International Virtual Reality Festival
“…this is only the beginning, I believe the discussions generated on that day along with the extraordinary experience will provoke and inspire more activities and ventures that are to take place in the near future, making Brisbane a hub for creatives and a meeting point for talents.” Kiki Fung, Head of Programming at Hong Kong Film Festival
‘Hybrid Story World. Imagining Our Future’ was Australia’s first International VR Festival Program. It brought together emerging talent and established creatives from across the Asia Pacific region to present and learn all about new techniques, tools, and practices associated with the latest in technological production and adaption.
With the support of BAPFF (Now BIFF), I designed a program to show audiences how gaming and cinematic concepts and technologies are being merged to create hybrid experiences of fact and fiction, physical and digital, historic and fantastic. In order to present new, emerging and transforming practices the Hybrid Story Wolds program was designed in three may parts: Hybrid Masters, Hybrid Arcade and Hybrid Labs.
Hybrid Masters was a group of experts recognized for their innovative adoption of new tools, content production and interactions with audiences. These individuals and groups discussed their own experience and how the application of new technologies may have a lasting and/or profound effect on how we imagine the future, interact with each other and impact the way we play, work and care for ourselves, each other and the environment.
Hybrid Arcade was a large space dedicated to giving the public access to a broad range of new technologies and works from across the Asia Pacific Region. Some of the works were short films, documentaries, games and demonstrations. The diversity of work from established, new and indigenous creatives was a great success in displaying the range of work and ways for people to create and engage with content.
Hybrid Labs was an opportunity for young people to attend sessions to explore, discuss and design their own immersive, mobile, and augmented reality documentary using tools and processes developed by local artists and technicians working with emerging technologies.
As this program facilitated a great deal of activity and community collaboration that has since grown into a hub of activity, it has consequently contributed to making Brisbane a leading site for innovation in the burgeoning field of Virtual Reality production.
