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Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian Ph.D (she/ they) is an award-winning director and designer of experiences, a filmmaker and creative director, who creates multidimensional experiential projects at the intersection of film ,science, tech, theater, politics, the arts and design. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian has founded and managed projects, commissions and platforms from all scales from grassroots community organizations (The University of the Underground) to multi millions pounds publicly funded festival (called Tour de Moon) and platforms both physical and virtual. Recognised by her peers as a ‘force of nature’ and a ‘manufacturer of the impossible’, she is known for disrupting systems and sparking radical imagination whilst supporting youth countercultures, experimental practices and pluralistic futures.

Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian

Opening KIKK festival 2023, Nelly will take you on a provocative journey through her decolonial practice, building platforms for sociological and critical impact with events. In this energetic talk, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian Ph.D will create a space for thoughts, debate and provocation around the urgent need for organized communities, nightlife and plurality in society.  Nelly will share some learnings on founding and leading LGBTQ+ youth festival Tour de Moon. This was a free, public, pluralistic, nationwide festival celebrating nightlife and youth countercultures from across the UK and beyond, a part of Unboxed, Creativity in the UK. This was the UK’s most ambitious publicly funded showcase of creative collaboration including free large-scale events, installations and globally accessible digital experiences with a focus on &#8216;non human-centric&#8217; interactions : music was sent to the moon, while moths were invited to collaborate on this totally hybrid festival of creativity with a mission to decolonise, to celebrate nature, to empower countercultures and to redistribute wealth.
You will see the behind the scenes of complex large-scale productions, she will also exclusively share the latest development of her feature film called &#8216;Doppelgangers x3&#8217;, a diasporic investigation of human settlement on the moon in collaboration with Nelly&#8217;s doppelgangers.
Who knows : in the end you might find yourself experiencing an emotional gaze made of crystals and manufactured sun ? And this is only the beginning of KIKK !
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Radical Imagination at Work

Theatre

Edan Kwan (b. 1986, Hong Kong) is a visionary digital artist and highly sought-after creative director in the dynamic design and advertising industries. With a unique ability to blend art and technology, he is recognized as a leading-edge artist and a creative force to be reckoned with.
Having lived and worked in dynamic creative hubs like Hong Kong, New York and Tokyo, Edan now calls the United Kingdom home, where he owns and operates Lusion, a multi-award-winning digital production studio that is renowned for creating cutting-edge and immersive digital experiences for leading brands.

Edan Kwan

Through the looking glass of this talk, you&#8217;ll discover how to paint with physics, and sculpt with mathematics, using creativity as your palette and WebGL as your canvas. You&#8217;ll traverse the neon highways of data visualization, scale the shimmering mountain peaks of 3D modelling, and dive deep into the iridescent oceans of immersive experiences.

Immersive Experience in Pyjamas: A Fantastical Bedtime Story from the Realm of creativity

Kirsty is a multidisciplinary producer and strategic leader with a proven track record in securing international commissions and partnerships, leading organisational change and producing award-winning works of high quality and artistic ambition. She is Executive Producer for Anagram, an award-winning creative studio specialising in interactive storytelling and immersive experience design.
Previously, Kirsty worked as Business Director for the internationally renowned artist group Blast Theory for eight years. In this post, she produced artworks across multiple immersive forms including Karen (2015), a digital artwork exploring data profiling ; politically-charged immersive theatre pieces such as Operation Black Antler (2016) ; large scale international collaborations such as 2097 : We Made Ourselves Over (2017) and live interactive feature films including Bloodyminded (2018).
Kirsty also worked with Documentary Campus, 104 Films and Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Kirsty Jennings from Anagram

Blending tangible experience and impossible stories to unearth tiny truths. How can we use immersive worlds to reimagine the world and our place in it ?
In this talk Kirsty will discuss the power of physical experiences in virtual spaces to shape perception. She will focus the talk on Anagram’s VR experience Goliath : Playing with Reality (2021), which brings together the sensory power of immersive theatre with recently available technology to playfully invite audiences into alternative worlds and a unique understanding of our own minds.

Everything you feel is real

Anagram

Maywa Denki, the art studio run by Novmichi Tosa, is named after the electrical company his father ran, hence the uniform typical of Japanese electrical shops that the unit&#8217;s &#8217;employees&#8217; wear.  Each Maywa Denki piece is a &#8220;product&#8221;, and exhibitions or shows are organised as &#8220;product demonstrations&#8221;. Visit any variety shop or musical instrument shop in Japan, and you&#8217;re likely to discover a display dedicated to the toy synthesiser known as the Otamatone, a curious device with a small but devoted fan base. Available in a range of sizes, this electronic instrument with the appearance of a drawn eighth note was launched in 2010 and remains one of Maywa Denki&#8217;s most famous creations. Based in Tokyo, the company marries art and commerce, democratising creativity while giving its credentials to zany fun.The heart of Maywa Denki is its co-founder, inventor, musician, artist and entrepreneur Novmichi Tosa. He fits in culturally somewhere between Devo and the Blue Man Group, Harry Partch and Alexander Calder, Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Maita (the inventors of the Tamagotchi).Live, the group offers up some jubilant popkitsch concert-performances featuring electromechanical musical instruments as absurd as they are ingenious. Their show should delight fans of electronic culture and street theatre alike.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Maywa Denki

Closing talk & robotic music performance

Jack Isles is an architect, researcher and cartographer working between Italy and Spain.
Jack’s work focuses on the intersection of climatology, migration and human rights, developing spatial methodologies and analytical practices for investigating conflict across numerous scales. As a cartographer he is a member of the Swiss based agency for investigation Border Forensics, documenting state sponsored violence at Europe’s borders. Whilst as a researcher at the University of Bologna, he is a member of the ERC funded Hostile Envrioment’s project, investigating the political ecology of migration and border violence.
Jack’s work has been exhibited and published by organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Chicago Architecture Triennale, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Elisava Escuela Universitaria de Diseño e Ingeniería de Barcelona.

Jack Isles

Hostile Waters explores the frayed edges and intrinsic violence of Europe’s internal and external borders. Focussing on work surrounding migration across the Central Mediterranean, Jack will extrapolate upon investigative, spatial and artistic practices for documenting and denouncing violence at sea.
The talk will highlight various forensic methodologies developed by Border Forensics and LIMINAL for resisting the criminalisation of migration and widespread border surveillance, transforming the skies above the mediterranean sea.

Hostile Waters - Strategies for Resistance 

Hostile Waters ; Strategies for Resistance 

La Bourse - Rops

Gemma O’Brien is an internationally renowned designer and artist known for her bold graphics, illustrative lettering and murals.
Her work has been commissioned by Apple, Nike, Google, and is held in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City.
Outside her commercial design work, she explores language, nature and the human experience through her art practice.

Gemma O'Brien

After a decade working in the field of graphic design, art and illustration, Gemma O’Brien became intrigued with the idea that ultra running actually might hold the secrets of how to endure a long life as an artist.
Join her at KIKK in Namur 2023 as she shares the early stories of her career, the hands-on processes behind her largest wall installations and explains what she thinks it means to be an ultra artist.

How to Be An Ultra Artist

Gemma O’Brien

PORTO ROCHA is a New York-based branding and design agency developing creative and strategic work that engages deeply with the world we live in.
They are situated in the intersection of strategy and design, business and culture, craft and scale. Where craft meets big-picture thinking.
Working closely with people and companies to craft branding systems, products and experiences, they seek to provoke meaningful change through their work, from large-scale projects that reach significant audiences to socially and culturally-motivated initiatives.
Felipe Rocha : Founder &amp; Creative Director 
Felipe Rocha is a Brazilian designer and creative director based in New York. He began his career in 2008 and has since worked across different realms of design including branding, experiential, editorial, digital and advertising. Felipe has created culturally relevant work for global brands such as Netflix, Airbnb and Spotify, where he led the design of new brand initiatives and major artist collaborations. His past experiences also include working as Senior Designer at Sagmeister &amp; Walsh ; co-founding Arnold, a graphic design studio in São Paulo ; and completing a residency at Fabrica, Benetton’s creative laboratory in Italy where he worked on the iconic COLORS Magazine.
Leo Porto : Founder &amp; Creative Director 
Leo Porto is a Brazilian designer and creative director living in New York. Prior to starting PORTO ROCHA, Leo was Design Director at COLLINS. Throughout his career, Leo has worked at a range of renowned studios including Pentagram, Mother, and Chermayeff &amp; Geismar &amp; Haviv. Widely recognized by a number of major design awards and publications such as The One Club, Print Magazine and The Type Director&#8217;s Club, Leo was also named a &#8220;Young Gun&#8221; by The Art Directors Club. With a focus on branding and design systems, Leo&#8217;s work maintains a global presence through his designs for some of the world&#8217;s largest brands including Target, Nike and Twitch.

Porto Rocha

Co-founded by Brazilian designers Leo Porto and Felipe Rocha, PORTO ROCHA is a New York-based design agency working in the intersection of strategy and culture. In this session, Felipe and Leo discuss their creative journey and explore the paradigm shifts affecting contemporary and future designers.

What Futures Could We Design ?

Nadieh Bremer is a data visualization artist that once graduated as an Astronomer, started working as a data scientist before finding her true passion in the visualization of data.
As 2017&#8217;s &#8220;Best Individual&#8221; in the Information is Beautiful Awards, and co-writer of Data Sketches, she focuses on visuals that are uniquely crafted for each specific dataset, often using large and complex datasets while employing vibrant color palettes.
She&#8217;s made visualizations and art for companies such as Google News Lab, Sony Music, UNICEF, the New York Times and UNESCO.

Nadieh Bremer

Connections are a part of us, of the world. From the connections between people, between cultures, within language, and more. In these days when more data is collected daily than we could ever hope to explore, the variety in connections being gathered is opening up the possibility to visualize these (often complex) networks.
During this talk, Nadieh will take you through the design process of several of her (interactive) data visualization works, from personal projects to client work. The common thread they all share, is that they all reveal connections, but all differently. From a family tree of 3000 people connected to the European Royal houses, to those existing between our Intangible Cultural Heritage created for UNESCO, to connections we have drawn in the night skies, something with cats and dogs&#8230;
Revealing that all types of connections are unique and revealing the intricacies that lie within them requires a creative, iterative and custom approach.

Visualizing connections

Étienne Mineur, born in May 1968, is a French designer, publisher and teacher whose work focuses on the relationship between graphic design and interactivity. He is the founder of Editions Volumiques, a publishing house as well as a studio for the invention, design and development of new types of games, toys and books, based on the relationship between the tangible and the digital.

Étienne Mineur

Artificial intelligence, which simulates human intelligence, has made significant advances thanks to Machine Learning and Deep Learning. Today, these &#8220;intelligences&#8221; are outperforming humans in many fields, although they lack morals and ethics. Generative AI, capable of creating original content, is revolutionizing various sectors, including design. During this presentation Étienne will be showing a number of projects using AI in design, and discovering how these AIs can help develop new ideas and forms, and improve the creative process.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Using complementary intelligences in design

Delta

Felipe Sánchez Luna is an artist with focus on music, interactive experiences, and digital arts. From Bogotá, Colombia, he moved to Berlin, Germany, and co-founded the studio for sound experiences kling klang klong. With a background in creative coding and a passion for sound design, Felipe skillfully blends elements from film, music, dance performance, and cutting-edge technologies to craft captivating generative music and intelligent audio engines. While creating sonic experiences through interactive technologies, Felipe is seeking a deeper understanding of the social-political context that surrounds us. His relentless pursuit of creativity and technological advancement has positioned his team as a leading figure in the ever-evolving landscape of music, sound scenography, interactive sound and A.I. music composition.
kling klang klong is a creative studio composing sound and code for sonic experiences. The team consists of composers, sound designers, creative thinkers, scientists and technologists exploring new ways of moving people through the impact of sound. Their work can be found internationally in real and virtual environments, art spaces, museums or events.

Felipe Sanchez Luna - kling klang klong

Sound and music serve as vital components of immersive experiences, acting as channel for emotions and subconscious understanding. This magical medium possesses the remarkable ability to alter minds and even influence behaviour. Felipe invites you to look behind the creative curtain of the Berlin-based studio, kling klang klong. For nearly a decade, this innovative collective has seamlessly merged music, sound, technology, and science, crafting extraordinary auditory experiences that captivate and inspire.
From poetic artistic endeavours to thought-provoking explorations of pressing issues such as climate change, kling klang klong has honed the art of transforming intricate concepts into tangible emotional experiences. Through their diverse works and installations, they skillfully weave together diverse subjects, bridging the gap between intellectual understanding and emotional connection.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Resonance : Exploring the Transformative Power of Sound

Kling Klang Klong

Maya Indira Ganesh
Maya Indira Ganesh is a technology and digital cultures researcher, 
writer and educator. She co-directs a master’s program on AI Ethics &amp; 
Society at the University of Cambridge and is a senior research fellow 
at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. She was awarded a Drphil in Cultural Studies from Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany, for work that analysed the social shaping of ethics and ‘autonomy’ in driverless cars. In 2022 she co-curated AI Anarchies with Nora N Khan for the German Academy of the Arts/Junge Akademie ; and in 2023 Maya is an advisor to Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, for their first exhibition on AI, Ether’s Bloom.
Together with Georgina Voss and  Maria Yablonina, she forms the experimental studio, Writing Club.
Georgina Voss
Georgina Voss is an artist, writer, and educator. Her work explores the presence and politics of large-scale technologies, heavy industry, and complex systems through performance, multi-media installations, writing, and long-term research projects.
Georgina has shown work at institutions including transmediale, TAC Eindhoven, Tate, Auto Italia South East, STUK, Brighton Digital Festival, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Vienna Design Biennale, and London Design Festival. She is author of the forthcoming book, Systems Ultra, published by Verso in January 2024.
Georgina is currently Reader in Systems and Deviance at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She was founded and co-director of research studio, Strange Telemetry, and was awarded her PhD in Science and Technology Studies by SPRU, University of Sussex.

Writing Club - Maya Indira Ganesh & Georgina Voss

Anthropologist Pamila Gupta said : &#8220;If coloniality is established through land, then might the decolonial be suggested by water?&#8221;
Poetic, queer, mystical, dreamy, and magical affects and temporalities work as a feminist-decolonial fog ostensibly to cloak the spiky edges of AI boosterism. But we also risk being lost in the fog.
This performance-talk examines the cultural politics of making our way 
through by attending to the materiality of shared life in AI times.

The hard watery edges of AI

Maya Indira Ganesh & Georgina Voss – Writing Club

Carl Addy is multi-disciplinary Executive Creative Director and Director. He delivers groundbreaking visual work in design, digital media and immersive VR technology. His craft in storytelling is always layered with playful affection and conceptual eye-bending entertainment. He works in both live action and animation, combining his obsession with music with his knowledge of digital trends and film making.
Carl has won advertising, design and direction awards. He is frequently invited to speak at creative conferences around the world such as SXSW, Cannes Lions, Offf and FITC. His topics focus on Modern Narrative, The Future Of Content and VR and Creative Challenges.
Carl is an Executive Creative Director at Mayda, a creative collective formed from the worlds of advertising, technology, film and gaming.

Carl Addy

According to early cartographers, Mayda is a non-existent island in the North Atlantic that has been shown on several published maps at various points in history.
Aside from being a provocative name for a creative collective, Mayda is also a metaphor for working in an ever changing landscape.
Carl will use his own wayward multi-disciplined journey as a case study for how to &#8220;Navigate Future Stories&#8221;, or how to work with focus while embracing distraction as a creative catalyst.

A Journey to Mayda

Mélodie Mousset is a versatile and award-winning artist renowned for her work with virtual reality. As a trailblazer in the realm of art and technology, she co-founded Patch XR in 2020, an innovative software company dedicated to crafting interactive XR experiences driven by music.

Mélodie Mousset

Echoes of the Jellyfish : A synesthetic conversation between species

Navid Navab, born and raised in Tehran (IR), is a Montreal-based media alchemist, tabletop cosmologist, and antidisciplinary composer, who investigates the forming-giving potential of material processes. Interested in the poetics of schizo-phonia, gesture, and materiality for over a decade, Navab has been composing multi-sensory experiences, entangling bodies, machines, and materialities both in-situ and in concert, in ways that enable critical attunement to excitable matters-of-process.
Navab’s artworks, which take on the form of gestural sound compositions, living architectures, participatory investigative environments, and kinetic sculptures, circulate internationally at festivals such as Ars Electronica (AT), NEMO Biennale (FR), Kapelica Gallery (SL), device_art triennial (HR), Sonica Biennale (BG), Japan Society (US), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (US), ISEA (SP, CA), milanOltre (IT), HKW (DE), Canadian Center for Architecture (CA), eArts (CH), and Mios Multi (CA).
As an artscience researcher and co-director of the Topological Media Lab, Navab leverages phenomenological studies to inform the creation of computationally-augmented performance environments. These platforms serve as investigations in the construction of fresh modes of cultural knowledge and the critical study of media arts and techno-science. Navab&#8217;s research fosters a new collaborative ethos that centers playful sense-making with excitable indeterminacies.

Navid Navab

In this talk, Navid shares their post-Schizophonic adventures of co-creating with computational dynamics of matter. In the process, Navid will media-archeologically move past the military-cybernetic complex to revisit some notions such as computation, information, and liveliness. From cutting-edge applications in non-invasive surgical interventions to living architectures and the movement arts, Navid will demonstrate how this open design ethos has expansively lent itself to surprising advancements in both the arts and sciences.

Adventures With Excitable Matter : From Music to Surgery

Vera-Maria Glahn is a creative facilitator, strategist and business leader with nearly 20 years of experience in digital art and brand experience.
In a time that faces more radical, fast-paced and intersecting socio-economic, technological and environmental challenges than any before it, Vera believes in the power that designers and artists can exert in processes of change and innovation – and in creatives’ responsibility to use it well.
After formative years in media arts and experimental design, Vera co-founded FIELD.IO, an independent creative studio exploring digital art, generative design, and new formats of brand experience.
Vera is a seasoned speaker and panelist at design conferences worldwide, mentor and advocate of female leadership and diverse voices in the creative industries.

Vera-Maria Glahn

In an industry that favours excellent output and creative genius over almost anything, are we talking enough about HOW we do things? Vera-Maria Glahn, creative operations lead and strategist, and former director of an independent creative studio, thinks we don’t.
Her project The Handbook of Non-Toxic Leadership in the Creative Industries is a collaborative compendium of methods and mechanisms for founders, creative leaders and artists in the form of an online glossary, growing in real-time.
By curating learnings and strategies from a network of contributors from many corners of the creative industries, as well as applying notes from publications and interviews to the practice of design, digital, media and arts, the Handbook strives to provide inspiration, awareness and tangible advice for how to “create in collaboration” in a positive and supportive way, for a more equal and diverse work culture.

The Handbook of Non-Toxic Leadership in the Creative Industries

BrianAfande is the co-founder and CEO of BlackRhino VR and board Member at the Global Future Council on the Future of the Metaverse at the World Economic Forum.
He believes that future innovation ecosystems need to put the emphasis on the individual ; the human and the youth need to be the center piece. The youth in Africa need to be empowered by ensuring youth agency – the active participation of young people in shaping their own destiny. He sees himself as an agent of change accelerating the adoption of immersive technology tools in Africa by empowering young people to be the XR innovators and inventors of the future.
As a creative technologist, he leverages XR knowledge to expand opportunities for significant economic growth among the youth that will help them develop new ideas, technical skillsets, new business models and jobs that will contribute positively to overcoming his continent’s development challenges. As an early XR adopter, he holds a peculiar mission and vision of Designing, Democratizing, Demystifying and Deploying XR technologies in Africa.

Brian Afande (BlackRhino VR)

As the African continent continues to evolve, Extended Reality (XR) technologies have become a driving force for innovation that has continued to connect creatives, entrepreneurs, investors, governments, and industries to achieve rapid digital growth in transformative ways by bringing physical and virtual worlds together. XR technologies are empowering an entire generation by offering new growth opportunities and pathways that has generated socio-economic development driven by African creativity. This talk will be a journey through the African XR ecosystems, its use cases, challenges, successes, future plans and opportunities.

Demystification of the African XR landscape

Brian Afande

Tatiana Vilela dos Santos is a multi-awarded independent game designer and artist (Maker Faire, EIGD, A MAZE., Connext&#8230;). based in Paris.
Since 2010, she has worked as a game designer for large groups (Orange, BNP Paribas, Renault, Citroën) and research centers (CNRS, Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Institut Acte) on playful projects employing new technologies or making innovative use of them.
Since 2012, she has been creating playful installations and arthouse games, exhibited around the world, as part of her interactive multimedia project MechBird. Most of her creations are playful installations and alternative controller games: video games including handmade, tangible interfaces, built specifically for these experiences.
Whether it is video games with alternative controllers or virtual reality projects, the work of Tatiana Vilela dos Santos tends to explore uncharted territories of playful art to re-enchant reality through digital technology.

Tatiana Vilela dos Santos

At the crossroads of interactive installations and video games, the enchanting world of playful installations beckons, tantalizing with its ability to immerse the senses and captivate visitors with wonder, all while fostering active engagement. These creations playfully manipulate the physical space more than an arcade machine but they are more digitally rooted than an escape room, offering a treasure trove of creative possibilities that remain largely uncharted.
To transcend the realm of immersive digital toys and design a genuine playful adventure, one must explore the concept of tangible-digital porosity. Imagine a game designer who doesn&#8217;t confine their work to the constraints of a screen but, instead, breathes life into the entire playful apparatus, blurring the lines between pixels and matter.
Our talk seeks to answer the questions : How can we harness game design methods to craft hybrid video game experiences ? What strategies can be employed to design a captivating gameplay loop within an interactive installation ? How do we seamlessly navigate the transitions between tangible and digital spaces ? What stories can be woven into these unique environments ? And how do we harmonize the passive spectacles with the immersive interactive experience ? Join us as we invite you to explore the design of interactive installations through the lens of a game designer, expanding the horizons of video games beyond the digital frontier.

Crafting Magic : Transforming Interactive Installations into Playful Adventures

Kyle McDonald is a Los Angeles-based artist working with code. He crafts interactive installations, sneaky interventions, playful websites, workshops, and toolkits for other artists working with code. Exploring possibilities of new technologies to understand how they affect society, to misuse them, and build alternative futures ; aiming to share a laugh, spark curiosity, create confusion, and share spaces with magical vibes. Working with machine learning, computer vision, social and surveillance tech spanning commercial and arts spaces.
Previously adjunct professor at NYU&#8217;s ITP, member of F.A.T. Lab, community manager for openFrameworks, and artist in residence at STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at CMU, and YCAM in Japan. Work commissioned and shown around the world, including the V&amp;A, NTT ICC, Ars Electronica, Sonar, Todays Art and Eyebeam.

Kyle McDonald

The last few years of Kyle&#8217;s art practice have focused on projects connected to the ocean and the climate : investigating energy infrastructure and emissions, working with humpback songs and machine learning, and assisting Polynesian sailors who are documenting sharing their traditional voyaging techniques.
This direction has rebuilt his understanding of his relationship to the environment and to others, and overturned his perspective on the role technology can play in our society.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Notes from the Pacific

Alysha Naples works at the intersection of art and technology to create experiences that are authentically supportive of the bodies, minds, and spirits of those who will participate in them. She spent more than a decade teaching at some of the top arts institutions in the United States and has received numerous awards for her innovative solutions, including a DA&amp;D Silver Award, a Webby Award for Best Services Website, and distinction as a Gold Instructor from Graphis New Talent.
Most recently, Alysha was the Chief Experience Officer for Tin Drum, a content collective creating transcendent mixed-reality experiences. Her work has been shown at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Victoria &amp; Albert (V&amp;A) Museum in London, Pioneer Works and The Shed in New York City, and the Manchester International Film Festival, and Alysha served as a juror for the VR section of the Venice Biennale in 2019. She lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Alysha Naples

Transport yourself to a happy place. A place that you like to return to. A place where you feel connected, calm, and cared for. A place where you feel safe to explore and eager to engage. Where is this place ? What are its characteristics ? How prominent is technology in this scene ?
Much of the present experience of technology is specifically designed to steal your attention, hijack your time, and transfer your presence from the real world.
Alysha has spent most of the last decade designing holistic, immersive experiences in augmented reality that center contemplation and presence. This work brought her into collaboration with various performers, including actors, artists, dancers, and musicians who all desired to connect with their audience. Let’s explore how we can use technology to create transcendent experiences.

Transceive, Transport, Transcend

Daito Manabe is an artist, interaction designer, programmer and DJ, launched Rhizomatiks in 2006 and specially-appointed professor at Keio University SFC.
Manabe’s works, which range into a variety of fields, takes a new approach to everyday materials and phenomena. However, his end goal is not simply rich, high-definition realism by recognizing and recombining these familiar elemental building blocks. Rather, his practice is informed by careful observation to discover and elucidate the essential potentialities inherent to the human body, data, programming, computers, and other phenomena, thus probing the interrelationships and boundaries delineating the analog and digital, real and virtual.
A prolific collaborator, he has worked closely with a diverse roster of artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, OK Go, Nosaj Thing, Squarepusher, Andrea Battistoni, Mansai Nomura, Perfume and sakanaction. Further engagements include groundbreaking partnerships with the Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics in Manchester, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the world’s largest particle physics laboratory.
He is the recipient of numerous awards for his multidisciplinary contributions to advertising, design, and art. Notable recognitions include the Ars Electronica Distinction Award, Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Titanium Grand Prix, D&amp;AD Black Pencil, and the Japan Media Arts Festival Grand Prize.

Daito Manabe

Discover the vital importance of collaboration across various industries and roles, as we delve into the processes and backgrounds that lead to the successful completion of grand tasks.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

The Power of Collaboration

Fernanda González is Group Experience Director at Media.Monks, where she leads UX and strategy for digital products and platforms across the US and Canada. Based in New York, Fernanda oversees the UX &amp; Strategy practice and is responsible for delivering world-class digital experiences across a wide range of industries, including technology, travel, retail, and more. With experience at Leo Burnett and Mirum Agency, Fernanda most recently spent five years at Media.Monks Mexico, where she built and led the UX team in LATAM. This wide range of experience informs her approach to design : a balance of functional but rich aesthetics and structure. For Fernanda, designing experiences is an exciting and constant challenge to strategize and be resourceful to innovate how we approach human and business problems.

Fernanda Gonzalez

In this talk we will delve into the challenges and expectations faced by experience design teams during periods of uncertainty. We will explore the impact of various factors such as data quality, conflicting internal stakeholder priorities, cuts in timelines and budgets, optimization without innovation, and the need for faster ROI reporting. By addressing these challenges head-on, we will equip design professionals with practical strategies to set up their teams for success.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Embracing Change : Designing Experiences in Times of Uncertainty

Zachary Lieberman is an artist, researcher, and educator with a simple goal : he wants you surprised. In his work, he creates performances and installations that take human gesture as input and amplify them in different ways : making drawings come to life, imagining what the voice might look like if we could see it, transforming people&#8217;s silhouettes into music.
He&#8217;s been listed as one of Fast Company&#8217;s Most Creative People and his projects have won the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica, Interactive Design of the Year from Design Museum London as well as listed in Time Magazine&#8217;s Best Inventions of the Year. He creates artwork through writing software and is a co-creator of openFrameworks, an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding and helped co-found and teaches at the School for Poetic Computation, a school examining the lyrical possibilities of code. He’s also a professor at MIT’s Media Lab, where he runs the Future Sketches group.

Zach Lieberman

When he was turning 40, Zach decided to start a practice of daily sketching — making small artworks with code that he posts on social media as a way of saying hello to the world. This way of working openly has radically reshaped the way he thinks about making. In this talk, Zach will explore how small things can become big things, and what he has learned by reshaping his practice.
Thanks to the support of European FEDER funds, this conference is exceptionally being offered free of charge, on request from the festival reception (entrance to the marquee).

Working openly

Freya Salway is the Head of Google Arts &amp; Culture Lab where she leads an artist residency program and oversees global collaborations with artists, scientists and cultural institutions. Based between Paris and London, The Lab is a place where tech and creative communities come together to share ideas and explore application of emerging technologies in an arts &amp; culture context. Prior to Google Freya founded an arts development studio working with artists, cultural organisations, brands and broadcasters. Her career began at Sky Arts where she designed a scholarship program to support emerging artists and led partnerships with cultural institutions across the UK.

Freya Salway

Culture X Technology experiments with the Head of Google Arts & Culture Lab

OMSE is a creative studio crafting simple, striking brands.
Since 2016, they’ve been working with household names and future visionaries to help them have an impact on the world around them and build their legacy. With an ethos based around forming tight creative partnerships, they’ve been able to collaborate with an incredible number of artists and to partner with clients ranging from the UK’s largest sushi chain, a night club once home to the largest printing factory in Western Europe through to China’s first gin, and many more.

OMSE  (James Kape & Pedro Messias)

The ups and downs that come with running a studio and how we got to where we are today.

The ducks legs

OMSE

Anna Ridler is an artist and researcher who works with systems of knowledge and how technologies are created in order to better understand the world. She is particularly interested in ideas around measurement and quantification and how this relates to the natural world. Her process often involves working with collections of information or data, particularly data sets, to create new and unusual narratives.
Her work has been exhibited widely at cultural institutions worldwide including the Barbican Centre, Centre Pompidou, HeK Basel, The Photographers’ Gallery, the ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Anna Ridler

Looking at the relationship between data and artificial intelligence and how it can be used for artistic purposes ; and how the recent developments with large text to image models potentially change this.

Synthetic Data

Marek Tuszynski, Executive Director and co-founder of Tactical Tech (2003), is a filmmaker, producer, curator, teacher and provocateur whose creative interventions span media from film and radio to television, books, exhibitions, public spaces and, of course, the web. For 30 years, he has worked at the intersection of technology and politics, information and activism, and the consequences of living in a quantified society.
Before Tactical Tech, he co-founded organisations dedicated to creating a circular economy of electronics, documenting contemporary art in post-communist countries and rapid technology response in crisis.
Within Tactical Tech, he co-founded Tactical Studios, co-curated the exhibitions Nervous Systems : Quantified Life and the Social Question (2016), The Glass Room (2016 &#8211; ongoing), and Everything Will Be Fine (2022), and co-authored the books Visualising Information for Advocacy and Efficiency And Madness. Marek lectures at universities worldwide, including the Maryland Institute College of Art, the Design Department of the Politecnico di Milano, The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, New York University in Berlin and the North Eastern University in Boston.
Marek was recently awarded a prize in the artist category by Mozilla&#8217;s Rise 25, which rewards &#8220;25 visionaries who are reshaping our digital future&#8221;.

Marek Tuszynski - Tactical Tech

The stories we need to hear do not have an easily identifiable protagonist, a person or group of people who can project their emotions, their unique stories and experiences, and help us relate to the problems and struggles they have faced in the past or will face in the near future. The stories we need to tell are about data, algorithms, silicon chips and a host of faceless companies, opaque protocols, overblown techno-fantasies and sluggish policies. Is it possible to tell compelling stories that create something more positive than a few mental itches and short-term discomfort?

And so what ?

Tactical Tech

Valentina Peri is an independent curator, artist and author based in Paris.
Her work examines the role of technology in contemporary culture, with a focus on love and intimacy in the digital age, media histories and technologies in the anthropocene. She has curated exhibitions, published writing and given lectures on a broad range of topics in these areas.
Her traveling exhibition Data Dating about love in the Internet age has been presented in Paris, Tel Aviv, London, Brussels, Geneva and Brescia. In the context of this exhibition, she co-edited an essay collection published by Intellect : Data Dating. Love, Technology, Desire (2021).
In 2022, she started researching the phenomenon of Internet romance scams in West Africa, and published the book The New Romance Scammer’s Instructor, a collection of original messages from Ghanaian love scammers. She is currently working on a new book based on her research in Ivory Coast about &#8220;les brouteurs&#8221;, or love fraudsters.
She received a Fluxus Art Projects Grant in 2022 for her curatorial research on the history of dating : The Museum of Dating, presented in London in 2023. At this occasion, she wrote and directed the film Joan Ball. The Lady of Computer Dating.
Since 2021 she has collaborated as a curator with peer-to-space, an independent exhibition platform based in Berlin. From 2011-21, Valentina was associate director and curator at Galerie Charlot Paris – Tel Aviv, a contemporary art gallery focusing on new media art. Valentina Peri is also a co-founder of SALOON Paris, an international and diverse network of women identifying art professionals, part of the SALOON Network.

Valentina Peri

The conference Love, Lies and Romance Scam delves into the intriguing world of online dating and the realm of romance scams. Independent curator, artist, and author, Valentina Peri, will guide us through an exploration of love, intimacy, and deception in the digital age.
Valentina Peri has dedicated her career to examining the role of technology in contemporary culture, with a particular focus on love and intimacy in the digital age. Her thought-provoking traveling exhibition, Data Dating, showcases the profound impact of technology on romantic relationships. By challenging our perceptions of love, desire, and connection in the era of online dating and virtual interactions, Valentina offers fresh insights into the complex dynamics of modern romance.
In 2022, Valentina embarked on a groundbreaking research project centered around the phenomenon of Internet romance scams in West Africa. These scams, also known as online dating scams, involve individuals being tricked into believing they are in a romantic relationship with someone they met online. In reality, their supposed partner is a swindler using a fake identity to gain their trust and ultimately ask money from them. 
Valentina&#8217;s discoveries and firsthand experiences in Ghana are chronicled in her thought-provoking book, The New Romance Scammer&#8217;s Instructor, published in 2022. This insightful publication presents a collection of original messages from Ghanaian love scammers, shedding light on their deceptive practices. Valentina&#8217;s main focus is on exploring contemporary love language through digital tools and creating a bridge with the tradition of love letter-writing manuals from the 18th and 19th centuries. These manuals, known as The Lover’s Instructor in the UK, Secrétarie Galant in France, and Segretario Galante in Italy, offered guidance on composing love letters, providing examples, templates, and tips for lovers lacking linguistic prowess or imagination.
Continuing her research in 2023, Valentina ventured into Ivory Coast, a French-speaking country, where she collected romantic texts used by &#8220;les brouteurs&#8221; (scammers in Ivorian French) of the capital Abidjan and conducted interviews with a group of these romance fraudsters. 
She is currently working on a new book, resulting from the results gained during this fieldwork.
Valentina Peri&#8217;s expertise and firsthand research will provide unique insights into the fascinating realms of the complexities of love, deceit, and the digital landscape in the context of online dating.

Love, Lies and Romance Scam

Graduated in Elisava Barcelona, Superior School of Design &amp; Engineering, his works are focused on digital art and interactive installations.
He has been involved in numerous collaborations with a diverse range of artists, independent studios, and global corporations, working in areas such as web development, digital art, and scenography.
His one man studio specializes in consulting, designing, producing, and crafting projects that cover a wide array of subjects, including Machine Learning, UI/UX web experiences, stage lighting, data visualization, human-computer interaction, computer vision, augmented reality, and graphic design.
He is also currently an artist-in-residence at the Google Arts &amp; Culture Lab.

Martial Geoffre-Rouland

This session by Screen-Club design studio explores the co-creative journey between artists and technologists. 
Highlighting artistic collaborations, the talk examines both the creative vision and technical expertise that contribute to these projects. 
By featuring selected works, the discussion aims to spotlight the collaborative processes and know-how that bring these digital artworks to life.

Design, Engineering & Art : A Cycle of Creative and Technical Synergy

Špela Petrič is a Slovenian new media artist with a background in the natural sciences. Her artistic practice combines biomedia practices and performativity to enact strange relations between bodies that reveal the underpinnings of our (bio)technological societies and to propose alternatives.
Špela exhibits internationally and has received several awards, such as the White Aphroid (Slovenia), the Bioart and Design Award (Netherlands), and an Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica (Austria).

Špela Petrič

How is advanced automation implemented in two seemingly disparate domains &#8211; agriculture and healthcare &#8211; that nevertheless share a common impetus, to care for bodies ?
Špela shares strategies of gaining access and communal knowledge production to better understand the hidden underbelly of our societies, no less political than what screams from our screens.

AI as Infrastructure, Automation as Care

Simone Rebaudengo is a co-founder and Creative Director at oio &#8211; a creative company on a quest to turn emerging technologies into an approachable, everyday and sustainable reality for humans and beyond.
Previously he designed future scenarios and products for The Museum of the Future in Dubai, exhibited future artefacts in major museums around the world with his collective automato.farm and he was lead designer for future visions at BMW Designworks and frog. He used to collaborate with Usman Haque and Pachube to explore human and machine relationships in the early stages of the Internet of Things.
His works explore the implication of living and collaborating with other, not-so-human, intelligences. He co-designed with an AI a special series of products for Iittala , published a book of fables about more than human futures, created immersive installations about being an appliance with Bruce Sterling and a short movie that won the Most Uncanny award at the Robot Film Festival.
Simone is a faculty member of the Master in Design for Responsible AI at ELISAVA in Barcelona and visiting Lecturer at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). His projects have been awarded by Red Dot Design Award, Core77, IXDA Awards and exhibited in galleries and museums such as Vitra Design Museum, Triennial Museum in Milan and MAK Vienna.

Simone Rebaudengo

In this talk, Simone will not share how to make your life easier by using AI, but actually quite the opposite.
Based on the work and research of the past few years with oio, he will share how they&#8217;ve been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence, not just as a tool to simplify and streamline processes, but actually as a starting point to design unimaginable products.

Intelligence as a material

Antoine Bertin is a european artist working at the intersection of science and sensory immersion, field recording and sound storytelling, data and music composition. His creations take the form of listening experiences, immersive moments and audio meditations exploring our relationships with the living world.
Studio Antoine Bertin is a listening experience studio designing interactive installations, live music performances, podcasts series, mixed realities and immersive sound events. Studio Antoine Bertin is based in Paris and Alicudi Island, and works internationally.

Antoine Bertin

Music and biodiversity, science and rituals, machines and interspecies conversations : designing listening experiences that transform our relationship with the living world.

Biomimetic Listening

Martin van der Molen and Silas Nout from Studio Mals crafts high-quality eye-catching images and film. Their work is very tangible, preferably handmade, and has a playful attitude to it.
It&#8217;s a team of meticulous crafters who cherish the details. Their distinctive aesthetics result in clever, playful, and ridiculously sexy handcrafted eye candy !

Studio Mals

Studio Mals creates ridiculously crisp photos, videos, and stop-motion animation. Their work is the equivalent of playfulness and it’s all handmade. No CGI here.
Expect to witness an explosion of colorful and detailed aesthetics, resulting in incredibly sexy handcrafted eye candy for big brand clients.
Be ready to take a deep dive into the behind the scenes of this handmade magic, while also learning a thing or two about running a creative business. These guys know how to turn work into play !

Clever, Colorful, Playful

Marcel Ziul, STATE&#8216;s founder and Executive Creative Director, has a rich professional history spanning multiple countries, including the US and Brazil. His diverse cultural experiences have shaped his innovative approach to creative direction, enabling him to provide a global perspective to his studio.
At STATE, Marcel has collaborated with prominent brands such as Apple, Facebook, Nike, Google, FX, NFL, Under Armour, ESPN, Electronic Arts, Amazon, UFC, and more.
Since establishing STATE in 2014, Ziul and his talented team have received widespread acclaim and numerous accolades from the industry, including Clios, Promax BDA&#8217;s, MTV VMA&#8217;s, and Emmy Awards.

Marcel Ziul from State

In a charismatic talk, Marcel Ziul takes the audience on a heartfelt journey through the various mental states we encounter in our careers. 
Marcel&#8217;s unfiltered honesty addresses relatable issues about who we are as humans and artists and how we can confront the challenges, from demanding clients to trivial office needs, from early trauma to our better selves.

Naked - The beauty of feeling uncomfortable

State

Chris Salter is Professor for Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He is also Professor Emeritus, Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal and former Co-Director of the Hexagram network for research-creation in arts, cultures and technology and Co-Founder of the Milieux Institute at Concordia. He studied philosophy and economics and completed his PhD in theatre studies with research in computer music Stanford University.
His artistic work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, Berliner Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, ZKM, Kunstfest Weimar, Musée d’art Contemporain, Muffathalle, MUTEK, EXIT Festival and Place des Arts-Montreal, among many others. He is the author of Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance ( 2010), Alien Agency: Experimental Encounters with Art in the Making (2015) and Sensing Machines (2022), all from MIT Press.

Chris Salter

In 1968, the Polish born curator Jascia Reichardt opened a landmark exhibition at the ICA in London entitled Cybernetic Serendipty in which all manner of sensor-augmented devices, objects and sculptures stood ready to usher art into a new technological age. Remarkably, while ever more complex sensors, algorithms and devices have steadily increased in the 54 years since Reichardt’s show, essentially the same goal has remained : using artificial sensing as an integral part of an artwork in order for the work to “make sense” about its “world” and respond to it. Yet, our human senses are needed to drive and feed ever-new immersive experiences by being increasingly “coupled” or linked to a simulated world, generated through machines.
This talk will careen through TeamLab’s immersive environments installed in the landfill islands of Tokyo, through the visions of artists in the 1960s to create new kinds of “reactive environments” and our now just emerging “metaverse” age of Extended Reality in order to give a critical historical and socio-technical picture of our present and future visions of art in the age of immersion.

The art, science and politics of immersion

Although he wasn&#8217;t meant to design and even less to the web, Henry nevertheless spent the last decade spreading a culture of digital design based on storytelling, craft and a pretty obvious love for cinema-inspired design approaches. Now CEO and Creative Director of Dogstudio, Henry and his team lead collaborations with forward-thinking brands and organisations including Microsoft, The New York Times, Rappi, Tomorrowland, ZOOX ( Amazon), The Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago, Time inc, and many others.

Henry Daubrez from Dogstudio

Two years of adventures with generative AI, some successes, some failures, but a lot of learning : an honest diary.

Coming of A(I)ge

Henry Daubrez

<a href="http://portablepalace.com">Dmitry Gelfand</a> (b.1974, St. Petersburg, Russia) and <a href="http://portablepalace.com">Evelina Domnitch</a> (b. 1972, Minsk, Belarus) create installations and performances that merge physical phenomena with uncanny philosophical practices. Current findings, particularly regarding wave phenomena, are employed by the artists to investigate questions of perception and perpetuity. Such investigations are salient because the scientific picture of the world, which serves as the basis for contemporary thought, still cannot encompass the unrecordable workings of consciousness.
Having dismissed the use of recording and fixative media, Domnitch and Gelfand&#8217;s installations exist as ever-transforming phenomena offered for observation. Because these rarely seen phenomena take place directly in front of the observer without being intermediated, they often serve to vastly extend the observer&#8217;s sensory envelope. The immediacy of this experience allows the observer to transcend the illusory distinction between scientific discovery and perceptual expansion.
To trace the liquid crystal’s light-propelled flow, hollow glass microspheres are suspended in the solution. These tiny lenses also serve to expand the liquid crystal’s sensitivity to brightness and color. During the laser beam’s self-shaping journey, it creates a projection that magnifies microscopic landscapes in the liquid’s depths.
<a href="https://www.unamur.be/en/research/narc/fellows/yoann-olivier">Yoann Olivier</a> obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Mons in 2008. From 2009 to 2013, he held a postdoctoral fellowship from Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) and went on postdoctoral stays with Prof. Claudio Zannoni at the University of Bologna and Prof. Henning Sirringhaus at the University of Cambridge.
From 2013 to 2019, he was a research associate at the University of Mons and recently joined in July 2019 the Chemistry and Physics departments of the University of Namur as a lecturer.
His research interests deal with the understanding of electronic processes in organic conjugated (small molecule and polymers) and 2D materials, using a multiscale approach combining quantum-chemical methods, Monte Carlo approach and molecular dynamics simulations. Recently, he developed an interest in a new class of materials for organic light-emitting diodes exhibiting thermally activated delayed fluorescence, focusing on their electronic structure and their energy transport properties.
Moderator : <a href="https://bureaudoove.com/">Edith Doove</a>
Organisation : <a href="http://www.ademlabo.eu/">Alexandra Dementieva</a>
Supported by 
FÉDÉRATION WALLONIE-BRUXELLES 
CULTURE.BE 
CYLAND 
ADEM

Laser Talks Brussels

In an innovative project titled &#8220;Lemniscate Cascade&#8221;, artists and scientists join forces to unravel the secrets of light-sensitive liquid crystals. This enigmatic material is more than just the stuff of digital displays, but holds the key to the fundamental dialogue between light and soft matter that sparked life on Earth. The artists behind &#8220;Lemniscate Cascade&#8221; employ laser beams to traverse light-sensitive liquid crystals, setting off a mesmerizing chain of transformations along the beam&#8217;s path.
It&#8217;s fascinating how the very materials featured in &#8216;Lemniscate Cascade&#8217; could draw parallels to elucidate the materials and intricate physical processes at the core of this scientific research. The dual-phase nature of liquid crystals and their intriguing response to light might find intriguing correlations with the dual-state duality of singlets and triplets in the realm of OLEDs.
Yoann Olivier researches the future of Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs are at the forefront of lighting and display technologies, but there&#8217;s always room for improvement. This project delves into the world of TADF (Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence) to boost OLEDs&#8217; efficiency to an astounding 100%. It&#8217;s a quest to understand the intricacies of singlet and triplet states, influenced by magnetic field effects (MFEs) such as spin-orbit coupling, hyperfine interaction, and the delta g mechanism. Olivier&#8217;s multi-scale approach tackles these challenges, offering new perspectives for material design.

Illuminating Liquid Crystals : A Fusion of Art and Scientific Exploration

Theatre - Friends room

The <a href="https://effetquebec.ca/entreprises/societe-des-arts-technologiques-sat/">SAT</a>, <a href="https://effetquebec.ca/entreprises/mutek/">MUTEK</a>, <a href="https://effetquebec.ca/entreprises/ottomata/">OTTOMATA</a> and <a href="https://effetquebec.ca/entreprises/transversal/">Transversal Studio</a> will be discussing transdisciplinary practices and cooperation in the digital and immersive arts. Presented by <a href="https://fisheyeimmersive.com/">Fisheye Immersive</a>.
Valentin Ducros is a curator and organiser of digital art festivals and exhibitions for Fisheye Immersive (<a href="https://www.grandpalais.fr/fr/evenement/palais-augmente-3">Palais Augmenté</a>, <a href="https://www.rencontres-arles.com/fr/expositions/view/1504/habeas-corpus">Rencontres d&#8217;Arles</a>, Résidence d&#8217;écriture VR Arles&#8230;). It strives to offer the public meaningful works, through original commissions and creative challenges to contemporary artists (AR, VR, interactive projections, installations, olfactory or multisensory immersion).
Fisheye Immersive is <a href="https://fisheyemanufacture.com/">Fisheye Magazine</a>&#8216;s entity dedicated to digital creativity and new media.

L'Effet Québec

L’effet Québec : immersive installations & large scale public projects

L’Effet Québec : immersive installations & large scale public projects

L’Effet Québec

Introduction: Céline Berthoumieux (FR), Chroniques (FR)
Co-director of <a href="https://chroniques.org/en/">CHRONIQUES</a>, who holds the Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques (Biennal of Digital Imaginaries). CHRONIQUES, an incubator for digital imagination, has been working for many years in the fields of creation and production of digital arts and practices.
Déléguée générale de <a href="https://hacnum.org/">HACNUM</a>, the National network for hybrid arts and digital cultures. HACNUM aims to support transformations in the cultural sector and act as a catalyst in local areas, bringing culture into the digital transition paradigm.
CHRONIQUES was the initiator of the DIGITAL INTER/SECTION Consortium.
Moderation: Anna Desponds (PL), THE CATALYSTS (DE)
<a href="https://www.catalysts.agency/">THE CATALYSTS</a> are a boutique consultancy boosting the development of innovative &amp; creative players in digital tech, media, film, music, design &amp; the arts. Anna Desponds has over ten years of experience in conceiving award-winning events at the intersection of audiovisual arts and digital technology. As an anthropologist with an MA in interdisciplinary humanities and a research background, she has a passion for bringing remote concepts and people together. At THE CATALYSTS, Desponds draws from this broad experience to enable research, event curation &amp; business development for clients. As part of THE CATALYSTS Anna was one of the people behind the presented research.
Speaker:  Luke Kemp, Barbican immersive (UK)
Luke Kemp is currently Co-Head of <a href="https://www.barbican.org.uk/hire/barbican-immersive-exhibitions">Barbican Immersive</a> and Curator at the Barbican, in London. Immersive has developed some of the most challenging and successful exhibitions in Barbican Centre&#8217;s history, launching in the UK and then touring internationally. Kemp’s most recent productions at Barbican include leading on the co-curation and development of Our Time on Earth (2022) and AI: More than Human (2019) and their tours. Prior to the Barbican, Kemp has worked with galleries and organizations across the world, such as the Venice Biennale and The Armory Art Fair. Luke Kemp has studied at Goldsmiths College and Central St Martins School of Arts, UAL and regularly participates in Juries and panel discussions around immersive and technology in art. His focus is the increasingly entwined relationship of humans with technology and the creation of content and experiences that enable audiences to process our rapidly changing world.
Luke was one of the interviewees of the research.
Speaker: Natasha Greenhalgh (UK), NXT Museum (NL)
Natasha Greenhalgh is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Amsterdam’s <a href="https://nxtmuseum.com/">Nxt Museum</a>, the home for new media art in the Netherlands, uniting her passion for art, technology and sound. Driven by creating new realities, Natasha is obsessed with exploring and prototyping new creative tools, narratives and collaborations.
Having studied at Chelsea Art College, Natasha is trained in Spatial Design &amp; this is what drives Natasha’s interest in how Nxt can most effectively use its dynamic space to communicate its obsession with the future, constantly looking for opportunity &amp; innovation. Natasha is devoted to ensuring Nxt is a place for the many, not just a few, opening up conversations to those who might have previously felt excluded. In addition, Natasha is driving the development of Nxt Lab, an educational space for experimentation, research, development &amp; failure, designed to empower &amp; inspire the pioneers of tomorrow.

Don’t cringe: in this session we’ll talk about business for digital arts. Based on the expertise of over 60+ digital art organizations across the globe, we will be debunking existing misconceptions about financing digital arts, while looking at new, sustainable business models for the future of the digital arts ecosystem.
In the last year <a href="https://www.catalysts.agency/">THE CATALYSTS</a>, together with <a href="https://www.digitalintersection.eu">Digital Inter/Section (DI/S)</a> consortium partners, conducted an extensive study of existing ecosystems and business models in the digital arts industry. Based on a comprehensive survey, micro-case studies and expert interviews, they investigated the monetization trends that keep the art world excited. How to build a resilient financial future? Join us for a preview of key findings of the report and for a conversation with digital organizations representatives.
The full reports can be found here: <a href="https://www.digitalintersection.eu/#publication-rapport-guide">https://www.digitalintersection.eu/#publication-rapport-guide</a>
The presented study is part of Digital Inter/Section (DI/S), a project funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Creative Europe program. DI/S aims at diversifying the sources of income and business models for digital arts &amp; culture organizations, while promoting sustainable, ethical and inclusive economic development. It is an initiative of Chroniques (France), Chromatic (Canada), Kikk (Belgium), Kontejner (Croatia), Signal (Czech Republic) and THE CATALYSTS (Germany). In a next step, based on the research, the partners will develop and test innovative new business models and create a toolkit to increase economic resilience. The toolkit will be broadly available to the whole ecosystem to accelerate new ways of doing business.

How to make money with new media art ? The Starving Artist Myth and other misconceptions

Digital Inter/Section (DI/S)

(ST&#8217;ART, l&#8217;Invest des créateurs: funding opportunities for CCIs in Wallonia and Brussels) &#8211; TALK IN FRENCH &#8211;
ST&#8217;ART is the public investment fund specifically dedicated to the cultural and creative industries in Wallonia and Brussels.
What are the opportunities for financing the cultural and creative sectors in our region ? Sources of revenue, public mechanisms and schemes, public-private partnerships.
A special focus : the Museum.Expo.Tech call for projects.
Question and answer session.

ST’ART, l’Invest des créateurs : opportunités de financement des ICC en Wallonie et à Bruxelles

Virginie Civrais & Nejma Ben Brahim

(Inspiring stories from cultural and creative industrialists) &#8211; TALK IN FRENCH &#8211;
Take part in privileged discussions with exceptional entrepreneurs who are true sources of inspiration. Our guests will share their journeys, revealing how the dynamic ecosystem of Wallonia and Brussels has supported them : from incubation to fundraising, from export support to the international scene, from exposure on our various stages and festivals to strategic communication.
With :
&#8211; Joëlle Tilmanne &#8211; co-founder and CEO of Hovertone
&#8211; Diana Borcescu &#8211; co-founder &amp; CEO of Inmersiv Technologies
&#8211; Manu Di Martino, artistic director of Okus Lab
&#8211; Hervé Verloes, director and co-founder of Magic Loom Studio
An opportunity to zoom in on the &#8216;spillover&#8217; effects of the creative industries, or how to harness the innovation developed in the cultural and creative sector as a lever for growth in other traditional economic sectors.
Panel moderated by Bérengère Fally (Technocité) and Delphine Jenart (KIKK).

Focus ICC en Wallonie-Bruxelles

Parcours inspirants d’industriel.le.s culturel.le.s et créatif.ve.s

Focus ICC Wallonie-Bruxelles

For &#8220;Human Interaction Technology Transfer&#8221;, the HITT consortium is leading the Strategic Innovation Initiative integrated into Wallonia&#8217;s S3 strategy. Supported by 2 university innovation platforms (Le Click &#8211; UMons and the MiiL &#8211; UCLouvain), Digital Station (Sambrinvest) and the RTBF, the initiative includes several collaborative projects involving players from training (Technocité&#8217;s XR Academy) and research (Centres de Recherche Agréés).

HITT

(Video games and XR innovations: bridging the gap between entertainment and industry) &#8211; TALK IN FRENCH &#8211;
A driving simulator developed to test specific situations, confirm autonomous driving algorithms and analyse driver behaviour. A virtual digital twin of a water treatment plant dedicated to simulation and training. Metavers for multi-user training, shopping for the future and playful onboarding of new employees. These are just a few examples of how techniques borrowed from video games can optimise learning and collaboration processes in an industrial environment.
This question will be at the heart of the discussion led by the HITT (Human Interaction Technology Transfer) consortium with industrial players brought together around concrete cases to truly understand what is meant by &#8220;Industry of the Future&#8221; or Transformation 4.0.
With :
&#8211; Olivier Pirlet &#8211; Software Development Engineer &#8211; UX Specialist at AISIN Europe
&#8211; Thomas Kubski Director &#8211; digital strategy &amp; experience design at Deloitte Digital
&#8211; Sebastien Nahon &#8211; Media Innovation &amp; Intelligibility Lab (MIIL) Manager UCLouvain
&#8211; Dimitra Manoliadis &#8211; Co-founder Altheria
Panel moderated by Thierry Jourquin, co-founder of XRintelligence and coordinator of HITT.

Jeux vidéo et innovations XR : les ponts entre ludification et industrie

&#8211; TALK IN FRENCH &#8211;
Created in 2020, <a href="https://hacnum.org/">HACNUM</a> &#8211; the National Network for Hybrid Arts and Digital Cultures &#8211; brings together more than 400 players in the sector in France.
Hybrid by nature, HACNUM brings together professionals from a wide range of backgrounds : artists, festivals, theatres, concert halls, third-party venues, art centres, fablabs, residencies, digital creation studios, business clusters, art galleries, universities, journalists, etc. to defend their shared interests.
Its missions revolve around three main areas of action :
<ul>
<li>Representing the hybrid arts and digital culture sector in dealings with national and regional public decision-makers, to gain greater recognition for the sector.</li>
<li>Leading the network of members in a process of continuous monitoring and professionalisation of its members</li>
<li>Supporting institutional and cultural players wishing to support hybrid and digital creation.</li>
</ul>

HACNUM

What are the challenges facing digital creation in France? How can we support the circulation of artworks and artists? How can we structure a network and promote it? Key institutions and professionals tell us how they support and defend the interests of this hybrid sector.
With :
<ul>
<li>Céline Berthoumieux, delegate general of HACNUM &#8211; the French Network of Hybrid Arts and Digital Cultures</li>
<li>Léa Conrath, general coordinator of HACNUM the French Network of Hybrid Arts and Digital Cultures</li>
<li>Luc Brou, coordinator of Oblique/s</li>
<li>Gaëtan Gromer, artistic director, Ensembles 2.2</li>
<li>Hannah Loué, Project Manager for Digital and audiovisual creation, Institut français</li>
</ul>

Exploring the French digital creation ecosystem

Talks

More than 35 talks about creative coding, data visualization, artificial intelligence, branding and strategy, VR/AR, bioart, design, research and more.
With the support of Digital Wallonia.

For the opening night, we&#8217;re putting the AfriKIKK project in the spotlight by inviting Brussels DJ Rokia Bamba to put on a 100% African party. Rokia has invited artists who will be thrilling you to the rhythms of their musical worlds.
AfriKIKK is a project to promote new media arts and explore digital cultures supported by Wallonie Bruxelles International, the Délégation Wallonie Bruxelles au Sénégal, Wallonia and Africalia programme. This programme is the fruit of a partnership between the KIKK and a series of partners and curators from the African continent and its diaspora. The main aim of this partnership is to show the importance of Africa in the digital age, particularly as a vector of cultural imagination, social and oral traditions and intangible heritage, by presenting the points of view of a range of artists and experts from the African continent and its diaspora.
21h-00:30 : Abdou Of &amp; SAHAD (SN)
00:30-02:00h : Rokia Bamba (BE)

AfriKIKK Party

<a href="https://zouratiekone.com/">Zouratié Koné</a> (BF)
Zouratié Koné is an artist from Burkina Faso who has been visiting Belgium since 2013, as part of the Afro Jazz sextet, Afrikan Protokol.
Trained in the oral tradition of the Mandingo Griots (traditional artist-healers), he has mastered all the traditional instruments of West Africa (ngoni, kora, balafon, talking drum, djembe, dundun, longa,) and knows hundreds of different rhythms and musical traditions from the Mandingo region of West Africa, as well as a wide range of songs.
In his musical repertoire, which began to make a name for itself in Belgium in 2018, this rich tradition fuses with different European musical styles. He plays with some of Belgium&#8217;s leading jazz musicians, including saxophonist Toine Thys, trumpeter Laurent Blondiau and singer Tutu Pouane.
In the duo presented at this festival, he will be accompanied by Senegalese percussionist Honoré Kouadio.
SAHAD (SN)
The name Sahad refers to &#8220;harvest&#8221; in Serer and &#8220;resurrection&#8221; in Wolof. Sahad describes himself as a bush taxi who travels the world in search of the riches born of our differences, to share them.
From Afro to jazz, blues to folk and funk, he draws on all African and cosmic influences to create a kaleidoscopic music. His latest album, Luuma, plays the hybrid card, moving from purely acoustic tracks to psychedelic rhythms, blending deep sensitivity with a dazzling explosion of energy.
Sahad has been included in several official selections at international events (Nairobi, Austin, Rabat). He won the Tanit d&#8217;or prize at the Journées Musicales de Carthage (2016), was a finalist at MIDEM (2016, France) and winner of the &#8220;Afro Pépites show&#8221; Le Rêve africain ( 2016, France).
With his team, Sahad created the independent label &#8220;Stereo Africa 432&#8221; to produce and support local alternative artists and promote their talent on the international scene. He is also founder and initiator of the Kamyaak eco-village in Senegal.
Rokia Bamba (BE)
(Adapted from Marie Darah, Femme Flamboyante)
&#8220;When Rokia decides to make you sweat, you can&#8217;t help it.
Rokia doesn&#8217;t just make you dance, she makes you foam and bewitch you, she&#8217;s a charmer of people, she always finds a way to make you undulate.
And if you want to put your jacket back on, don&#8217;t try too hard, she&#8217;ll take it off.
Rokia is all about the eclecticism of wanting to look good. She has this notion of things in word bubbles, in separate blocks that fit together and inside she hears the music that will get you moving. Rokia knows. And when you tell her that you&#8217;ve sweated so much that you can&#8217;t take it any more, she&#8217;ll reply: &#8220;Ben WÉ!&#8221;
Rokia Bamba is also peace, a rediscovered gentleness that had forgotten to see itself in all its splendour as a generous, healing woman. Rokia, the female DJ who scans the smiles on the dancefloor and the energies, Rokia, the emancipated woman who took time to sublimate herself into who she really was, Rokia, the campus radio station, Rokia, the journalist, Rokia, the podcast host, Rokia from Paris to Dakar in the world gallery, Rokia Bamba, the Flamboyant. She&#8217;s beginning to realise that you can enjoy doing good for people and taking society to task, body by body, soul by soul, human by human, taking care to create a circle prolific in collective well-being. And that, Rokia, is something you can&#8217;t doubt when you see her with her toothy smile and her 75 thousand stylish glasses. When she talks to you about her children, or her mum, or simply her job, or her desire to learn how to do things, Rokia is like a sun shaking, an aura of reunion, she gives you that feeling of being part of a family, even if you don&#8217;t have one. And that&#8217;s a precious gift, to feel at home. From the scent of a reassuring Pierre, you can sense in her whole being that Rokia is a woman who rocks as much as she blazes. And if the world is doomed to explode, then it&#8217;s to these sounds that we&#8217;ll dance, so we don&#8217;t forget to be sparks, flames, blazing at her side, at her fingertips.&#8221;

Line up

La Flamboyante curated by Rokia Bamba

La Nef

KIKK Opening – AfriKIKK Party

For this year&#8217;s KIKK Festival after-party, we&#8217;ve created a line-up featuring 3 DJs who set the place on fire during the last two editions of the Horst Festival: DTM Funk, Donia and Slomo Sean.

Hit the dancefloor with DTM Funk, Donia and Slomo Sean

DTM Funk
For over 10 years, Antwerp&#8217;s DTM Funk has been at the forefront of the Belgian music scene. Resident of the Horst Festival and C12, and owner of the San-Kofa Rhythm label, he combines a deep knowledge of local talent with a global vision of music, and stands firmly above fleeting hypes and trends. What makes his sets so special is his focus on soul, groove and rhythm. By focusing on these three elements as a common thread, he avoids being tied to one genre rather than another, moving from percussive tracks to rare soul and house gems, and succeeds in creating a real atmosphere conducive to getting any dancefloor moving.
DTM Funk on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDe9phsNtv8">Youtube</a> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/dtmfunk">Soundcloud</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dtmfunk/">Instagram</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dtm.funk">Facebook</a>
Donia b2b Slomo Sean
Donia, the dopamine dealer, and Slomo Sean, the all-round DJ, join forces for the first time on this evening for a 2h30 set. The two Kiosk Radio residents are specialists when it comes to unearthing and matching together musical marvels that sweep across the extra-wide spectrum of electronic music.
Donia on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjq-cfDBUfQ&amp;t=2504s">Youtube</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/doniacobra/">Instagram</a> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/kemla10-50">Soundcloud</a>
Slomo Sean on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFwaVdbajsg&amp;t=2639s">Youtube</a> <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/slomosean/">Mixcloud</a> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/slomosean">Soundcloud</a> <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/slomosean/">Instagram</a>

Parties & Performances

KIKK Opening – AfriKIKK Party

KIKK After Party

KIKK in Town

View program

Talks