Internationally renowned artist, known for her multi-disciplinary work (light, painting, photography…), Deepa Mann-Kler has been involved since 2016 in the immersive creation around strong social issues anchored in reality. Such themes we will explore during her first event as a curator, the Belfast XR Festival, which will take place on November 9th.
Interview recorded during Stereopsia 2022
Cover: MIDNIGHT STORY
From a coffee shop (in Reykjavik) to Belfast
Deepa Mann-Kler – My first encounter with virtual reality was a particular story, starting in a slightly geeky coffee shop in Reykjavik in 2016. Two people next to me were discussing an immersive event around Icelandic singer Björk and her album “Vulnicura”, and it caught my attention. I was very touched by this exhibition at the Harpa (link), as I had just lost my father. As an artist, I’ve experienced a lot of immersive experiences, but this one at that time with what I was experiencing, really lifted something in terms of the grief and the weight. Coming back to Ireland, I decided to take a closer look at these new technologies.
D. M.-K. – I therefore founded NEON (link), a production company dedicated to these new forms of creation, with the strong intention of associating themes that are dear to me (therapeutic VR, health service, disability, social issues…). As luck would have it, I was asked to produce a VR project that would be presented at SXSW 2017! In 4 months, I had my company and found myself in Austin, Texas, with a first experience to showcase: RETNE. And… that’s it! I mean, my life has changed since that point pretty much because of that experience with Björk – And 6 years later, it is quite a long time in the immersive field. I created VR experiences, launched apps, always with a R&D element into it. But there’s also a value basis in terms of what I’m doing. It’s either creative or tech for good in all its forms.
D. M.-K. – Then, I was at the BFI London Film Festival in 2021, and I thought “why don’t we have this in Belfast?”. This is a great city with a reasonable size, which allows people to connect. With a real sense of community, a willingness to share learning and the way it’s enabled underrepresented voices to rise up, including women led projects. We’ve had a government funding scheme called Future Screens NI (link), which has been a 5-year plan that has brought in about £14 million to the region and that has really heavily invested in itself into R&D. And then we’ve got a huge investment now going into virtual production (link). There are opportunities here that I’m not sure if I’d lived in England that would have been as accessible.
Belfast XR Festival: building a line-up
D. M.-K. – For me, it’s not the technology, it’s the stories. I suppose I’ve gone for content that I would be interested in watching – or even re-watching. And because of what has happened over the last few years with Covid, I think we need to feel a sense of connection with immersive contents. That value basis that guides me and everything that I do has also influenced this. We need authentic stories that are exploring themes and issues that are meaningful to people. That’s where we build those connections: with themes like climate crisis, loneliness, grief… There’s humour, poignancy, and sadness in these stories.
D. M.-K. – There’s one piece, MENTAL ABUSE MATTERS, which puts you in the shoes of the victim or the survivor as such. There’s also light hearted pieces with MIDNIGHT STORY, narrated by Miriam Margolyes – about an old woman sitting at a bus station, who finds a connection between pigeons and buses, the meaning that we look for in the random acts of life as they happen around us. The guiding thing is how people use the right tool in terms of the stories that they’re trying to tell, because that should be your starting point as a content creator or storyteller. What is the right format for me to most powerfully convey the story that I want to tell? I’m not sure all storytellers go through that process. They jump to the tech first and then they try to adapt the story around it. And we know how challenging this is!
D. M.-K. – On the other hand, most of the work in the industry will actually be seen by so few people. That is another motivation to launch the Belfast XR Festival. I want to show young people, in colleges and universities, that this kind of content is being created. If you’re on the festival circuit, you get to see it. But so many people aren’t. I think that’s so desperately sad, given the amount of investment and blood, sweat and tears that goes into each piece.
D. M.-K. – When we put the call out for submissions, we kept it fairly open. The only thing we said was we wanted strong storytelling because I didn’t want to limit people. We also selected 3 Northern Ireland pieces (MENTAL ABUSE MATTERS, TOTAL IMMERSION, A CONSTANT REMINDER), and that’s really important to show local audiences what there is, and to invite local talents.
D. M.-K. – This is the first edition. We’ve got 10 experiences, 16 headsets. They’re being booked in 75 minute slots. I’m doing as much as I can to pre-empt what the experience will be like for the audience and to make it as pleasant as possible. In my research in planning the festival, I asked a lot of questions about audience experience and audience journey in other festivals. I didn’t want people waiting a long time to try a lot of experiences. So very consciously all of the pieces are quite short. And what we’re doing is we are preloading all the headsets with all the experiences. So you come in, you’ll go to a table, you sit down. It’s almost like coming to dinner, and on the table is a menu with all the pieces. You choose what you want to watch. Part of our work is also to do an audience evaluation during the event.
D. M.-K. – I am already thinking about how I want to expand this and expand the experiences and the gaps that I see in Belfast in terms of XR. Next year’s festival will be very different to this year. It will feature XR, but I maybe want to expand it as well because it’s just so much other amazing content out there that’s not limited to headsets. It’s about screen based experiences and the new range of formats you see, the more ideas you get. And it’s about sharing things that I’ve been lucky enough to experience. We’ll keep love at the heart of it. That’s absolutely key.
Belfast XR Festival – Line-up
- Deep Dive (2020) Poland
- Alone Together (Family Rental Agency) (2022) Canada
- Genesis (2021) Germany
- Adult Children (2021) United Kingdom
- Midnight Story (2022) United Kingdom
- Total Immersion (2022) Ireland
- A Constant Reminder (2022) Ireland
- Mental Abuse Matters (2020) Ireland
- Rhythmanalysis+ (2022) United Kingdom
- Visiting James Simon (2022) Austria
“How Is XR Changing Storytelling?” / As part of the Belfast XR Festival we are hosting a panel discussion titled “How Is XR Changing Storytelling?” with such a talented line up of filmmakers Dee Harvey, Lucy Baxter, Vincent Kinnaird and Chaired by Professor Paul Moore on Wednesday 9th November, from 1-2pm in the Green Room, The Black Box, Hill Street, Belfast. Registration details
More about the event https://www.belfastxrfestival.com
More about Deepa https://www.deepamannkler.com
More about NEON, her production company https://www.discoverneon.com/work
