‘Nervous Systems’ is the theme of the 16th edition of DocLab, the section of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) dedicated to interactive art and storytelling, digital and XR programming.
An international jury will present several awards to works screening in two competitions, there is a one-day interactive conference debating different aspects of interactive and immersive storytelling, while the three-day IDFA DocLab Forum aims to match projects and creatives with partners and backers.
Caspar Sonnen, IDFA’s head of new media, talks to Screen about this year’s performances, screenings and live events.
What should we be excited about in this year’s edition?
The whole interactive and media space has been going through an enormous growth and at the same time an existential quest. We see this reflected in the programme. There are projects like the Bombina Bombast company’s Slumberland, an immersive theatre play where the audience comes together in Amsterdam in headsets to join performers who are performing “live” in Sweden.
That shared liminal space between digital and physical that we explored last year [in a Covid-affected edition], this is one of the projects that this has led to.
Another big project is Dean Emerson’s In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats [about late 80s rave culture in the UK] which is presented together with the Amsterdam Dance Event and the BFI London Film Festival. This will be its international premiere. This again is a project which really shows how virtual reality is maturing as a medium.
A couple of years ago, the big question around VR was is the content there? Is there enough artistic quality for this to become an art form in and of itself. This is just a real beautifully and well-told documentary story. To me, it’s an instant classic in VR. Darren is an artist not afraid of mixing different kinds of VR storytelling, which are very hard to combine. With this story, everything come together. It’s a deeply personal story for him about how rave culture emerged out of the post-Thatcher era, soccer hooligans united by drugs with Jamaican sound systems. It both works on a narrative level and, because of the sensory approach they take, it is deeply visceral and sensory.
What are the works being hosted in Amsterdam’s Artis-Planetarium?
It is part of the DocLab R&D programme where we are able to experiment with different exhibition formats. We are showing the world premiere of Maarten Isaäk de Heer’s Dancing With Dead Animals which we commissioned as part of the Doc Lab Interactive film fund brand. We’re also experimenting by taking Joeri Heegstra’s Horizon, a one -on- one immersive theatre experience and turning that into a collective version presented in the planetarium.
How easy is it to put together DocLab’s two competitions? Is the quality and number of submissions going up?
We can see a big expansion in immersive non-fiction and that’s why we have gone from 10 to 12 slots. It’s a competition where so many different formats come together. Physical installations that are not VR share the same slots with purely in-headset VR experiences as well as full dome experiences, immersive theatre and live performance.
With digital storytelling, you can see there are less web documentaries and interactive projects. A lot of that has moved to more immersive media, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
There is an incredible range of projects - some to do with gender and sexuality, some with politics and the environment, some with history and colonialism. What do you see as the main themes in this year’s selection?
The theme for this year, Nervous Systems, unites the two trends we see. One is toward more physical and sensory experiences and this coincides with the post-pandemic world. We’ve gone through this period of sensory deprivation where we discovered new forms of interacting with each other digitally or in hybrid forms. Our nervous system is put centrally in this experience.
At the same time, ‘nervous systems’ is wordplay on the systems around us. We are all individually connected to each other through economic systems, social systems, cultural systems. These systems are all in one way or another in a nervous state! I don’t think it’s a surprise there are projects around climate [like Amaury La Burthe and Landia Egal’s installation Okawari which explores the carbon footprint of medium like VR].
Thee a are also several projects confronting the issue of gender violence. Look at Fanni Fazakas’ Missing 10 Hours [an interactive piece about date rape] or Tessa Ratuszynska ’s With These Hands [which puts users in the place of people who’ve experienced sexual violence}.
What challenges are you facing at DocLab?
Right now, the model is broken. The pieces we put up for just 10 days at the festival are huge expenses. We would love to present them for a longer period.
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