Date: Wednesday 22 February 2023
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Venue: Online via Teams
Programme:
Speakers: Prof. Marta Materska-Samek, Prof. Dimitris Charitos, and Prof. Krzysztof Pijarski
Hosted by: in collaboration with Jagiellonian University, Krakow Hellenic Republic, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School, Łódź
13:00 - Q & A session/informal discussion
Link for the Seminar can be accessed via : Meeting ID: 371 841 003 137 | Passcode: XAFVrH
Erasmus XR - Experience and immersive technologies – from creative practice to educational theory
Abstract
The COVID-19 epidemic, which limited our social activity by locking us in our homes, has led to unprecedented activity in the digital sphere, not only forcing entire areas of culture and education to embrace the virtual, but also to look for new ways to engage and strengthen participation in this realm.
With the traditional channels of consumption and participation in events closed, education, tourism, the conference industry as well as artistic practice had to find new ways to reach their audiences. These actors focused not only on the flat screens of media consumption, but increasingly tried to build a new space for the audience to be immersed in and transported by.
An alternative world, in which we can access cultural goods beyond the limits of social distancing, developed at a rapid pace by offering virtual cinemas, virtual museums, or film festivals. The development of new technologies has accelerated to the extent that it is difficult to keep up not only with what is new, but above all with the possibilities of their use. There is a shortage of specialists who would help cultural institutions to operate, educate and meet the needs of their audiences in the new, virtual dimension, but, more importantly, there are no (human) resources for training staff.
This project responds to the need to enrich the existing educational and research programs for both cultural and media managers, but also for artists aspiring to connect with their audiences in the digital space. The project’s overall goal is to develop an artistic research based educational offer for these groups in the field of immersive media (XR), and ways of using these media to engage audiences.
More specifically, the project aims at increasing the skills and competences of the participants in designing and evaluating immersive experiences in order to effectively manage, disseminate, and produce culture in the digital sphere. Further, it is about increasing the knowledge and competences of the academic staff working with immersive technologies, in order to effectively manage, disseminate, and produce digital culture in a market environment.
Speaker’s Profile
Prof. Marta Materska-Samek
Academic, researcher, experienced ICT and creative sector project leader. An expert in the film industry and project management. Author of studies, reports and publications on, among others, cinema, children’s film market in Poland and tools for financing culture.
She publishes in Management in culture, media management as well as abroad. Currently the project manager of Media Business Hub – an integrated competence development program and a researcher dealing with the perception of children’s film in the Research Laboratory of Perception and Behavior of Viewers at the Film School in Łódź. Lecturer in entrepreneurship, cultural economics, media organization strategy and project management. A winner of the Doctus Małopolska program, a scholarship holder of the Scholarship and Training Fund, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the field of cultural management and the Government of the French Republic (Bourse de Gouvernement Français).
Mentor, business consultant and entrepreneur. She is listed as an expert of the European Commission, the National Centre for Research and Development, the National Agency for Academic Exchange and the Malopolska Centre for Entrepreneurship.
Prof. Dimitris Charitos
Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at NKUA. Virtual Reality technology has been his main area of research since 1993.
In particular, he investigated virtual environments as electronic mediated spatial representations during his post-graduate studies for an MSc in CAAD (University of Strathclyde 1992-1993) and in 1994, he began his doctoral research in the same Department, on the design of space in virtual environments which was successfully completed in 1998.
Dr Charitos directs the Spatial Media Research Group, within the New Technologies Laboratory (NTLab) of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, School of Economics and Political Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Prof. Krzysztof Pijarski
Head of the Visual Narratives Laboratory (vnLab) at the Film School in Lodz. Also responsible, together with Katarzyna Boratyn, for the Interactive Narratives Studio. Artist working mainly with photography, lecturer, art historian. Recipient of a Fulbright Junior Research Grant at Hohns Hopkins University (2009-2010), and grants, among others, from the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, and the Shpilman Institute of Photography.
Headed and participated in grants from the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education, the National Science Centre, and the National Programme for the Development of Humanities. Author of Archeologia modernizmu. Michael Fried i nowoczesne doświadczenie sztuki [An Archeology of Modernism. Michael Fried, Photography, and the Modern Experience of Art] (2017), as well as of: Allan Sekula / Thomas Struth [The (Post)Modern Fate of Images] (2013). Edited the volumes Object Lessons: Zofia Rydet’s „Sociological Record” (2017) and The Archive as Project (2011).
A collection of his translations of essays by Allan Sekula was published by the Warsaw University Press in 2010. Participant of PLAT(T)FORM 2012 at the Fotomuseum Winterthur. His project, Lives of the Unholy (2009-2012), was presented at C/O Berlin. Editor at View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture.
