September 8 — Lots going on!
MIT Press Book Deal
We’ve signed a deal with MIT Press to transform our field study, Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media within Communities, across Disciplines and Algorithms, into a book, and we are gearing up for a Fall 2022 launch. Restructured with updates, all contextualized by recent world events, we will publish under the full credit list of 14 people: authors Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio, with co-authors Juanita Anderson, Maria Aqui Carter, Detroit Narrative Agency, Thomas Allen Harris, Maori Holmes, Richard Lachman, Louis Massiah, Cara Mertes, Sara Rafsky, Michèle Stephenson, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, and Sarah Wolozin.
Peabody expands to immersive, interactive works
Artistic Director of Co-Creation Studio, Katerina Cizek, has joined the new Interactive Board of Jurors for the Peabody Awards. The board will help Peabody honour and recognize interactive, immersive and digital work in journalism, documentary, fiction, games and beyond under the rubric *stories that matter*. The list of the first round of legacy awardees drops this fall, and watch for a behind the scenes talk at ODL/CoCr public lecture series by Peabody ED Jeff Jones and Interactive Board Chair Diana Williams.
Immerse turns 5, parties in Venice
Our publication, Immerse, is celebrating its 5th year this fall, and to raise the roof, we’re launching a themed series exploring the Metaverse. To kick off, we are hosting a virtual gathering at the Venice Film Festival — and you are invited. It will all converge in VRChat as a “world-hop”: a tour of some of the 30 worlds programmed at the festival, led by curator Liz Rosenthal. Thurs Sept 9 at 21h00 CEST, available to accredited Venice VR guests. If you can’t make it, check out Immerse Editor Abby Sun’s video-recorded interview in VRChat (and lengthier written piece) with Liz coming up soon.
Dream Analysis: breaking down co-creation in Royal Shakespeare Company’s digital live performance, Dream
CoCr Studio Artistic Director Katerina Cizek moderates one of 20 panels that reveal the inner-workings of Dream, an online theatre production set in a virtual midsummer forest.
It was an audience-hit and a demonstration project of the Audience of the Future Consortium in the UK. The panel is called Language in Collaboration and interdisciplinary work, and features panelists Ruthie Doyle, Alex Rowse, Erika Hughes, Oriana Neidecker, Georgie Fellows and Sophie Smith. Drops Sept 14.
Co-Creation for Conservation: 3 Environmental projects at the Unity Summit
CoCr Studio Artistic Director Katerina Cizek moderates a panel at the Unity Summit on Conservation, Social Impact and Interactive Stories, featuring 3 projects launching this fall: Samudra, an underwater 2D puzzle game, Myriad, a VR on global migrations premiering at Venice this week, and Critical Distance, an AR experience about Orca whales, launching at the Smithsonian this fall. Panel drops Oct 21 at the Summit.
Moving into Production
Ford Co-Creative Journalism Fellow, Assia Boundaoui moves into production with her Inverse Surveillance Project in two iterations: on the ground, in real life as an installation in Chicago, and virtually online as an AI art project. For the installation, she and her producer Nouha Boundaoui are working with ODL fellow Yucef Merhi, and for the AI online project, they are working with ODL fellow Shirin Anlen. Watch for details and launch dates for Spring 2022 here soon.
Deepfakery goes deeper
As a continuation of our Deepfakery collab with the Human Rights organization WITNESS, we’re launching a report on satire and deepfakery this fall. Based on a field scan of current case studies, we examine the intersections — and boundaries — of the long standing conventions of satire with the newest developments in manipulated media, all in the context of dis/mis information. Who is accountable and responsible in these fast moving waters? In collab with Sam Gregory, Henry Ajder and ODL fellow Joshua Glick. Watch for our panel at Double Exposure Film Festival this fall.
Accessibility/Disability Justice Working Group
At the studio, we’ve begun a working group on accessibility and disability justice, gathering the fellows, organizations and projects which are centred around disability justice,challenging ableism and opening up aesthetics in immersive accessibility. ODL Fellow Joanna Wright has been co-facilitating the working group. Joanna is currently working on a project called Yn y Golau, (pictured above) a co-created dance / documentary about the science of light, with access for blind and low vision audiences at the centre of a collaborative & iterative creation process. More to come as be curate talks, workshops and opportunities to incubate projects.
Big Ups
We extend a big congratulations to Andrea Shinyoung Kim (pictured above), Co-Creation Studio Research Assistant (2019-21) for her Fulbright Award to continue her research into Avatars in South Korea. Andrea is investigating how virtual reality can facilitate cross-cultural learning and live performance art by witnessing Korean mask dance and shamanic performances.
And we also congratulate Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Mozilla Fellow at Co-Creation Studio (2019-20), for her new position in the Digital World Institute at University of Florida, as Banks Preeminence Chair and Associate Professor of AI and the Arts: Digital Arts and Sciences. Can’t wait to collab and visit with you in Gainesville!
