Acknowledgement of Country

Electric Dreams is a 1 day conference investigating and celebrating of the art of immersive storytelling. The program will feature sessions from leading artists and creative technologists whose work is presented at Adelaide Fringe, as well as a keynote by Vince Kadlubek, co-founder & CEO of Meow Wolf, an award-winning immersive arts production company in the US. If you’re an artist or technologist, a film-maker or performer, a programmer or curator, Electric Dreams is for you. It’s for people who want to keep on top of the creative and commercial opportunities of emerging technologies. It’s for people who want to shape society, encourage debate and connect with audiences in new ways.
Speakers include:

9:00 – John Hopkins, Co-Founder, Celestial; Heather Croall, CEO & Artistic Director, Adelaide Fringe; Nancy Bates, Soundtrack supervisor & musician. Deadly Management.
Celestial is an artist-led drone display company that creates immersive experiences & innovative installations through LED storytelling. Over the last year, Celestial have collaborated with First Nations Artists to create Sky Song for Adelaide Fringe.  It is an astounding work, featuring hundreds of drones flying in majestic formation to a soundtrack of First Nations storytelling through poetry and song.
A panel featuring some of the collaborators behind Sky Song talk about the making of this incredible project and how it was created from inception to delivery.  John is the co-founder of Celestial and has been a key creative on Sky Song. Nancy Bates is a Barkindji Woman, originating from Far Western NSW, and now residing on Kaurna Country in Adelaide. Nancy is an accomplished singer songwriter and has been the soundtrack supervisor on Sky Song.
(Sky Song will be presented at the Adelaide Fringe from 18 Feb – 20 March)

10:00 – Blast Theory: Nick Tandavanitj in conversation with Thara Krishnapillay, Curator, ACMI
Blast Theory are an award-winning studio who have been making interactive art to explore social and political questions since 1991.  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. The group draw on popular culture and new technologies to make performances, games, films, apps and installations for the likes of the Venice Biennale, Tribeca Film Festival, ICC in Tokyo, Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, the Barbican, Tate Britain, Sundance Film Festival and the Royal Opera House.
Rider Spoke is an interactive project for cyclists that has toured to over 20 cities is returning to Adelaide Fringe this year. The work continues the Blast Theory’s fascination with how games and new communication technologies create novel social spaces where the private and the public intertwine. Blast Theory artist, Nick Tandavanitj, will talk about the development of the project and their approach to making work in digital public spaces.
(Rider Spoke will be presented at the Adelaide Fringe from 18-22 Feb)

10:30 – May Abdalla, Immersive Experience Creator, Anagram
May Abdalla is a co-founder of Anagram, an award-winning creative studio specialising in creating thought-provoking interactive storytelling and immersive experiences. Their work uses innovative technologies and physical presence to entangle their audience with a place and create intimacy with their characters and stories. May’s most recent project ‘Goliath: Playing with Reality’ won the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Work at the Venice International Film Festival.
May will track Anagram’s development of award winning productions from Door into the Dark, a blindfolded immersive journey into what it means to be lost in an age of infinite information to Goliath, their most recent work, a stunning VR experience about schizophrenia, gaming and connection. She will share her learnings on how technology, physicality and storytelling can combine to elicit emotion and connection.
(Goliath: Playing with Reality will be presented as part of Electric Dreams from 19-23 Feb)

12:00 – Jamie Perera, Arist & Musician
Jamie Perera uses sound to deconstruct objects and data in ways that create provoking experiences for listeners. He works at the intersection of sound art and human impact issues such as climate change, social justice and decolonisation. He is the first artist to sonify the Holocene with the score “Anthropocene In C Major”, an immersive experience of human impact on earth, felt through a live performance that turns data into sound. Jamie will discuss his journey through the Anthropocene, and how data led him to a path of awareness, deconstruction and hope with our shared crises of climate, colonialism and social justice.
(Anthropocene in C Major will be presented as part of Electric Dreams from 19-23 Feb)

14:30 – Brendan Walker, Director, StudioGoGo
Studio Go Go create interactive VR rides and experiences that propel existing mechanical fairground rides and playground equipment into whole new dimensions. As a former British Aerospace aeronautical engineer, Brendan established the Thrill Laboratory – an organisation dedicated to the practical pursuit of creating, producing, and examining new forms of thrilling experience. Brendan set up Studio Go Go in 2018, seizing the opportunity to focus his expertise, and his network of contacts, on developing thrilling VR experiences for others. Brendan will present his work to date and how his experience as a Thrill Engineer has led to the creation of some of the most crazy and crowd pleasing VR experiences out there.
(VR Swings: Volo – Dreams of Flight will be presented as part of Electric Dreams from 18 Feb – 20 March)

15:30 – Vince Kadlubek, Founder & CEO, Meow Wolf
Vince Kadlubek is a co-founder and the CEO of Meow Wolf, an art collective that has transformed into an award-winning arts production company who create immersive and interactive experiences that transport audiences of all ages into fantastic realms of story and exploration at sites across the USA.
Vince will share his invaluable learnings on co-creating alternative realities and bringing unique, indescribable, transformative immersive art experiences to the world. He will dive into the origins of Meow Wolf, revealing how a willingness to venture courageously into the unknown created an unprecedented success, leading us on a deep dive into the transformative experience that guests are having at Meow Wolf and how it relates to a greater transformation of the self in the world.

16:30 – Networking Drinks supported by The British Council
Presented by:
Electric Dreams
Electric Dreams is curated by Crossover Labs: award-winning producers of immersive and interactive work, Immersive Curators at CPH:DOX Copenhagen, Silbersalz Science and Media Festival Germany, and Electric Dreams Adelaide and London. Through an international programme of labs and workshops, they develop the next generation of global immersive producers.

Presented by:
Electric Dreams

Electric Dreams is curated by Crossover Labs: award-winning producers of immersive and interactive work, Immersive Curators at CPH:DOX Copenhagen, Silbersalz Science and Media Festival Germany, and Electric Dreams Adelaide and London. Through an international programme of labs and workshops, they develop the next generation of global immersive producers.