Issue #198 - The Spaces in Between
Touch Sensitive
Just a few days after the election I touched down in the UK to spend some time here, I’ll be attending two film festivals, and hope to find a moment to visit my parents, and to see how things are going.
It is a strange and surreal week, I can’t tell you how hurt and upset many of my friends are. The shit-show has been recommissioned for a second series. It’s a retrograde step. I felt so hopeful sitting in the cabin, listening to the birds and letting leaves fall on my lap while enjoying the heat of the fire, the crackling of fuel, sipping coffee.
I have to keep these good things in my heart, we all need to have happy places that our minds can go back to when we need them.
Spaces to Connect
I’m in York, attending the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, that features one of the best XR tracks of any festival outside of Venice, meeting creators and students, to talk about the ways storytellers are working to create immersive experiences, and what the future looks like for the medium. In the second of two all women panels that I attended on XR (Extended Realities) which is a catch all for forms of immersive media such as Virtual Reality, Mixed-Reality, and Virtual Reality. Both discussions were lively and informative, and the panelists provided wonderful insight into their process, and salient comments about the state of XR and the road ahead.
I jotted down a few notes, mostly about the ways creators can prepare the audience, and how crucial the onboarding process can be. Thinking about providing visual clues, either through images of the experience, or posters, and even parts of a set, so that the audience member has a way of accessing the material in the headset that isn’t too jarring or surprising. All the panelists talked about the responsibility the creator has to the audience, and even ways to off-board (do we say that?) by providing a comments book, or in some cases the opportunity to talk to someone about the issues raised in the experience.
One of the most important questions that I noted down was how audiences find their own way, that in all media there is something organic about how viewers find the material, share it, and talk about it. This is something that XR is still learning about. How do we nurture an organic watching culture for XR? There is little said about XR in mainstream media, although podcasts like Voices in VR, prolific and brilliantly produced, are an important record of the achievement, innovation, and expression in this medium.
On Thursday morning I attended the VR Lab, run by colleagues at York St. John’s XR Stories. There are twenty pieces in competition, and I managed to watch four, and hope to return later in the week. These included the excellent Streets for Change VR a piece about homelessness by Dreaming Methods from the perspectives of rough sleepers in doorways. It is a challenging piece, it is tense and your vulnerability is embodied in your low down position, looking up at passerbys, many of which are unfriendly and threatening. It’s pieces like this that speak to a particular affordance of the technology to situate the viewer within the frame, and make their feelings and emotional state a part of the story in effective and impactful way.
Life Lessons
Well, less than a week since the results of the election and I just don’t know what to say, I’m heartbroken and devastated, and anxious about the futures of my friends, and frankly the rest of the world. Those living in war torn regions will feel no safer, and the darkness of authoritarianism will continue to spread throughout.
It’s important as last time that communities rally and come together, to protect those who are most vulnerable. I’m anxious about literacy, that more people live with the false-reality perpetuated by right-wing media than ever before, and that the election result is proof that people believe lies, unwilling, or unable to question what is being presented as fact.
I’ve also put some stead in the suggestion that the left continues to see people as victims who themselves don’t identify this way, including males in many minorities who actively reject the suggestion, and will vote against their own interests; but ultimately it was white people, voting against the first woman president of color, who chose a convicted criminal, a racist misogynist to lead their government for the next four years.
Lost and Found
I don’t have too much for you in terms of links and recommendations, but here are two films that showed this week, that I think are absolutely wonderful for different reasons, and they both are online for you to stream in full.
Thank you
I’m enjoying this week, it feels a bit strange to be away again, but it’s important to fuel up on inspiration, meeting people and chatting with them, gives you a sense check about the work that you’re doing.
I have enjoyed being in York too, I as born about an hour away in Bridlington, and I think this is the first time that I’ve been here. I met my Aunt Sally for lunch, as she lives nearby in Ilkley, we enjoyed Moroccan food and walked through the streets, seeing soldiers rehearsing today’s memorial day.
Today there are two more sessions I want to attend, but I’m also hoping to take a look inside the cathedral, and have a quick wander around town, before heading south. I will try and pop into Bettys for a cup of tea.
I hope that you’re all okay. I’m thinking about you, how you are feeling. I hope that you have people near who can give you comfort, or that you’re doing something that makes you feel good, or just taking time, a moment for yourself.