For the second time after 2019, 6 artists came together to work together for a week on an art project using AR and VR. The creative people came from the neighbourhood (Beate Gärtner and Jan Schulten), from other parts of Germany (Lena Biresch, Ilja Mirski, Kathi Schulz) and from the near abroad (Lucas Dewulf from Gent, Belgium). But it is not only geographically that the artists had different origins – their creative approaches also differ. The influences range from dramaturgy to sound design, from directing to visual arts, from classical media art to immersive storytelling. On the Sunday before the Places _ VR Festival, the 6 actors met for the first time in their working laboratory for this week, the Subversiv on Bochumer Straße.

Lena Biresch

Theatre director from Hamburg
lenabiresch.de

Lucas Dewulf

Nearly Norman
Creative technologist and immersive storyteller from Ghent, Belgium
nearly-norman.com

Beate Gärtner

Media artist from Essen
beategaertner.com

Ilja Mirsky

Dramatic advisor from Tübingen
kollektivmosaik.com

Jan Schulten

Sound designer from Essen
schultenmedia.de

Kathi Schulz

Artist from Düsseldorf
kathischulz.com

The social VR performance detached deals with the boundaries of digital and analog worlds, control and voyerism. During the three-minute performance, visitors can control the performers in a video game like setting. The commands from the visitors are implemented by the performers through their avatars in VR. The VR space in which the avatars act can be seen on a live stream projection.

Impressionen

In Fridays evening’s livestream, artist Kathi Schulz was the guest of the artists’ flat-sharing community in an interview with festival director Matthias Krentzek. She talks about the life of the group, the creative process and her VR art performance entitled “DE TACHED”.

Jurymitglieder

Daniela Berglehn is head of the cultural funding department and curator of the VISIT program at the innogy Foundation for Energy and Society.

Denise Gühnemann loves games since her childhood and King’s Quest IV. Accordingly, she has been working in the field of games and media education since 2012, currently at the Institute for Media Research and Media Education of the Technical University of Cologne.

Daniel Hengst is a Berlin based media artist. For his achievements in this field he received the Dr. Otto-Kasten-Prize in 2014. In 2019 Daniel Hengst himself was part of Creative _ Places as an artist himself.

Claudia Jericho is head of the office of Creative.NRW. For 25 years, business economist Claudia Jericho has been working between, for and with culture and (creative) industry.

Krischan Jan-Eric Wesenberg is an internationally active musician and producer from Gelsenkirchen. Besides his own band projects like “Roter Sand” or “Wesenberg” he produces international music acts in his local “Studio 600”.