4th Annual ‘TFI Interactive’ Brings the Future to Tribeca
The Tribeca Film Institute revealed its slate of key speakers for the 4th annual TFI Interactive (TFIi) forum, which takes place during the Tribeca Film Festival. The yearly event explores storytelling in the digital age, with insight from innovators from several fields. This year will also mark the return of the Interactive Playground, which debuted at TFI Interactive last year. 2015’s TFIi leads with a keynote from artist, director, and “body architect,” Lucy McRae, a classically trained ballerina & architect who will discuss the intersection of biology and technology in human bodies.
NPR: Ask Me Another‘s Ophira Eisenberg closes the day-long session with “Seven Digital Deadly Sins, Live”, an interactive experience presented by the IDFA DocLab. Also speaking is The Guardian’s Head of Documentaries Charlie Phillips, and the Director of NEW INC, a museum incubator for art, technology, and design, Julia Kaganskiy. The all-day event runs from 10:00am to 7:00pm at Spring Studios in New York City and is open to TFI-invited guests, TFF badge holders, Spring Pass and Day Pass holders, and TFI Members.
Check out the full TFI Interactive lineup below:
10.00 a.m. – Keynote: Training for Space
Lucy McRae, Science Fiction Artist, Director and Body Architect
Full of contagious energy Lucy takes audiences out of the their comfort zone. She articulates her relationship with the world using her own body as a mechanism for prototyping the future. And now she is training for space.
10.45 a.m. – The People’s Platform
Astra Taylor, Author and Filmmaker
Cultural commentator, filmmaker and author Astra Taylor, brings us a debate on the place of the web as a democratizing force. The Internet is said to be a space of democratic expression, both culturally and politically. This talk will examine and challenge that claim through the lenses of documentary filmmaking and activism, making the case that in order to take advantage of the democratic potential of the net we first need to be more critical about its failings.
11.00 a.m. – Using Interactive Art to Nurture the Commons
Kawandeep Virdee, Co-Founder of New American Public Art, Head of Product at Embedly
Interactive and collaborative works can bring people together and make places more welcoming – both in digital and physical space. This collective medium has the power to cultivate a multitude of narratives to create personally meaningful experiences.
11.10 a.m. – Do Not Track
Brett Gaylor, Director, Do Not Track
Brett Gaylor is watching you – Do Not Track, also presenting at Storyscapes, takes you on a journey where you are as much the subject as the viewer. In this online series users are tracked in real time as they experience the narrative.
11.20 a.m. – The Rules of Our Digital Culture
Andrew Golis, Founder and CEO of This.
Andrew talks about how social media companies set the rules in our digital culture and how he is trying to rewrite those rules with This., a website that, according to The New York Times, has users “clamoring for an invite.”
11.30 a. m. – Read all about it? The future of The Guardian in video and words
Charlie Phillips, Head of Documentaries, The Guardian
The Guardian is expanding. Already the second most-visited English-Language newspaper website in the world, what is The Guardian hoping to achieve and how is going to build and maintain an audience who may still think of it as a written news source to be visited briefly when big stories break? What does this mean for the future of the newspaper, and just as importantly, what does this mean for the factual media-maker? The Guardian’s Head of Documentaries will explain the organization’s current plans and map out where the digital future lies for organizations like The Guardian.
11.45 a.m. – A Campfire for the World: Doodles and Delight
Ryan Germick, Team Lead, Google Doodles
It’s a talk about Google Doodles. Need we say more?
12.00 p.m. – True Stories Told Sideways
Amy Rose & May Abdalla, ANAGRAM
Amy and May, the creators behind Door Into The Dark, will talk about creating a feeling of being lost through built environments and how they push all of our senses to create a truly immersive experience. They will also be presenting at Storyscapes, created in collaboration with BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin, the third annual complimentary showcase of interactive installations and a variety of experiential programs covering a range of tech disciplines, from virtual reality to hacking.
12.10 p.m. – The Long View
Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill, Directors, Jongsma + O’Neill
New storytelling technologies appear every day, but great projects take years to create. Directors Kel O’Neill and Eline Jongsma talk about the four-year, ten-country journey behind their interactive documentary Empire and discuss the virtues and curses of working with cutting-edge technology.
12.30 p. m. – AT&T Hack Challenge Presentation: helloWorld
John Benton, Director, Animesh Anand, Lead Developer, Robert Ooghe, Interactive Producer
A special presentation from a month-long AT&T supported hack to create a mobile driven interactive story experience. helloWorld is a beacon-based interactive story involving hackers, surveillance and a complicated father-daughter relationship. See the prototype and hear how they did it.
12.45 p.m. – TFI New Media Fund Project Showcase Part 1
The TFI New Media Fund, supported by the Ford Foundation, funds interactive non-fiction projects around social issues. Presenting projects; Priya’s Shakti – Ram Devineni, Whiteness Project – Whitney Dow, and Quipu Project – Maria Court.
1.00 p.m. – {The And} presented by IDFA DocLab
Created by The Skin Deep: Topaz Adizes, Director and Nathan Phillips, Creative Director
Special interactive documentary screening. Introduced by Caspar Sonnen, IDFA DocLab, {The And} is an interactive experience that places viewers in the the intimate space between couples.
1.30 – 2.30 p.m. LUNCH
2.30 p.m. – TFI New Media Fund Project Showcase Part 2
The TFI New Media Fund, supported by the Ford Foundation, funds interactive non-fiction projects around social issues. Presenting projects; Notes on Blindness – Arnaud Colinart, This Changes Everything – Katie McKenna and Mike Robbins, and Oakland Fence Project – Wendy Levy
2.50 p.m. – The Right Tools
Jessica Clark, Director, Dot Connector Studio
Looking at the right tools for strategizing around media with impact – a look at the Interactive Media Impact Working Group and the tools that are being developed to support creators in this field.
3.00 p.m. – NYC to Tehran
Amar C. Bakshi, Founder & Lead Artist, Shared_Studios
Amar will discuss the work of Shared_Studios, a multidisciplinary arts, design and technology collective focused on carving wormholes throughout the world. In particular, he’ll describe how the group seeks to ground the connective potential of new technology in physical spaces to create more accessible, secure, and sacred encounters between diverse populations – from NYC to Tehran.
3.10 p.m. – See, Hear – Act?
Sam Gregory, Program Director, WITNESS
How do we use live and immersive video to drive empathetic real-time connection and co-presence with people in crisis? How could distant witnesses use their skills, networks and collective leverage to the maximum effect, and translate feeling and experience into relevant, real-time actions in solidarity and support?
3.30 p.m. – You and me as data points
Lam Thuy Vo, Interactive Editor, Al Jazeera America
Lam Thuy Vo has been creating delightful, surprising and moving experiences through data. Data sets can seem like sterile and clinical starting points for finding stories. But there’s a way to find a range of human experiences within data sets, to find the individual behind the data point and to explore storytelling that connects the far with the near view.
3.50 p.m. – Life Coaching
Matt Adams, Artist, Blast Theory
Karen is a life-coach app that wants to get to know you a little too well. Blast Theory’s project, also presenting at Storyscapes, looks at our relationship with data and technology.
4.00 p.m. – Why a Game?
Ryan Green & Josh Larson, Co-Creators, Numinous Games
If books are for telling, and films are for showing, and games are for playing, what is the medium for being? And should it matter to us? Join us as we explore videogames, narrative, and the development of That Dragon, Cancer, a videogame about loving Joel, a boy with cancer.
4.20 p.m. – Incubating The Arts
Julia Kaganskiy, Director, NEW INC.
As head of the first museum lead incubator for art, technology and design, Julia looks at how to support artists and creative entrepreneurs and create a vibrant environment for good things to happen.
4.30 p.m. – Your Experience Is the Documentary
Ida C. Benedetto, Co-Founder & Experience Designer, Sextantworks
Experience design can be used to sell products, make websites more enjoyable, or usher people into fictional worlds. But what about using experience design as a documentary art? Ida will share anecdotes from designing analogy games and trespass adventures that evoked reality in surprising ways.
4.40 p.m. – Empathy and Virtual Reality
BeAnotherLab
BeAnotherLab are presenting their Machine To Be Another in this year’s Storyscapes, a unique virtual reality experience and performance. They take the stage to interrogate what it means to understand others.
4.50 p.m. – Seven Digital Deadly Sins, Live presented by IDFA DocLab
National Film Board of Canada/The Guardian/Jam3 and Ophira Eisenberg, Host – Ask Me Another, NPR
A special interactive event to close out the day. Test your limits. Live. As we push the boundaries of your internet etiquette in a way that is humorous, ethical and very entertaining.
5.30 – 7.00 p.m – Reception presented by AT&T