Zip-Scene Conference on Immersive Storytelling vol. 4.

10-12 November, Innovation Center of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design

From the Holodeck to the Metaverse: Interactive Speculative Narratives. Online, mixed reality, performing arts projects representing complex issues, addressing personal health and speculating about the future.

The Metaverse can be considered as a possible realization of the Holodeck concept, a fully realized immersive environment depicted in the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series and described in Janet H. Murray’s seminal book Hamlet on the Holodeck. Although the Metaverse itself is not (yet) fully realized, the concept inspires us to develop and try out new formats for connecting the analogue and the virtual spheres. Performances made in social VR platforms experiment with the sense of shared liveness and common activities that have an effect in both the physical and the virtual spheres of our experiences. Productions for VR headsets are experimenting with various storyworld architectures while each consecutive announcement of a forthcoming AR headset creates additional expectations. The ever tighter connection between the physical and digital spheres does have the potential to create experiences that are more similar to the ones depicted for the Holodeck, with increased visual fidelity, more modes of interaction and a higher level of agency.

In this year's Zip-Scene we also host presentations that discuss research results related to physical and mental healthcare and completed projects that use Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) for representing complex topics or as actual tools used in healthcare. Existing research looks into mental health therapy applications, e.g. interactive story authoring to facilitate the process of reflection (see Brown and Chu 2021) or the use of a transmedia narrative framework can be used for pediatric counseling (Kadastik and Bruni 2021). In recent years, the use of interactive digital storytelling in interdisciplinary research and education methods became more prevalent (see Skains 2021) and we invite presentation of such projects to the Zip-Scene community to demonstrate how applied IDN research can serve as a tool for treatment, healing or relaxation.

Three keynote speakers will talk about the Metaverse in relation to work, education and health.

Workshops:

1.

Boris Vitazek (SK): Live Coding with VR (workshop)
Date + time: 11.12. | 13.30-16.30
Location: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest

2.
Branko Sujić (SR): The Art of Volumetric Photography (workshop)
Date + time: 11.12. | 10.00-13.00
Location: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest
 

3.
Christian Roth (NL/DE), Zuraida Buter (DE), Maria Saridaki (UK/GR): Celebrating Life (workshop)
Date + time: 11.12. |  10.00-12.00
Location: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest

4.
Samee Haapa (FI): Immersive Theatre (workshop)
Date + time: 11.12. | 10.00-16.00
Location: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest

Organizers:

Zip-Scene; Innovation Center of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design,Association for Research in Interactive Narratives (ARDIN), Code and Soda.