, TomTech
*Florence Jamet-Pinkiewicz, Ecole Estienne Paris
*Dr. Kelly Snook, MiMu gloves / Kepler Concordia inventor
*Emma Hughes and Hollie Page from LIMINA Immersive Virtual Theatre Bristol
*Ed Silverton from Mmenoscene
*Dan Barnard, fanSHEN

There will also be the opportunity for delegates to see demos and performances from Hatsumi, Circa 69, Dr. Kelly Snook and to take part in a Limina Virtual theatre pop-up!
Creative Futures KEM Stuart Hedley and Laura Shockley from the Research Office will be on hand to advise about funding opportunities for our new network.

If you have any questions please contact the conveners:
Daniel Harley on d.harley@brighton.ac.uk, Donna Close on d.close2@brighton.ac.uk or Helen Kennedy on h.kennedy@brighton.ac.uk

>>SING UP<<