Test/Break - a special event focused on prototyping new virtual works

Columbia DSL is excited to announce our first Test/Break session of 2021! Each month we'll focus on a number of projects that are in various states of development. Test/Break will provide a forum for creatives exploring new forms and functions of storytelling. Focus is placed on projects that are pushing at the edges of narrative possibilities with emerging technology (AI, AR, VR, IoT...) as well as web pervasive technologies. This is an excellent opportunity for those who are working to adapt or create virtual work and have interest in experimenting with various types of collaboration and participatory methods of interaction. Each prototyping session is followed by an open conversation between storytellers and participants that pulls back the curtain on creative practice.

Test/Break returns Thursday, January 28th at 2:30pm EST time!

We're excited to be featuring new work from Aliki Tsakoumi and Anastasiia Raina.

Aliki is a film and XR director/producer based in Stockholm who has a background as a stand-up comedian. She'll be prototyping a project entitled Mamma which is an animated VR experience where you visit your mother in a mental institution and you are asked to make a crucial decision for her. It is inspired by Beckomberga which at one time was Scandinavia's largest mental institution..

Anastasiia is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and designer based in Providence, RI where she is currently an Assistant Professor-in-Residence in Graphic Design at RISD. Anastasiia along with a number of her colleagues from RISD will be prototyping an element from their speculative design project entitled Microbial Cosmologies.

Microbial Cosmologies is an immersive project where five designers, inspired by scientific research, imagine a Future of Mobility that is entirely built around the most successful type of organism on the planet—the microbe. This project addresses the relationship between humans and microbes and our need to adapt and respond with agility to the new world around us and heal the deleterious effects of injustices revealed by the pandemic. Employing speculative design, industrial design, mechanical engineering, AR, VR and Machine Learning we set out to create a world in which humans redefine our relationship with nature to make space for inclusive human/nonhuman assemblages and develop methods for designing for, with and around the microbial world within and around us.

STORYTELLERS WANTED!
Are you a storyteller working with emerging media? Do you have something that you'd like to test/break with a live audience?

Test/Break has a rolling application process. We're currently curating works for October, November and December. Do you have something you'd like to test and break? We'd love to hear from you.

Please apply here https://forms.gle/5KZm2hDRf4DeNBYN9