Mixed Reality in Culture

In this episode I talk to Dr Kai Lukoff about designing AR experiences with and for indigenous communities. We talk about co-creations models, ethics in co-design including the Design Justice principles, research with respect to the community's self-determination rights, and how to handle data management in funding applications for projects where the community takes the lead in research.

Dr. Kai Lukoff is an Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, where he directs the Human-Computer Interaction Lab.  His work explores how digital interfaces can lead to meaningful or meaningless experiences and support or undermine user sense of agency. He has redesigned features of YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter and tested their effects on digital wellbeing in field experiments.

I talk with Prof Marientina Gotsis about the challenges that VR/MR environments pose to how we understand movement and use our locomotor and vestibular abilities in virtual spaces. Marientina discusses some of her projects on sensory motor rehabilitation and the knowledge gained from them in terms of interaction design in VR.

Marientina Gotsis is an artist, designer and technologist. She is Professor of Practice at the Interactive Media & Games Division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She has a broad background in arts, design, and engineering with a special interest in interactive entertainment applications for health, happiness, and rehabilitation. Her work focuses on applications of entertainment at the intersection of behavioural science, medicine and public health, working in diverse topics areas such as obesity, exercise, rehabilitation, HIV, autism, traumatic brain injury, PTSD, vision and early child development. https://www.marientinagotsis.com/

How can we design relaxing and nurturing, safe spaces in VR that can be social as well? I talk with Maf’j Alvarez about her recent project to design a VR co-maker space, its design challenges, and the vision for future developments.

Holonspace: http://www.limbicfish.net/holonspace-with-etienne-le-comte/

Maf'j Alvarez is a digital media artist and creative technologist based in Brighton, UK. Her work focuses on ecology, cultural and gender diversity in relation to open access to technology. She also works as a user experience designer on large-scale digital transformation projects for government services. She has helped other women learn VR through hack days, mentoring, talks, and collaborations.

Season 4 is here and starts with an in depth conversation on the gender data gap in medicine and how VR can address it.

Mariza in conversation with Camille Baker, an artist-performer/researcher/curator within various art forms and maker of participatory performance and immersive artwork. Camille develops methods to explore expressive non-verbal modes of communication, extended embodiment and presence in real and mixed reality and interactive art contexts, using XR, haptics/ e-textiles, wearable devices and mobile media.  Camille is a Senior Tutor for the Digital Direction Masters Programme at the Royal College of Art and Professor of Interactive and Immersive Arts. 

Camille's works that are discussed: INTER/HER: https://inter-her.art/

Mammary Mountain: https://mammary-vr.art/

In this episode Dr Maria Saridaki and I continue our discussion on our latest work where we approach MR experience design through the lenses of ceremonial Magick practices. 

In this episode I talk with Dr Maria Saridaki about our latest work to approach MR experience design through the lenses of ceremonial magick practices. We discuss in depth our exploration in what we can borrow from occult practitioners that will offer new perspectives for MR design and reflect on a framework we recently created that can be read here: https://t.co/rPyyEg60QF  (another full scale academic article will be published in a couple of months): 

Apart from an excellent colleague and friend, Maria is an academic and cultural manager. She has a PhD in inclusive playful interactions and digital games from University of Athens, a post-doc on myths and Digital Storytelling for women in vulnerable social groups and an Msc in Information Management where she researched friendly interactions in MMORPGs. she currently works on XR and magickal rituals and is currently based in Berlin. You can find her over at https://www.morethangames.gr/ and on Twitter as @StrangeLilleris.

Where do you start with Mixed Reality if you have little or no development experience? How do you engage with the medium critically when you approach it from an artistic perspective? Lucas De Wold (aka Nearly Norman), artist, educator and facilitator exploring and creating immersive realities talks to me about his journey in Mixed Reality. Follow us along for a discussion about support networks, creating and sharing tools, communities and social MR, and a critical engagement with the medium as a catalyst for human connection.

Lucas Dewulf (Nearly Norman) is the founder of XRT. He is developing his artistic practice creating experiences where human connection is central. Key to his work is using the affordances of digital technologies to explore the physical world and to question our analog nature within virtual space.

Currently he lives in Ghent, Belgium (which I pronounce completely wrong!).

Today I chat with Ágnes Karolina Bakk (1986), PhD-researcher at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design’s Innovation Center, about magic in VR, immersion, on-boarding and art exhibitions in VR spaces. 

In her research Ágnes is focusing on the science of magic, the concept of immersion, analogue and digital storytelling as well as interaction (even between humans and non-humans). She is the founder of the immersive storytelling conference entitled Zip-Scene (zip-scene.com), that took place for the third time in 2021. She is the cofounder of Random Error Studio, a lab that supports various VR productions and is currently the curator of Vektor VR section. She is teaching escape room design, immersive&VR- storytelling and speculative design at MOME and pitched VR projects at GIFF XR Cruise, 5th Wall Forum etc. She presented her research on immersive theatre and VR at various conferences and platforms from Moscow (CILECT, 2019) to Montreal (SQUET, 2019) as well as at festivals such as DokLeipzig (2020). Her research is published international scientific journals and edited volumes.