BELLYFEEL & LEEDS SCHOOL OF ARTS IN PARTNERSHIP
WITH LEEDS ARTS RESEARCH CENTRE PRESENT:
CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
SAM BARLOW
TALK:
Destroying Movies and TV to Build Something Better
With the advent of digital technologies, Movies and TV have remained largely unchanged, still conforming to the same containers that 20th Century’s broadcast media necessitated. Sam Barlow will talk about how he is using the tools of videogames to first deconstruct, and then rebuild live action storytelling for the 21st Century.
3.50pm 26th April 2023
BIO:
Award winning writer and director of games – Immortality, Her Story and Silent Hill.
Sam Barlow is the founder of Half Mermaid Productions and a director and writer of games that push the boundaries of interactive narrative. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories psychologically profiled its own players; Her Story reinvented the detective genre for the YouTube generation, and Telling Lies explored the conflict between government and intimacy via lives lived over video calls. His most ambitious project yet is IMMORTALITY, a horror story about 20th Century filmmaking, art and death.
CHELLA RAMANAN
TALK:
In Conversation
Chella Ramanan will be in conversation about how she approaches her work as a writer and narrative designer in the creation of the BAFTA-nominated narrative game "Before I Forget" and the upcoming "Windrush Tales".
1.10pm 26th April 2023
BIO:
Co-founder of 3-Fold Games and narrative designer at Ubisoft Massive.
Chella Ramanan is the co-founder of 3-Fold Games, the studio behind the BAFTA-nominated indie game 'Before I Forget'. She is currently a narrative designer at Ubisoft Massive, in Sweden. Chella is committed to telling stories that elevate marginalised perspectives and challenge the accepted default. She is also co-founder of POC in Play, an organisation dedicated to the inclusion and representation of people of colour in the videogames industry. Her achievements include Gameindustry.biz 100, Evening Standard Influential Londoner, BAFTA Breakthrough and GDA Future Class.
NEIL BELL
TALK:
Acting Up for Unusual Screens
Neil will reveal how he approaches his craft – especially in regard to interactive film - showing some recent work on the mobile FMV game “Clive is a Good Guy” and discussing acting for truth, where he digs deep to find his characters and what works when playing multiple characters.
12.10pm 26th April 2023
BIO:
Actor, writer and director – Dune, Star Wars: Andor and Dead Man’s Shoes.
An actor and performance poet born in Oldham, Lancashire UK in 1970. Raised in the Mancunian suburb of Failsworth and resident in Manchester UK. Neil became a professional actor and poet in the year 2000.
JUDITH ASTON
TALK:
Interactive documentary: steps towards embracing complexity
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking” Albert Einstein.
In this talk, I will argue that interactive documentary can help us to develop our skills in systems thinking. This is an approach that is multi-perspectival and that, in contrast to linear thinking, can help us to better embrace complexity. This is what lies at the core of my work with interactive documentary and is what has motivated me to keep developing and exploring the field since establishing i-Docs (i-Docs.org) in 2011. I will illustrate this through my ongoing work as a Convenor of the Polyphonic Documentary Project in which, together with a group of i-Docs colleagues from around the world, I am exploring the application of interactive documentary thinking to messy and ‘wicked problems’. Our focus is on climate emergency and ideological polarisation, and the current theme through which we are exploring this is ‘extreme heat’.
12.30pm 26th April 2023
BIO:
Co-founder of i-Docs, a research network exploring interactive and immersive documentary.
I spent the first eight years of my working life developing pioneering film and creative technology projects in the UK's fledgling interactive and immersive media sectors. Based in Cambridge, I worked on projects with the University, Apple Computing, the BBC, Cambridge Multimedia, Eye Film and Television and Virgin Publishing.
NICK TANDAVANITJ
TALK:
You Start It
Blast Theory make interactive art to explore social and political questions. The group’s work places the public at the centre of unusual and sometimes unsettling experiences, to create new perspectives and open up the possibility of change.
Nick Tandavanitj will explain Blast Theory’s strategies for structuring audience interaction and participation, using examples from projects created at the Venice Biennale, at the Luminato Festival in Toronto and in Philadelphia.
3.10pm 26th April 2023
BIO:
Artist at Blast Theory, making interactive art to explore social and political questions.
Nick Tandavanitj is as a core member of the interactive art group Blast Theory; collaborating in the development and realisation of the group’s interactive projects, performances and installations over the last 30 years. In this time, Nick has focused on creative approaches to computing; contributing to the group’s unique mix of skills in structuring interactivity and narrative. This has led to particular skills in technical design & programming, visual & interaction design for mobile and web based artwork and 3D design and animation.
DR ALEXANDER KELLY
TALK:
The Inspiration Exchange
Throughout the day Alex will be engaging members of the conference audience and general public in conversation, swapping stories of inspirational ideas and curating a shared oral archive of stories and ideas. Then in this talk he will reveal the ‘story of the day’ created at the conference, and reflect on the process and history of the Exchange.
2.30pm 26th April 2023
BIO:
Artistic Director at Third Angel, makers of extraordinary performance since 1995
Alexander Kelly is Co-Artistic Director of the Sheffield-based theatre company Third Angel, with whom he devises, directs, writes, designs and performs. The company makes a range of work connecting the territories of theatre, games, conversation, live art, installation, film, video, photography and digital & online media. After 28 years of making internationally acclaimed performance and participation projects, Third Angel will hang up its wings this summer.
