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FilmEU DOCTUS: Artistic Research in VR at Lusofona

The second FilmEU DOCTUS research seminar was dedicated to "Artistic Research in Virtual Reality” and took place in Lisbon at Lusófona University from 14 to 16 March 2023. For three days, 20 PhD students from the four institutions of the Filmeu consortium (Lusófona, LUCA, IADT and TLA) were invited to experience several VR art pieces and to prototype their research ideas with a technical-creative team.

This VR DOCTUS also allowed students to debate with VR creators (Azam Zadeh, Robbert&Frank and Davide Rapp) on a Zoom talk and to enjoy two VR masterclasses. While the first masterclass was a Gravity Sketch lesson taught by Gert Wastyn, the second one, by Lucas Dewulf, was an introduction to the wonderful world of Mozilla Hubs and its social and artistic possibilities. This interaction and sharing of expertise allowed new brainstorms for the research topics of four working groups: 3D calligraphy, expanded drawing, 360 poetry and Panorama du Congo VR.

This DOCTUS was also an opportunity to track common research interests and backgrounds and to plan future projects together. The event mastered the balance between practice-led and practice-based research while contributing to an efficient way to share knowledge and work collaboratively. The programme also included an inspiring talk by Thiago Leitão de Souza on the project ‘VR Panorama of Rio de Janeiro’ and allowed the participants to give their feedback on the VR pieces in a customized quest.

The VR pieces included in the seminar were:

  • Virtual Helsinki, by Jonathan Medina (2019);
  • Kinshasa Now, by Marc-Henri Wajnberg (2020);
  • Goliath, by Barry Gene Murphy (2020);
  • Darkening, by Ondřej Moravec (2021);
  • Glad that I Came, Not Sorry to Depart, by Azam Zadeh (2020)
  • Table Dialogues - Earth, by Robbert&Frank (2021)
  • Congo VR - Filmeu RIT (demo, 2023)

The DOCTUS Artistic Research in VR was organized by Wim Forceville (LUCA) and Lusofona’s PhD in Media Arts and Communication with the collaboration of Carolina Martins, Rita Carvalho and Célia Quico.

Next DOCTUS Seminars will take place in IADT (Dublin, Ireland) from 24th - 26th April and in BFM/ Tallinn University from 5th-7th May.

published 30 March 2023modified 18 April 2023