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The Jellyfish

Eduardo Fouilloux & Melodie Mousset, Switzerland 2020

Interactive VR Experience

The Jellyfish invites audiences to dive into the deep water of their consciousness in a mesmerizing, interactive VR soundscape where they can encounter a choir of glowing jellyfish.

Immersed in a serene aquatic soundscape, you are surrounded by a ghostly swarm of jellyfishes, swimming smoothly all around you in a distance. With your gaze, you can connect with a jellyfish and it will swim toward you. By moving your head and your body, you understand that the jellyfish is acting like a mirror, following your every movement. If you talk to it, you hear your own voice transformed. The jellyfishes and their environment react to your voice. A swarm of jellyfishes will start to echo and harmonize with your voice in a loose melody, encouraging you to start singing with them. Each jellyfish, transform your voice in a different way. If you remain silent again it will swim away from you.

 

The Jellyfish invita il pubblico ad immergersi nelle acque profonde della propria coscienza, in un paesaggio VR ipnotico e interattivo dove si può incontrare un insieme di meduse luminose.

Immersi in un tranquillo paesaggio acquatico, si è circondati da un numero spettrale di meduse che dolcemente nuotano a distanza intorno a noi. Con lo sguardo, potete entrare in contatto con una medusa e questa nuoterà verso di voi. Muovendo la testa e il corpo, capite che la medusa agisce come uno specchio, seguendo di riflesso ogni vostro movimento. Se le si parla, si percepisce una trasformazione nella propria voce. Le meduse ed il loro ambiente reagiscono alla voce. Un banco di meduse inizierà a fare eco e ad armonizzarsi con la vostra voce in una melodia fluida, incoraggiandovi a cantare con loro. Ogni medusa trasforma la vostra voce in modo diverso. Se invece rimarrete ancora in silenzio, esse si allontaneranno da voi.

 

Directed by: Eduardo Fouilloux and Mélodie Mousset
Interactive Audio by: Chris Heinrichs
Art by: Victor Beaupuy
3D by: Tom Frackowiak
Additional sound by: Moisés Horta Valenzuela

Consulting of Morton Thorning

A PatchXR production with the financing support of LudyLab, Prohelvetia and the Animation Workshop

Switzerland, 2020

 

The artist has been supported by Swiss Films

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Liminal Lands

Jakob Kudsk Steensen, France 2021

Interactive VR Experience

Liminal Lands is an immersive installation realized at the museum Luma Arles in France, created from the wetlands of the Camargue. Through VR, the audience begin a 4-player journey as humans in the wetland reservation, and morph into elemental energies as they travel across the forgotten landscape. Fresh water and salt are in constant flux as seasons change. Visitors adapt to insect scale, surrounded by towering ancient wood covered in salt, and spatialized sounds respond to the visitors’ movements. Liminal Lands highlights the unseen energies in the natural world, and is part of Erratic Animist Studio’s exploration of methods to make physically immersive exhibitions digitally available.


Liminal Lands è un’installazione immersiva realizzata presso il museo Luma di Arles, in Francia, ispirata alle zone umide della Camargue. Attraverso la VR, il pubblico inizia un viaggio che vede i 4 giocatori protagonisti nei panni di esseri umani all’interno della regione delle zone umide. Questo viaggio si trasforma in un flusso di energie elementari mentre i giocatori attraversano il paesaggio senza vita. L’acqua dolce ed il sale sono in costante mutamento con il variare delle stagioni. I visitatori si adattano alla scala degli insetti, circondati da un imponente e antico tronco di legno ricoperto di sale, mentre i suoni dello spazio circostante  rispondono ai movimenti dei visitatori. Liminal Lands mette in evidenza le energie invisibili del mondo naturale e fa parte della ricerca condotta da Erratic Animist Studio per rendere disponibili le mostre fisicamente immersive nella dimensione digitale.

 



Creator and artist: Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Commissioned by: the Luma Foundation
Co-producer: Liz Kircher
Curator: Vassilis Oikonomopoulis
Produced by: Erratic Animist
Sound artist: Matt McCorkle
Interactive sound technology: Reese Donohue and Emre Tanirgan
HDRI skylight capture: Matthieu Grospiron
Multiplayer programming: Wouter Weynants
Optimization: Vladislav Sorkin
Alembic 3D art animation: Andy Thomas
Field biologist: Patrick Grillas
France 2021

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Oceanic Feeling
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Oceanic Feeling

Joey Bania, Lion Bischof, Germany 2022

360° VR-Film

Oceanic Feeling is a VR 360° exploration of the curious historical connections between the critically endangered European eel, Sigmund Freud, and our pathological relationship with the natural world.

The life cycle of the European eel has long confounded scientists. In 1876, Sigmund Freud joined Aristotle and countless successors in a failed attempt to locate the eels’ reproductive organs and determine their mysterious provenance. At the same time, the accelerating industrial revolution was triggering the unprecedented destruction of the natural world, following a logic of capitalist growth that remains largely unchallenged – despite spiralling ecological crises. Oceanic Feeling combines spoken passages of Freud’s writing with an immersive first-person depiction of the eels’ journey through oceans and waterways atrophied by human expansion to explore this curious historical parallel and suggest new ways of thinking about our dysfunctional relationship with the more-than-human world.


Oceanic Feeling è un’esplorazione VR a 360 gradi sulle curiose connessioni storiche tra la specie dell’anguilla europea, in via d’estinzione, Sigmund Freud ed il nostro rapporto patologico con il mondo naturale.

Il ciclo di vita dell’anguilla europea ha confuso a lungo gli scienziati. Nel 1876, Sigmund Freud si unì ad Aristotele e a innumerevoli successori nel fallito tentativo di localizzare gli organi riproduttivi dell’anguilla e di determinare la loro misteriosa provenienza. Allo stesso tempo, l’accelerazione della rivoluzione industriale stava innescando una distruzione del mondo naturale senza precedenti, secondo una logica di crescita capitalistica che rimane in gran parte incontrastata, nonostante le crisi ecologiche in aumento. Oceanic Feeling combina la narrazione di alcuni passaggi degli scritti di Freud con una rappresentazione immersiva in prima persona del viaggio delle anguille negli oceani e nei corsi d’acqua atrofizzati dall’espansione umana, per esplorare questo curioso parallelo storico e suggerire nuovi modi di pensare il nostro rapporto disfunzionale con il mondo più-che-umano.

 

 

Directors: Lion Bischof & Joey Bania
Director of Photography: Joey Bania
Sound Design: Matthias Grübel

Oceanic Feeling has been developed at CPH:LAB of CPH:DOX – Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival 2022

Germany 2022

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Muted

Christophe Monchalin, Belgium/France 2020

Interactive VR Experience

Muted is an immersive and sensitive experience that plunges you below the surface of a young girl’s silence, into an imaginary and poetic underwater world. Parental abandonment has left her voiceless. This is a story beyond words, one that is felt rather than told. Like a freediver, you gently descend along a line connecting you to the surface. This story-line will guide you down to the depths. Flowing through the thoughts and memories of this world of silence, ocean currents sometimes create strange dances like an imaginary sign language.


Muted è un’esperienza immersiva e profonda che vi trascina oltre la superficie, nel silenzio di una giovane ragazza, in un mondo sottomarino immaginario e poetico. L’abbandono dei genitori l’ha lasciata senza voce. Questa è una storia che va oltre le parole, una storia che viene percepita, più che semplicemente raccontata. Come un apneista, scendete dolcemente lungo la linea che vi collega alla superficie. Questa linea narrativa vi guiderà in profondità. Scorrendo tra i pensieri e i ricordi di questo mondo fatto di silenzi, a volte le correnti oceaniche creano strane danze come a creare un linguaggio dei segni immaginario.

 

 

Programming & Graphic Design: Christophe Monchalin
Choreography & performance (volumetric capture): Léonore Guy
Interpretation & Sign language (180° movie capture): Maud Chapoutier
Illustration: Tomoko Yoshida, Christophe Monchalin
2D Animation: Evelien de Roeck, Tomoko Yoshida
Original music: Yann Deval
Voice: Léonore Guy
Additional devs & Design V1 Prototype: Gauthier Roumagne
Belgium/France 2020

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Acqua Alta – Crossing the Mirror

Adrien M & Claire B, France 2019

Augmented Reality Installation

Acqua Alta is a story of a woman, a man, a house. A daily routine, absurd and filled with discrepancies. But one wet rainy day, their life is turned upside down: the rising waters drown their home in an ink-coloured sea. The woman slips and disappears. Only her hair remains, and it is alive. It tells the tale of a disaster, unique and universal. It tells of losing and searching. It tells of the fear of the bizarre and otherness, and how to tame it.


Acqua Alta è la storia di una donna, di un uomo, di una casa. Una routine quotidiana assurda e piena di discrepanze. Ma in un umido giorno di pioggia, la loro vita viene stravolta: l’innalzamento delle acque fa sprofondare la loro casa in un mare color inchiostro. La donna scivola e scompare. Rimangono solo i suoi capelli, che sembrano vivi. AcquaAlta racconta la storia di un disastro, unico e universale. Racconta la perdita e la ricerca. Racconta della paura del bizzarro e dell’alterità, e di come domarla.

 

 

Concept and artistic direction: Claire Bardainne and Adrien Mondot
Drawings and paper design: Claire Bardainne
Computer design: Adrien Mondot
Choreographic performance: Dimitri Hatton and Satchie Noro
Sound design: Olivier Mellano
Computer development: Rémi Engel
Paper engineering: Eric Singelin
Script doctor: Marietta Ren
Administration: Marek Vuiton, assisted by Mathis Guyetand
Technical direction: Raphaël Guénot
Production and booking: Joanna Rieussec
Production: Juli Allard-Schaefer, Margaux Fritsch and Delphine Teypaz
Mediation and production: Johanna Guerreiro
Production: Adrien M & Claire B
France 2019

The Adrien M & Claire B Company is accredited by DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region and is supported by the City of Lyon.
Photos © Romain Etienne/item and © Adrien M & Claire B

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MYRa: a gift for Rym

Olivia Mc Gilchrist, Canada/Québec, 2019-2020

360° VR Film

MYRa combines digital underwater worlds with performance art, where viewers remain still amidst a virtual tidal wave, represented through 360° videos and 3d animations which moves around them. This virtual wave evokes the Caribbean’s complex relationships with water: from geographical dependency to environmental precarity. It is also inspired by the loss of a close friend, suggesting the feeling of being submerged by grief.


MYRa combina mondi digitali sottomarini alla performance art. Gli spettatori rimangono immobili in mezzo ad un’onda virtuale anomala, rappresentata attraverso video a 360 gradi e animazioni 3d che prendono vita intorno a loro. Quest’onda virtuale evoca le complesse relazioni dei Caraibi con l’acqua: dalla dipendenza geografica alla precarietà ambientale. E’ ispirata anche dalla perdita di un caro amico, trasmettendo la sensazione di essere sommersi dal dolore.

 

COMPOSITION/SOUND DESIGN: Olivia Mc Gilchrist, Diego Bermudez-Chamberland
SOUND DESIGN: Yanik Temblay-Simard
VR DEVELOPMENT – UNITY3d: Scott Smith and Dougy Hérard
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: Canada/Québec
PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Decoy Magazine (CA) Hexagram (CA/QC) Milieux Institute (CA/QC)
Canada, 2019-2020

 

Kindly supported by the Senate Chancellery Hamburg and the Québec Government Office in Germany.

     

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Primordial Force

Can Buyukberber, Turkey, 2021

Projection Mapping installation

Can Buyukberber’s immersive audiovisual piece Primordial Force takes the concept of water into its alchemical roots and uses it as metaphor for the collective unconscious, as C. G. Jung described. A primordial force can be modeled as an energy that originated everything: reality, time, space, life; an infinite potential of constant movement, influencing the interaction between pieces, forming an ever-evolving whole. In alchemy, C. G. Jung found that plain water, or seawater, corresponded to his concept of the collective unconscious.


L’opera audiovisiva Primordial Force di Can Buyukberber riprende il concetto dell’acqua nelle sue radici alchemiche e lo utilizza come metafora dell’inconscio collettivo, così come descritto da C. G. Jung. Una forza primordiale può essere modellata come un’energia che ha dato origine al Tutto: la realtà, il tempo, lo spazio, la vita. Un infinito potenziale in costante movimento, che influenza l’interazione tra gli elementi, formando un Tutto in continua evoluzione. Nell’alchimia, C. G. Jung trovò che l’acqua dolce, o l’acqua di mare, corrispondevano al suo concetto di inconscio collettivo.

 

 

Can Buyukberber, Visual Artist
canbuyukberber.com
@cbuyukberber
Turkey, 2021

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Making content tangible

The country focus Canada at VRHAM! 2021 with four VR experiences in the Art Program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada (Embassy of Canada to Germany) and the Québec Government Office in Berlin. A conversation with the Delegate General of Québec in Germany, Elisa Valentin, about innovation and synergies between art and technologies.

VRHAM!: VR art has a high standing in Québec, there are many VR studios, festivals and a lively scene. How important is the international exchange and the visibility of this still young art form for you at a festival like VRHAM! in Hamburg?

ELISA VALENTIN: Québec is one of the pioneers in North America and worldwide in the field of immersive and interactive technologies and has a firmly established, very active and dynamic media art and VR scene, whose artistic and technological innovative power gives it a special status in the cultural and art field, but also beyond that in various other fields of application. It feeds this, among other things, from the close interaction between artists, companies and research institutions, but also from its affinity to international exchange. The VRHAM! Festival is a particularly relevant partner in this context, as it addresses both the diversity of immersive technologies and their overarching relevance for the world of culture and art, and in doing so engages local and international actors in dialogue.

V!: VRHAM! has been in contact with many Québec actors for several years, such as the Centre PHI. This year, Québec is represented with several works as part of the Canada Focus and in the international jury for the VRHAMMY AWARD with the multimedia artist Caroline Monnet. What potential do you see in the relationship between Hamburg and Québec and specifically for further cooperation?

EV: Québec is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its presence in Germany this year. During this time, close and diverse relations have developed with Germany in business, politics, science and culture. A particularly fruitful cooperation has developed with Hamburg, and Québec attaches particular importance to its further development and deepening. Due to the numerous similarities but also the complementarities between Québec and Hamburg, this cooperation has a strong potential. And this also applies to the field of media art. We are very happy about Québec’s presence at this year’s VRHAM! Festival and could well imagine a future collaboration. Both the further networking of artists, studios and media art institutions from Québec and Hamburg, the exchange of know-how and the initiation of joint cultural and art projects would be very exciting.

V!: International exchange is of particular relevance to you. Many real encounters could not take place last year because of the pandemic. Did that slow down cooperation or did something new emerge?

EV: The pandemic is also an immense challenge for the cultural and art scene in Québec and has significantly restricted the international mobility of artists. At the same time, it has accelerated digitalisation in many cultural institutions in Québec and worldwide, thus increasing the international reach and visibility of their offerings and promoting international cooperation. In this context, Québec has also been able to continue and even deepen many of its partnerships and collaborations. In addition to the now more diverse digital forms of exchange, we believe that its content has also evolved significantly in the process. The question of synergies between technology and art – in the experience of artistic and cultural content, its presentation, reception and distribution, but also in the artistic creative process itself – is nourishing the reflection with our international partners visibly and more profoundly.

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Speakers 2021

Speakers 2021


We have been able to win renowned artists and VR experts from all over the world as speakers for our panels,
VRHAM! FORWARD Talks and for the REAL-IN Convention:


Alexandra Antwi-Boasiako  is a creative industries enthusiast from Hamburg. With a degree in Communication & Cultural Management and an MA in Creative & Media Enterprises she has set a strong foundation to explore the world of creativity. Alexandra is a passionate & curious communicator that builds bridges between artistic visions and the audience.


Christopher Bauder  is the creative director of the design studio Whitevoid, which he founded immediately after finishing his studies at Berlin University of the Arts. He works worldwide as a light and media artist and is also the founder and managing director of the innovative lighting technology manufacturer Kinetic Lights.  Bauder is best known for his large scale spacial light art installations.


Kiira Benzing is a multimedia director, founder of Double Eye Studios based in New York. She is a director crossing the mediums of theater, hybrid cinema and virtual reality and currently working with live actors performing in social VR with the open software platform High Fidelity and she writes for the Medium blog “Alive in Plasticland”. Her most recent project Runnin, is an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2019.

 


Serial entrepreneur and innovation Guru, Antoine Cardon has served in many industries: advertising & communication, digital, television & cinema and architecture & simulation. He started working with virtual reality 20 years ago as a simulation expert and founding member of the VRML community.


Toby Coffey established the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio in 2016. The Studio has had its portfolio of projects shown at the Venice, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, National Theatre, The Young Vic, MoMA and TATE Modern. The Studio’s work ranges from VR music videos, immersive exhibtions and VR performances with interactions between the audience and live performer. At VRHAM!, Toby has been mentor for the VR project Inhibition by Zoe Diakaki and Marina Mersiadou.


Mat Collishaw  is a key figure in the generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmiths’ College in the late 1980s. His visual language embraces diverse media. The beauty of Collishaw’s work is compelling – seductive, captivating, hypnotic – yet repelling as we perceive the darker fantasies within. Something between beautiful and abject. At VRHAM! 2021 he will present his latest project Bedlam in a keynote.


Zoe Diakaki  is an interactive designer and architect based in London. Her main interests rely on the relationship between immersive experiences and technology in performing arts. Zoe, together with Marina Mersiadou, will present their joint project Inhibition, which they developed together with their mentor Tobey Coffey as part of the VRHAM! FORWARD residencies.


Gustav Gomes  is a brazilian artist, dancer and choreographer based in Cologne, Germany. As a visual artist he is exposing photographic work, installation and video art in a number of galleries. At VRHAM! Gustavo will present his current project Votary, which he has continued developing at Institut für theatrale Zukunfstforschung (ITZ) at Tübingen together with his mentor Richard Siegal as part of the VRHAM! FORWARD residencies.


Ali Hossaini’s expertise spans art, science and engineering. A commitment to preserving life, and to celebrating life’s diversity, motivates his interdisciplinary work. He is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Engineering at King’s College London. He is also a Fellow of the National Gallery, co-director of National Gallery X and a trustee of the Young Vic theatre. Since 2018 he has been working with security think tank RUSI on the safety of AI.


Carole Kremer is the Head of Office at the Creative Europe MEDIA Desk Luxembourg. She holds a BA in English Literature and Linguistics and an MA in Conference Interpreting. She joined the Luxembourg Creative Europe Desk in 2014, and has since been the contact person for the programme’s MEDIA strand in Luxembourg. She also works at Film Fund Luxembourg, where she manages the public body’s various XR events and initiatives.


Tupac Martir is an Artist and Founder of Satore Studio in London. He’s a multimedia artist whose work spans the fields of technology, lighting, projection and video, sound design, music, and composition, as well as choreography and costumes. Vogue has described him as “the visual designer and creative director behind some of the most important events in the world”.


Robin McNicholas is Co-founder and Director of the award-winning creative studio Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) in London and has directed a myriad of immersive experiences, large-scale installations and live performances. Exploring new sensory perspectives that challenge our relationship to the world around us plays a key role in Robin and the team at MLF’s work.


Annette Mees is an award-winning artist and immersive theatre director and currently the Head of The Audience Labs at the Royal Opera House. She is working on the cross-over of live and digital and interested in the artistic possibilities of immersive technologies. Annette explores the future of culture, artistic innovation, creative R&D and models of art that allow dialogue with new audiences.


Marina Mesiadou studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and also worked as an architect in an Athens based architectural practice. Marina is interested in exploring ways of integrating new technologies into performance and theatrical space. Marina, together with Zoe Diakaki, will present their joint project Inhibition, which they developed together with their mentor Tobey Coffey as part of the VRHAM! FORWARD residencies.


Ilja Mirsky is dramaturg at the Institut für theatrale Zukunftsforschung (ITZ) in Tübingen and PhD candidate at the University of Tuebingen and Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Ilja is lecturer on artificial intelligence, theater and digital dramaturgy with  a strong focus on VR/AR, AI and performance Art.


Christiane Paul is Chief Curator and Director of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center and Professor in the School of Media Studies at The New School, as well as Adjunct Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art. At the Whitney Museum she is also responsible for artport, the museum’s portal to Internet art. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation’s 2016 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art and has authored several books on Media Art and New Media.


Co-director at Minky Productions, Julien Planté is an experienced Producer and high caliber Head of Programmes, with a strong track record in commissioning, producing and curating Live Events, TV and online content. Currently working on Bedlam, an Extended Reality theatre experience by Mat Collishaw, that he will introduce in a Keynote.


Based in Marseille, Mathieu Pradat inscribes his practice within the growing interaction between real and virtual worlds, seen as new territories for stories bearing knowledge, sensations and emotions. He explores cinema and various immersive interactive narrative forms. His works (The Roaming, Proxima, The Dog) have been selected and awarded throughout the world. Mathieu Pradat is CEO of La prairie productions. He teaches immersive narrative in various universities.


Tina Sauerlaender is an art historian, curator, speaker and writer about VR in visual arts. She is artistic director of the VR ART PRIZE by DKB in cooperation with CAA Berlin. She is co-founder and director of the independent exhibition platform peer to space, that was founded in 2010. She is co-founder and CEO of Radiance VR, an international online platform for VR experiences in visual arts. She focuses primarily on the impact of the digital and the internet on individual environments and society.


András Siebold was hired as a dramaturge at Theater Basel and subsequently for four years at the State Opera Unter den Linden Berlin. In 2007 he was appointed as head of programming at Kampnagel Hamburg by Artistic Director Amelie Deuflhard. Since 2013 he is Artistic Director of the International Summer Festival Kampnagel, Hamburg.


Richard Siegal  is an American dancer and choreographer. For his pieces, Siegal has cooperated with people from different fields such as architecture, design and composing. In 2016, Siegal founded the touring company Ballet of Difference] together with ecotopia dance productions, missioned with creating new pertinence to ballet in the 21st century.


Fabien Siouffi is Founder of Fabbula, a cultural practice dedicated to the idea of worlding with digital media such as virtual reality, open worlds and livestreams. Fabbula curates groundbreaking exhibitions such as Palais Augmenté (2021, Grand Palais), Les Ailleurs (2021, Gaîté Lyrique) and VR Arles Festival (2018, 2019, Rencontres d’Arles).


Chiaki Soma has produced or curated global projects that transect categories of theater, contemporary art, and community-engaged art. She has been the General Producer of Toyooka Theater Festival 2021, the Curator of Aichi Triennale 2022 and Artistic Director of  Theatre Commons Festival.


Melanie Stein is a journalist, psychologist, producer and presenter covering politics, innovation and science. She is an editor and presenter of the YouTube show Diskuthek, a political talk show addressing young adults. After finishing her “Volontariat” at NDR, she worked for the media magazine Zapp as well as for the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. Melanie is the founder and CEO of Wir sind der Osten, an initiative giving visibility to progressives citizens from Eastern Germany.


Ulrich Schrauth  is an international curator, creative director and artist working in the field of immersive media. His posts include artistic director for VRHAM! Festival Virtual Reality & Arts Hamburg as well as XR and immersive programmer for the BFI London Film Festival. In addition to that, he oversees many international projects with virtual, augmented and mixed reality, and acts as a speaker, moderator and jury member in this field.


Daniel Strutt is a lecturer in the department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, He and his team have developed a framework for the streaming of motion capture data, permitting dancers to dance together but remotely, and within virtual spaces.


Susanne Thurow is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales’ iCinema Centre, one of Australia’s foremost hubs for applied interactive immersive visualization, and a Chief Investigator on the iDesign research project. Since 2014, she has been co-developing immersive visualisation projects with key collaboration partners.


Julian Weiss is Co-Founder and CEO of the agency headraft, specialist in the conception and production of interactive experiences in virtual and augmented reality. With their know-how and enthusiasm about immersive media he and his team support clients to understand the potentials of extended realities and fully exploit them in campaigns and communication activities. headraft was awarded Rookie Agency of the year 2019 by the Art Directors Club Germany.


From October 2002 to September 2009, Brigitte Zypries was Federal Minister of Justice. From January 2017 to March 2018 she was Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, where, from December 2013 to January 2017, she was also Parliamentary State Secretary, responsible for information technology (IT) and foreign trade. She was the Federal Government Coordinator for Aerospace from January 2014 to March 2018.

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Expand Possibilities

Since 2018, Deutsche Telekom has been a festival partner and main sponsor of VRHAM! A large part of the artistic programme of this year’s festival can be experienced via the Magenta VR App. As of today, new exclusive VRHAM! curated content is available in the Magenta VR App.  A conversation with Wolfgang Groening, Vice President XR + Immersion at Telekom, about art, immersive worlds and accessibility.

VRHAM! With Magenta VR and the connected app, you’ve created spaces for new art and entertainment worlds at an early stage. For the VRHAM! Festival in Hamburg you are an important partner also in terms of distribution. What potential do you currently see in virtual art?

WOLFGANG GROENING: It is exciting and impressive to see how open and innovative artists deal with technology, how they use it and explore its possibilities. In this way they create something completely new and combine analog and virtual sensory impressions. Ultimately, we all benefit from inspiring, which is why we have been festival partners of the VRHAM! for many years. It is the first festival in the world that exclusively shows virtual art. With our Magenta VR app, interested people all over Germany can experience many of the audiovisual VR works of art, 360°-films and virtual experiences at home. The app is available free of charge for smartphones in the Apple App Store and in the Google Play Store.

V!: The pandemic has restricted the reality of our lives, but promoted a digital and networked way of working. Was the past year a technology accelerator and how did you position yourself specifically? Are there new products and places for experiencing virtual worlds?

WG: We all experienced how quickly we had to convert work processes digitally. This necessity has given rise to new demands and desires for technologies. I also think there is greater public interest in technology and innovation. For Deutsche Telekom, innovation is a strong focus. XR, VR, AR and MR are areas that we have been promoting for many years – including with our tech incubator hubraum. For example, the first mixed reality glasses, Nreal Light, have been available in Europe since this year. We made decisive progress in developing these MR glasses in a technology partnership with Nreal. In the future, Nreal Light will offer a broad public the opportunity to perceive our reality in an expanded manner, especially in the area of ​​AR.

V!: You once said that Deutsche Telekom would like to help bring innovations to the mass market. How important is accessibility and digital participation for you?

WG: Our goal is to technically expand and enrich possibilities and that can only be implemented if technologies are also accepted by the market. They can only be established in the long term if they are accessible and usable to the public. Technology and content must be made for people. With the combination of virtual art and direct access via the Magenta VR app, we are contributing to unlimited participation in the art sector.

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