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Conversations · NEW INC
Bodies in Space: Storytelling and the Moving Image in Extended Reality
Presented by ONX Studio — a NEW INC & Onassis project
Cover Image:
ONX Studio. Photo Credit: Connie Zhou
Representing New Museum’s long commitment to the art and tech space, the recently-launched ONX Studio is a unique collaboration between the Onassis Foundation and New Museum’s NEW INC. ONX Studio is an accelerator, a subsidized production studio and workspace, and an exhibition gallery located in the Onassis Gallery of Olympic Tower in Midtown Manhattan.
“Bodies in Space: Storytelling and the Moving Image in Extended Reality” features moderator Loren Hammonds, Senior Programmer at Tribeca Film Festival, in conversation with two artists – Stephanie Dinkins and Loukia Alavanou – whose practices embrace impactful storytelling through VR, AR and experiential design. The talk will center on the exciting approaches in which these new media formats can be combined with the familiar tools of narrative, context, and point of view to tell stories in new ways. This public program takes place during the run of Sundance Film Festival (January 28-February 3). Sundance’s New Frontier selections include Dinkin’s immersive experience Secret Garden which will premiere at ONX Studio. Ticket information here.
A recording of this conversation is available here.
Loukia Alavanou is a Greek visual artist who has been working with film and exhibiting her work internationally for over a decade. For biographical reasons, Alavanou’s art practice may relate to certain elements of British film history, past and present, but it is also indebted to other places, notably Greece, and Latin America. This situational vagueness – a welcome antidote to the vaunted site-specificity – is a driving force for Alavanou; Her collage-like films refer to places both real (Greece, England) and imaginary (cartoons, cinema), yet dwell in atopological dark spaces: ruins, post-capitalist wastelands, gold mines and the dark rooms of photography and cinema. Loukia Alavanou is the winner of the 5th Deste Prize. In 2018 Alavanou held a retrospective exhibition at State of Concept, Athens. Her film “On the Way to Colonus” (co-produced by Onassis Culture, 2020), was shot at a Romani settlement located in toxic wasteland in Western Athens and is the first VR360 film ever produced in Greece.
Stephanie Dinkins is a transmedia artist and professor at Stony Brook University where she holds the Kusama Endowed Chair in Art. She creates platforms for dialog about artificial intelligence (AI) as it intersects race, gender, aging, and our future histories. She is particularly driven to work with communities of color to co-create more equitable, values grounded artificial intelligent ecosystems. Dinkins’ art practice employs lens-based practices, emerging technologies, and community engagement to confront questions of bias in AI, data sovereignty and social equity. Investigations into the contradictory histories, traditions, knowledge bases, and philosophies that form/in-form society at large underpin her thought and art production.
The New York Times featured Dinkins in its pages as an AI influencer. Apple Inc recognized Dinkins’ research and community-centered efforts by featuring her as a local hero in their “Behind the Mac” ad campaign (Brooklyn, NY edition). Commissioned by Nokia Bell Labs and supported by the Onassis Foundation, Dinkins Secret Garden will be presented as part of 2021 Sundance Film Festival New Frontier.
Loren Hammonds is a NYC native who has worked in the film & entertainment industry for over 20 years. He is the Senior Programmer of Film and Immersive at Tribeca Film Festival. He has worked extensively in Film & TV production, as well as in various curatorial roles for IFP, Tribeca All-Access, Hamptons International Film Festival, and Bogota Independent Film Festival (IndieBo). As the head of Immersive programming at Tribeca, he oversees the curation of the Virtual Arcade, which has been called “one of the world’s greatest showcases of VR art, installations and storytelling” (Forbes) and “a go-to place for creators to premiere new work” (Los Angeles Times).
Sponsors
Presented by ONX Studio, a joint initiative of Onassis Foundation and NEW INC.
New Museum Digital Initiatives are generously supported by Hermine and David B. Heller.
Support for Education and Public Engagement programs is provided, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund; and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.