Welcome back, CPH:LAB! After following closely the 2022-2023 edition, we couldn’t *not* talk again about the talent development programme of CPH:DOX, which “encourages creative risk taking, celebrates raw talent, facilitates collaboration across borders and business sectors and supports visionaries to push the existing boundaries of documentary filmmaking.”
With the new edition of CPH:DOX InterActive, curated by Mark Atkin and kicking off next March 13, we will find out more about the content and ideas behind the nine immersive works selected for the 2023-2024 edition of the LAB.
For now, we met with the team that has been working on the programme over the past few months to find out more about how it is built, the opportunities it offers the selected artists, and the approach to creation, talent, and innovation that characterizes them.
Here’s what Maïwenn Blunat, CPH:LAB and Interactive exhibition Manager, told us.
Cover: FULLY AUTOMATED CONTACT ZONE, Miriam Simun / Switzerland, United States, Ukraine, Mexico
The 2024 edition of a LAB that once again acts as a link between creative minds
Maïwenn: For the 2024 CPH:LAB we used the same structure as last year: projects will be presented to the public on the day of the Symposium and during an event dedicated specifically to the prototypes developed during the LAB. On the following days, the teams and potential collaborators meet for a more intimate and direct conversation to deepen the essence of the projects. This is also why internally we try to make the Lab and the Festival closer. Already we have been trying to find synergies between the artists present at CPH:DOX and those who take part in CPH:LAB: we want to bring them together, to create “sparks” between all those creative minds.
I think that’s our overall perspective, which is also somewhat reflected in the nine projects selected for the workshop. The idea is still to have a fairly diverse cohort, but made up of people who complement each other in some way. In October we held the first residential workshop: for a week the teams came to Copenhagen, met with our mentors and worked on different topics. For example, worldbuilding, audience, how to build specific aspects of their projects. So it’s not just an ideation phase, but a real development phase where they build a very solid foundation for the work they have in mind. This way, after the online sessions of the LAB and the festival, they will be able to grow and capitalize on this solid foundation that they have already developed during the early stages of the Lab.
At the same time, another key element of the first residential workshop is to get our participants to interact with each other, especially considering the diversity of profiles they present. For that reason, we encouraged peer-to-peer reviews during the workshop, which is something that will continue online until the festival, so that in addition to talking to mentors, they can also confront each other and cross-check their progresses, where they are going, what their weaknesses are, what’s good about their work.
Also, all of our participants have different experience in different areas, so they can really give valuable feedback to those who don’t specialize in that same area. That’s also why we often aim to have Lab participants return in the form of mentors in the following years, and that’s the case again in 2024. This year we also had previous mentors that came as participants. In fact, we believe that being a LAB participant does not make you an emergent maker, it makes you a collaborative and curious individual. You may have less experience in one area, but a different knowledge of others, and that is precisely why your contribution at the discussion table is crucial!
Evolving with the evolution of storytelling
Maïwenn: The global approach I mentioned is for the teams and the participants, but it also regards the festival itself, with the different immersive events we have organized. This way we can create something bigger and contribute to the industry in general. We want to explore different forms of storytelling and really ask ourselves where we are going, if it makes sense to go in that direction, what our next steps will be.
We believe that being a LAB participant does not make you an emergent maker, it makes you a collaborative and curious individual.
– Maïwenn Blunat
For example, within the festival we have a big focus on young people, and we are trying to reach new audiences. We have to ask ourselves how to do that, what is the way they consume immersive media, what attracts them to documentary. Because at the end of the day that’s what we are: a documentary festival. The purpose of our immersive and interactive offering is still to stay within the scope of documentary, but also to figure out where to push immersive media. It doesn’t make sense to stay locked in the same box all the time.
Until a few years ago we had a VR cinema, with nice chairs and nice headsets, then we moved on to something else and have continued to evolve over the years. I think that’s part of the festival, not taking things for granted, especially in these technological areas where things are evolving so fast!
We have a lot of ideas within the production as well, such as how we want to present works and events, how to manage the spaces and the facilities as well, the workshop, the festival as a whole and how to make it more media-oriented or more contemporary of the digital age.
Structuring the laboratory experience at CPH:LAB
Maïwenn: We can divide the workshop into three phases. The first phase lasts for one week and takes place in Copenhagen, where all participants and mentors physically move to. Then, from November to February, we find new mentors for sessions that take place online. The mentors for phase one are experts in a more general sense, because they have to speak to all the teams and not specifically to each individual team. They change with each section so that our teams can also consider, for example, the contrast between mentors’ views or between the feedback they receive.
Then, in the second part of the LAB, we assign individual mentors to our teams that correspond more to the scope of the project, so that they can engage more directly with someone who is an expert in that specific area and can help them in their growth in that domain. If their project is more theatrical, we will try to find someone who has more experience in that area.
An example relates to a work on Greenland and indigenous peoples that was developed during the LAB: Mark (a/n Atkin, curator of the Inter:Active programme and the Head of Studies of CPH:LAB) felt it was important to find a mentor who had an indigenous background, so that they could better understand the project and provide appropriate guidance, considering the echo that this would also have within the work the team was developing. So, we try to find a mentor who matches the needs of the team as closely as possible, and once that is done, we start the online sessions, which, after our introduction, the teams run independently and flexibly, but always able to rely on our mediation.
At the same time, every two weeks, we have peer-to-peer sessions: we have breakout rooms, and people brainstorm about their projects, and we offer ourselves as guides, offering suggestions, for example, on how to approach confrontation with other teams. But then we leave autonomy in managing the flow of ideas. We arrange all this, leaving of course the possibility for teams to reschedule meetings in case the agendas do not match.
We want to explore different forms of storytelling and really ask ourselves where we are going, if it makes sense to go in that direction, what our next steps will be.
– Maïwenn Blunat
In-person discussion, online discussion
Maïwenn: The physical presence guaranteed by the first week of the workshop remains the most valuable thing: this year some members of the same team met physically for the first time only in Copenhagen! Until then they had only seen each other online, even though they may have lived in the same city.
Undoubtedly the workshop is a time when they can finally focus fully on the projects, think about things they didn’t have time to discuss before because they were caught up in all the other work they are doing. And as much as the idea for the project arrives at the LAB already partly formed, the confrontation even among members of the same team sometimes leads to radical changes. So the workshop is certainly a good time, where people are like in a bubble and can devote themselves only to that for a few days.
But of course, the online meetings are a bit more flexible and adaptable to their schedule. Still, there is the awareness that the project will have to be presented at the festival, at the Symposium, and therefore that there is a deadline to meet. This is definitely an important element that pushes teams to engage even virtually.
In this regard, already in the early stages of the LAB the teams have to go through a soft pitch among experts from the Copenhagen scene – something simple, nothing compared to the festival’s one, but it is a first deadline that already gives us an idea of how the teams approach the public presentation (who is very stressed, who lives it in a relaxed way, etc.) and that this year we supported with a seminar focused more on the presentation aspects of their work.
The days of the festival are very intense and there is not much space in that context to devote to presentation so we like to play in advance, to be sure we provide them with everything they need.
On the 9 immersive projects of 2024 CPH:LAB
Maïwenn: Applications can be submitted starting in May. Then, the CPH:LAB team with the creative director reviews the submissions received while also doing some scouting to make sure we have some variety in the works we invite. We also operate with international partners on this aspect. Onassis ONX Studio in New York is one of them, which we draw on for projects. Our partnership involves no obligation for selection, which gives us great freedom but also a nice batch of projects to evaluate.
The final selection is nine projects, and this year we are lucky enough to include three excellent Danish ones. This makes us particularly proud because, although the selection depends strictly on quality and so it may not be repeated every year, we would also very much like to be a place where we can present works of Danish origin and, on a broader level, become a meeting point during the year for the different companies in Denmark working in the field of immersive technologies. This is a goal we are trying to achieve. In this way the CPH:LAB could strengthen the Danish ecosystem within the country, but also in Europe and around the world.
Another aspect that is not often discussed when speaking about workshops is the importance of good synergy between the different participants. In short, it is crucial that those who are involved are able to be team players, and we don’t know that for sure until the teams arrive in Copenhagen. Are they going to spark or stall? I think it’s a really good challenge, to see how in one week in the same bubble you share struggles, external and internal, and make connections. In my opinion, it’s important to think about that as well in terms of creating interest in young audiences.
Looking at this year’s selection, some of the immersive projects deal with historical aspects or touch on identity, but in a rather contemporary way. Identity is at the center of the discussion in many ways, indeed: identity as background, contextualized in the history of a specific country, gender identity. The importance of reconnecting with oneself in different ways is highlighted in several projects: through nature, through the past, through family or through your personal history. We have some projects that echo this and take a lot of personal elements to make the piece stronger. The feeling is that many of the works have this strong personal component and it’s something that really moves you.
The presence of artificial intelligence
Maïwenn: Some projects work with artificial intelligence, but we have one in which it is the main focus. Last Evolution, by Petr Salaba, starting with evolution studies reflects on what AI can do or, more generally, on biases related to AI. It is a difficult topic that required a lot from the team. Trying to make it more understandable for everyone is the main goal but also the main difficulty of these kinds of projects, which often have a very technical or very intellectual approach, and from this point of view the workshops proved very useful.
The role of a festival and a LAB in the distribution context
For the more immersive projects, we often wonder how to present them, exhibit them, offer them a space to be seen […] This reflection is central for us right now […] the direction in which we should move to provide support to our teams from a distribution point of view as well.
– Maïwenn Blunat
Maïwenn: There is a lot that a festival and workshop like ours has to offer, like finding partners for production and -very important-finding partners for distribution. We obviously have some experience in traditional documentary films. For the more immersive projects, we often wonder how to present them, exhibit them, offer them a space to be seen, but most importantly how to support their distribution, which follows completely different circuits from that of traditional documentaries. Who to connect them to for distribution? What model do they wish to follow? There are so many possibilities, including in terms of where to showcase their project after our event. This reflection is central for us right now, to understand the role that we ourselves occupy and the direction in which we should move to provide support to our teams from a distribution point of view as well.
It is true that we can make art for the sake of making art, and that everyone, when developing a project, has a different goal. But everyone, I believe, wants to be seen, even if only for the love of art, so that’s something you can’t take out of the equation. It’s important to focus on it. It all comes back to finding your audience… and maybe finding a new audience! This is also why we have decided to conclude the LAB, after the Symposium and the one-to-one discussions, with a round table to which we have invited our participants, moderators, etc.: it will be a place for discussion, the themes of which we are defining right now.
The Road Goes Ever On: the projects after the CPH:LAB
Maïwenn: At the end of the LAB we try to get specific feedback with a survey for our participants, our mentors and the people we invite, to make sure we don’t have blind spots in what we do. We really want our LAB to bring the most value for everyone! At the same time, we try to follow the production process of the projects submitted to the LAB as closely as possible. How is production and post-production going on? When will the works debut and where? Have they secured additional funding? This is first-hand information that we also have to keep track of to make sure that the work we do at CPH:LAB is good.
And indeed, seeing that a work is successful couldn’t make us happier! And so sometimes we close the circle at the next years’ edition of CPH:DOX by inviting works that were started during the workshop into the immersive lineup. Last year we hosted Lauren Moffat who had been a workshop participant the previous year. We will see this year! No spoilers for now…
Our articles on 2022-2023 CPH:LAB can be found at these links:
CPH:Lab 2023: ZEDNA, UNSTABLE EVIDENCE, SLIPSTREAMING (part 1)
CPH:Lab 2023: COLLATERAL ECHOES VR, THE FOREST THAT BREATHES US, DIPLOMATIC REBEL (part 2)
CPH:Lab 2023: NËPP NËPPËL, GHOST GENES, BABEL (part 3)
Learn more about the new edition and the selected projects on the CPH:DOX website and stay tuned with us… XRMust will be back to talk about what is happening in Copenhagen very soon…
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