Kaleider’s Mikrofest kicks off tomorrow

Mikrofest is a free mini festival to launch Kaleider’s new home, Kaleider Studios, 45 Preston Street, Exeter.

Residents and friends of Kaleider have been invited to put on some work in their new building and around Exeter to celebrate their new home.
Kaleider Studios will be open to the public from 2pm – 4:30pm on Friday 15th and 12 noon – 6pm on Saturday 16th.

Find the full details and programme on the Kaleider Website.

Lunchtime Talks

The exciting programme features lunchtime talks by six of our immersion research fellows who will take us on a whilstle-stop tour of their recent deep dives into the world of immersive experiences and technology:

Julia Scott-Stevenson

Is the future really an unsalvageable hot mess? Or might immersive media experiences help us imagine a way forwards, towards a better future?Julia will talk about her research into this question, and present the manifesto she developed to help guide creators of VR, AR, MR and other immersive projects towards making ethical, inclusive and hopefully transformative work.

Hannah Wood

As a SWCTN Immersion Fellow, Hannah has been exploring the potential of poetic mechanics in games and the role of intimacy in immersive experiences. She will briefly discuss her research and invite 14 people to play a short R&D demo of an immersive performance exploring intimacy.

Duncan Speakman

“I feel that we lean towards the act of immersion as a kind of cocooning, of mediums that wrap around us. I want to think a little about immersion as something that already exists, something we live with all the time, immersion as the way of describing how we exist inside complex tangled ecologies. Immersion meaning there is no vantage point.”

David Paton

As a sculptor and mason, David’s research with SWCTN has been framed around an ongoing investigation of Cornish granite and Trenoweth Quarry near Penryn in Cornwall. He has been looking at ways to convey the immersive rhythmical properties of labour and skill in relation to the specific cultural and geological lifeworld of the granite. He will play us some of his work with Luke Reed on a series of audio recordings of the quarry, and talk about how he employed some of the unique terminology of the working quarry as a form of vocal ritual. He may lead us in a quarry chant, split a piece of granite and show us footage from his film The Breath of the Geologic.

Mitch Turnbull

Mitch Turnbull has been exploring the role of immersive technology in influencing and changing behaviour in a conservation and humanitarian advocacy/campaign context. She will talk about her background in film, TV and VR production, her research and how the research has informed the development of a mixed reality app, Earth Song, designed for the Magic Leap One headset.

Benjamin Dunks

Ben has been exploring the links between the science of the moving body and the impact of that moving on learning, on ageing and on the self. He is passionate about working in areas of society where new technologies haven’t reached yet and in the role of the Artist to create change. To ask ‘who and what is this for?’ To think of Artist as Product Designer. He will also tell us about a major new collaboration with a Housing Association to take place this summer.

Podcast Listening Corner

Two more of our immersive fellows will also be available to chat to in the Podcast Listening Corner where you can also check out the podcasts that they have been producing.

Louisa Adjoa Parker

Listen to the first Podcast from Louisa Adjoa Parker (and take a look at her blog) Where Are You Really From? in which she asks what it feels like to be the visible Other in rural landscapes. Louisa’s research with SWCTN has explored how creative technologies can be utilised to communicate this experience to the wider community in a way that is authentic, meaningful, and supports the development of empathy in a way that leads to a tangible shift in attitudes. Meet Louisa Friday 15, 3–7pm.

Harry Willmott

Harry has been researching best practices for producing immersive training and non-fiction experiences, mainly in hospital contexts and environments and working with 360 video. He’s also been working on spreading the word about the people and projects within the immersive media industry in the Southwest and beyond via a podcast called Immersive Talk.
Meet Harry Willmott and his 360 Camera Sat 12-6pm.