Last week was unintentionally eventful! I hadn’t planned on attending any of these in advance and, in fact, learned about a couple of them only the day before. No matter! They were each unique and interesting.
TV Academy Emerging Media – Themed Entertainment Mixer
Hosted by the Television Academy
Organized by Gregg Katano, a great mix of folks from the world of media and themed entertainment pros. There some excellent conversations and two panel discussions. It’s clear there is a lot of interest in the crossover between these two worlds and how they can collaborate to bring new experiences to the world.
- Susie Cowan, Peter McGowan, Tim Rheault, Alexis Scalice, Larry Wyatt, and Mark Zachary discussed the process and their experience in translating existing media IP to physical, experience based attractions. Roberta Perry moderated.
- Monty Lunde and Roberta Perry then held a fireside chat hosted by Steven Calcote exploring their history with the TEA and themed entertainment along with the experience of working together on a large scale attraction.
Thanks to Butcher Bird Studios for hosting!
LA Siggraph – State of the Metaverse
Hosted by LA Siggraph, moderated by Ed Lantz
Panel: Athena Demos, Deidre Lyons, and Larry Rosenthal
Metaverse is a loaded word now because one company tried to own it and…well, we know how that went. This conversation circled around the issues of building for a specific platform that may, at any time, be shutdown taking all of your work with it. Open standards have (and continue to) emerged as we build towards a functional 3D Web (we won’t call it the Metaverse for now) that anyone can easily access and participate in.
Check out the Virtual Worlds History Museum for a look at current and past worlds.
TEA – AI and the Creative Toolkit
Hosted by TEA North America Western Division, moderated by Kathleen Cohen
Panel: Michael Libby, Logan Olson, Kyle Shannon, Matt Spremulli, and Dolce Wang
AI (I still don’t like calling it that) is a divisive topic and even more so among a group of folks who create stuff for a living. Each member of the panel had about 10 minutes to talk about how and why they use AI in their creative pipeline. The takeaway? Nobody should be just generating content with a prompt. Use the AI tools for the hardest parts along with the finish and polish of your project. The tech is moving fast but it’s still just a tool and can be highly useful when applied appropriately.
Archiving Immersive Art – A Symposium on Preserving Immersive Media
Hosted by the USC Mobile & Environmental Media Lab
Four excellent panel discussions on the why’s and how’s of archiving extended reality experiences. Across all of the panelists was a wide range of experience with XR and a rich history of tech and creative knowledge.
- Artists + Archivists in Conversation
- Wilde Davis, Dino Everett, Gina Kim, Peter Wu+, and Russell Zych
- Who Owns the Afterlife of Technology
- Is XR Emerging Media?
- Rewriting XR History: A Feminist Perspective
I wish I had taken better (any) notes during these panels. The consensus is that XR is a viable format for creation and highly effective at transporting your audience to a world you want them to experience. While the current trend may be away from immersive headsets (until it’s not) there are countless worlds to build, stories to tell, and we must archive these for future generations to experience.
Take a look at The Immersive Archive for ongoing projects to capture the history and created projects in XR.
#immersive #xr #vr #metaverse #usc #siggraph #tvacademy #tea #themedentertainment