One of London’s annual XR events, the BFI London Film Festival’s LFF Expanded program, kicks off in a few days’ time (6-22 October 2023). 14 projects from around the world will be presented, showcasing a wide array of immersive art and extended reality filmmaking. The festival has announced a major new main venue for LFF Expanded this year, Bargehouse at OXO Tower Wharf and several projects will also be available to view for free on the Meta Store.
We sat down with curator Ulrich Schrauth, for our annual catch-up to talk all things LFF Expanded!
Cover: GHOST OF SOLID AIR, by Amy Rose
LFF Expanded: Curating for the London Film Festival
Ulrich Schrauth – Each year, when programming for BFI LFF Expanded, we have an open call for projects. This year we received around 150 project submissions. I then see all the works and discuss them with the festival’s artistic director, the other programmers and the event’s producers to make sure we present a programme that is at the cutting edge of immersive art and moving image, but also an integral part of the overall festival. In addition to he open call, I also see lots of fantastic works throughout the year that I can also integrate into our final line-up, but there’s always a desire to have a collective discussion about the type of artistic media presented at the BFI London Film Festival, and to present a homogeneous exhibition that represents the scope of today’s immersive scene.
U. S. – Overall we’re seeing an amazing increase in the quality of submissions – and all the better for it! A ceiling has definitely been broken this year in terms of ambition and narrative maturity in the sector, and several projects are already tackling AI. These new technologies take many forms and there are many ways of incorporating them, be it through machine learning, generative models, artist/AI collaborations or robotics. There’s no doubt that the impact of AI is going to be huge, and I’m looking with curiosity at how it can be incorporated into larger narratives.
Accessibility of the works for a main audience
U. S. – The important thing for me every year is to really consider the general public who come to discover this type of work at the festival. The BFI London Film Festival is not primarily an industry event, so we want to offer our audiences the widest possible variety of projects that have recently made their mark in the immersive industries. The quality has to be there, with a sense of the exceptional in terms of the creative tools used, the narrative, or the desire to propose exciting scenography (physical or virtual) in the use of space. There are no limits, as long as we’re talking about moving images or strong creative proposals!
U. S. – The pieces we present are mainly installations, designed for collective use. That’s why we put a lot of emphasis on accessibility and discovery. For example we only occupy 2 out of 4 floors of the magnificent Bargehouse building at Oxo Tower Wharf, mainly because the other floors didn’t have wheelchair access, and this is a key consideration for us. Furthermore, certain areas are designed with people with special access needs in mind. I feel it is essential that we consider these kinds of details. XR needs to be better shared, whether it’s virtual reality – where we provide headsets for the deaf or hearing impaired – or augmented reality. And we do our best to accommodate every audience member and are trying to create a space that is as inclusive as possible.
Access at the festival – Guidelines
XR: Innovation within creation?
U. S. – If we’re going to talk about innovation, I like to think it has to include the way we tell these new stories. It’s not just a question of technology! Take Karen Palmer’s CONSENSUS GENTIUM (awarded at last year’s SXSW) for example. It’s a BFI-funded project that needed to be discussed beyond its integration of artificial intelligence. The eye tracking and use of AI are enhanced by this, of course, but above all the themes discussed are relevant to a very wide audience, and current debates about our future as a society.
U. S. – THINGS FALL APART: A MUSICAL INSTALLATION IN MIXED REALITY by CyberRäuber is an immersive installation focusing on music, with the integration of AI interactions. Each viewer can see the others, and this forms a rather unique collective experience. This is a big trend that we’re exploring and it gives us the opportunity to offer a real rendez-vous that goes beyond a VR headset – and to fight against the idea that all this remains an individual hobby. We built our line-up with a real museum ambition, offering a dedicated space and a unique scenography, with no time limit for the public, and a desire to open up creative discussions.
U. S. – There are also a couple of totally free, outdoor augmented reality experiences to explore on your own mobile (FLEETING FIGURES and GHOSTS OF SOLID AIR), as well as a giant screen-based work (“MY TRIP 2023”), produced by Acute Art, which will be screened until the end of November at Europe’s biggest immersive venue, Outernet at Tottenham Court Road. We continue our partnership with Meta to offer two online documentary experiences on their store, 21-22 CHINA and LETTERS FROM DRANCY. GHOSTS OF SOLID AIR is a world premiere, produced by Anagram, which is a project developed in cooperation with underrepresented communities in London, about civil disobedience and our role in today’s crises. We’ll also have several live panel discussions, notably with Darren Emerson and Holocaust survivor, Marion Deichmann, for LETTERS FROM DRANCY.
BFI Film Festival – LFF Expanded 2023 (Line-Up)
- COLORED, Pierre-Alain Giraud, Stéphane Foenkinos, Tania de Montaigne
- THE FURY, Shirin Neshat
- LETTERS FROM DRANCY, Darren Emerson.
- MURALS, Alex Topaller, Daniel Shapiro, Artem Ivanenko
- CONSENSUS GENTIUM, Karen Palmer
- FORAGER, Winslow Porter, Elie Zananiri
- THE IMAGINARY FRIEND, Steye Hallema
- FLOW, Adriaan Lokman
- THINGS FALL APART: A MUSICAL INSTALLATION IN MIXED REALITY, CyberRäuber
- HAUNTED HOTEL – A MELODRAMA IN AUGMENTED REALITY, Guy Maddin
- MY TRIP 2023, Bjarne Melgaard
- GHOSTS OF SOLID AIR, Amy Rose
- FLEETING FIGURES, Åsa Cederqvist, Lundahl & Setil, Untold Garden, Pastelae, Oscar Häggström, SONG
- ELSEWHERE IN INDIA, Murthovic, Thiruda
