Critical Curatorial Practices in the Immersive Arts

This online session will include contributions from influential curators and creative producers from distinct areas of creative practice – games, art, virtual reality and immersive media. They will be invited to share their approaches and to reflect on how their values and ethos shape and inform their curatorial vision and ambition.

The discussion and Q&A will be facilitated by Professor Helen W. Kennedy, Director of the Virtual and Immersive Production Studio, University of Nottingham.

• Professor Helen W. Kennedy is Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Nottingham. She researches feminist interventions into games culture and the creative industries, immersive experience design, and cultural evaluation. Professor Helen W. Kennedy was Principal Investigator on an international project aimed at the transformation of games (REFIG.ca) from 2015-2021. Since 2014, she has been researching experiential cinema as an aspect of the ludification of contemporary culture with Professor Sarah Atkinson at King's College London. Professor Helen W. Kennedy has led and is currently leading a number of funded projects in the area of immersive experiences – XR Circus, Surround Stories and Live, Experiential and Digital Diversification.
  
  
• Professor Sarah Atkinson is Professor of Screen Media at King's College London and the curator of GLOW: Illuminating Innovation. Sarah joined King’s College London in 2015 as Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures working across the Department of Digital Humanities and the Department Culture, Media & Creative Industries (CMCI). She was appointed Head of CMCI from 2017-2020. Sarah has undertaken extensive work into the Live Cinema economy and has worked on a number of funded immersive media projects including a Virtual Reality diversity initiative, a project which explores artificial intelligence and conversational interactivity in games and ‘XR Circus’ which brought together circus artists with immersive technologists.
  
  
• Ingrid Kopp has worked in documentaries and interactive media since 2000. In addition to her work with Electric South, Ingrid co-founded Immerse, a publication on nonfiction emerging storytelling. Before moving back to South Africa Ingrid was head of the Interactive Department at the Tribeca Film Institute in NYC where she worked at the intersection of storytelling, technology, design, and social change. She also programmed immersive work for the Tribeca Film Festival. Ingrid is on the Global Future Council on Augmented and Virtual Reality at the World Economic Forum.
  
  
• Celia Pearce is an award-winning game designer, author, researcher, teacher, curator, and artist, specialising in multiplayer gaming and virtual worlds, independent art, and alternative game genres. Her recent work focuses on live action roleplaying and “playable theatre.” She is also the co-founder of IndieCade, and is considered a leader in games and diversity.
  
  
• Liz Rosenthal is CEO of Power the Pixel and Programmer of immersive content for Venice International Film Festival’s Venice VR, the official competition section and Venice Production Bridge Finance Market. Liz is Executive Producer for CreativeXR a unique immersive content accelerator programme funded by Arts Council England, Ryot Studios and run by Digital Catapult in London. Throughout her career, Liz has helped international media businesses and creatives to innovate and adapt to changing audiences. As an advisor for leading international festivals, international media organisations, national and regional funds, Liz shares her expertise in innovation strategy to help creators and businesses to ideate, finance and distribute immersive and interactive projects.

This event will take place online. A Zoom link will be circulated 48 hours before the event.

Enquiries to Helen Kennedy: Helen.Kennedy@nottingham.ac.uk