Back for its 7th edition, one of the world’s leading events 100% dedicated to immersive and digital creation reaffirms its dynamic position within a global network of festivals – and a year rich in French events. With a market of rare density (47 projects in development, 51 experiences on the distribution side), and a competition, the NewImages Festival offers a look at the current and future state of XR: decoding with Michele Ziegler for its third edition as event director.
NewImages Festival 2024 – A Line-Up
The NewImages Festival 2024: a packed program
Michele Ziegler – This year, the festival is hosting a wide variety of multi-user installations and experiences. This is a strong trend – along with more individual content, of course – which attests to the hybridization of formats. VR remains the preferred creative medium among the projects studied for the competition: we didn’t have many surprises in this register. With the new advances and buzz around the latest headsets, we were probably expecting more risk-taking in these new formats. There’s a real opportunity for originality in mixed and/or augmented reality… and we’re looking forward to seeing these projects presented to us! However, creative innovation for XR is more likely to be found in our XR Development Market, where designers will be able to put forward more original visions, for projects to come as early as 2025 or 2026.
MR. Z. – This is undoubtedly a consolidation phase for XR, where the “virtual reality” format is acquiring a form of artistic recognition. The possibilities are numerous, but the creative process is mature, the existing tools stable and the productions solid. In the range of experiences presented at NewImages Festival 2024, there are some great artistic proposals using VR. I hope to see a return to a form of experimentation for MR or AR, which also deserve their place in our line-up. Immersive remains a singular sector, where you have to surprise the viewer. And, ideally, to offer new levels of interaction and personalization of the experience.
MR. Z. – These trends are also changing our organization. We need to find more space (and budget, in a complex pre-Olympic context) to host these collective experiences. For the 2024 edition, we’ll be offering a temporary space under the canopy of the Forum des Halles to host COLORED (NOIRE), IN PURSUIT OF REPETITIVE BEATS, STAY ALIVE MY SON and others. And these works require additional square meters that we can’t free up in our usual venue – Le Forum des images – which will host the rest of the professional selection and our meetings with XR industry players. Of course, all this has been planned in advance to better manage the flow of visitors, while maintaining our priority mission to acculturate the public to all these cultural innovations (during the evenings and over the weekend, especially for students at TUMO Paris, the Forum des images’ school of digital creation, and for young audiences in general).
MR. Z. – The importance of immersive creation can be felt in the emotional potential of today’s works. For an event, it’s a real pleasure to offer experiences with high emotional value, like STAY ALIVE MY SON by Victoria Bousis, for example. The author of the book that inspired this experience, Pin Yathay, will be coming to Paris to discover it for the first time. It’s events like these that motivate us to do even more to promote the discovery of these unique experiences.
Two sessions will be open to professionals and the general public:
- COLORED (NOIRE) in the presence of Tania de Montaigne, Stéphane Foenkinos and Pierre-Alain Giraud – Wednesday, April 24 at 6:30pm in room 300 at the Forum des images
- STAY ALIVE MY SON in the presence of Pin Yathay and Victoria Bousis – Thursday, April 25 at 6:30pm in room 300 at the Forum des images
A dynamic XR ecosystem
M. Z. – At the same time, we’re seeing a number of co-productions, particularly in Europe, which tends to illustrate the strength of an international ecosystem – and real opportunities for financing in several countries. Collaborations with cultural venues are multiplying, confirming an underlying trend that is also seeing the emergence of some very fine projects with real popular success, such as Excurio ‘s immersive expeditions at the Musée d’Orsay and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, for example.
M. Z. – And it’s the real added value of an event like the NewImages Festival to be able to propose meetings, or even the beginnings of collaboration, between creators or studios, and cultural venues. The appetite in France for these new collective and immersive experiences enables us to attract an audience of professionals to the festival, and during our Industry Days in particular, to create new projects or identify trends between new technologies, innovative narratives and institutions dedicated to heritage or culture. We also keep a close eye on the ambitions of these networks and museums, through initiatives such as Unframed Collection.
The NewImages Festival, an international hub
M. Z. – My core business is innovation in the service of culture. With the Hub, the NewImages Festival and the Forum des images want to bring together the immersive world with more traditional players in the cultural and creative industries (CCI). Above all, we want to build bridges between cultural venues and creators, and develop spaces for discussion and exchange. We provide year-round support for all digital-related cultural industries, with in-house workshops, writing residencies and help with disseminating experiences. And finding new venues or partners where possible, notably in Europe and soon a residency in Paris. For this year, we are no longer working on the Villa Formose in Taiwan (the partnership has been renewed with the Centquatre-Paris), but are maintaining strong links with the Kaohsiung Film Archive. Apart from this, we are working on :
- Residence XR Farnese – Medici (Italy)
- Quito – Udla Immersive Residency (Ecuador)
- A residency project in Paris for authors from South America and Taiwan, co-organized with Universcience. In particular, we’ll be able to include public meetings during the prototyping phases.
- Initiatives to be announced in Canada and France, depending on future partners.
M. Z. – In our ongoing work, we’re talking a lot with other events and festivals to pool certain efforts and practices. I don’t want to see the other events as competitors, but as partners with whom we can join forces to continue raising the profile of content and creators. And perhaps clarify the year-round calendar for producers, according to the specificity of each festival or professional market.
And what about the market?
MR. Z. – We received more projects for the XR Development Market than last year. And from a wider range of companies, particularly in the live performance sector. This is an interesting point, as it tends towards the hybridization of techniques and narratives integrating XR technologies. What’s more, we’re seeing a real interest on the part of international professionals to come and meet the French ecosystem.
MR. Z. – The NewImages Festival also works to consolidate networks and open up the immersive experience to other cultural industries. In particular, we support libraries and media libraries with dedicated training courses during the festival, host the Futura Cinema initiative, which encourages discussions with producers and distributors of the 7th art, and organize a visit to the creative XR studios in Paris for foreign professionals a few days before the festival.
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