NewImages Festival: XR Competition Line-up

NewImages Festival organizers and Jury member announce the official selection of the 2022 XR Competition. For this year edition official jury members selected 15 immersive artworks (virtual reality, augmented reality, binaural sound).

NewImages Festival is thrilled with the 250 or so submissions it received this year, from all over the world. The applicants’ projects are ever more ambitious and innovative, and more mature, both stylistically and narratively. They demonstrate the vibrancy of the XR sector and the remarkable inventiveness of their creators. In style, they bear witness to reflections on new uses and exploration of new techniques in staging. In substance, a trend seems to have emerged
– immersive works with a more social outlook that cast light on the state of the world but remain suffused with poetry and imagination.

The selected artworks of the 5th edition will be judged by an international jury. They will be showcased from June 8th to 12th at the Forum des images and in other Parisian venues but will also be accessible via the virtual platform Alexandria, co-produced by the NewImages Festival and Cannes XR and developed by Kreis.

Lavrynthos	Kubo Walks the City	Child of Empire
Lavrynthos places you at the heart of the labyrinth of Crete to tell you the story of the unlikely relationship between the Minotaur and his next meal: a girl named Cora. A contemporary Greek tragedy paying homage to the cradle of modern dramatic theory while challenging it at the same time. More info about the project	Like an ethno-detective, you follow the footsteps of Kubo, a Korean writer in his urban flanerie in Seoul in 1934, when Korea was under Japanese occupation. You discover the city through the press caricatures mocking the shortcomings of a part of Korean society emerging from the poverty and archaisms of the past	Child of Empire takes audiences through a deeply personal perspective of the 1947 Partition. Two men from the Partition generation an Indian Hindu who migrated from Pakistan to India, and a Pakistani Muslim who made the opposite journey share childhood memories of their experiences while playing a board game.

The Reflected City	Madame Pirate: Becoming A Legend	On the Morning You Wake
In the steamy industrial city, the residents greedily hunt for the creatures that can generate abundant energy, and such overexploitation has led the city to be engulfed by dark chaos. Pier&Two, the expedition team members discover that there is a reflected city under the sea, similar to the filthy one on shore but with a stream of pure and intriguing energy. Fighting against the dark chaos, the power of rebirth eventually unfolds like a carnival…	In a lawless, world overrun by roving ships and ruthless men, a girl propels herself from a life of forced prostitution, to command the largest and most successful pirate fleet in world history. Ching Shihs granddaughter narrates the bedtime stories her grandmother told her when she was a child. It turns out, those were more than bedtime stories. They are Madame Chings incredible real life story.	One day in January 2018, as Hawaiian citizens went about their day, the entire state received an SMS, which read: "BALLISTIC MISSILE THRE AT IN BOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." As cellular networks collapsed and panic took hold , 1.4m people (as well as their friends and relatives across the globe) came to understand the urgent nature of todays nuclear threat.

PARADICE	DES PLACES(S)	COSMOGONIC
Paradise is a immersive audio experience for partners. Part interactive game, part theatrical experience using speech recognition technology, couples progress through a world of simulated scenarios that explore why we stay together or fall apart. A collaboration between DARKFIELD and LIGHTSHED, PARADISE has been created with support of John Hopkins University	The performance mixes augmented reality and in situ theatre, freely inspired by the observation protocol of the writer Georges Perec in his text Tentative d'épuisement d'un lieu parisien. An original experience, where the reality of the moment, that of the past and a vision of our near future are mixed together.	A sci-fi fairytale, where the bold citizens of an oppressed planet strive to topple their tyrant king. This adaptation of a 1965 story by Stanislaw Lem, speaks perfectly to todays world, where populism and disinformation threaten democracy. It is a testament to the importance of knowledge and community in the universal drive to freedom. Motto: Light the stars to defeat the dark.

THE SICK ROSE	Unframed: Hand Puppets, Paul Klee	The Tree of Light
Rose had a fight with her mother. Feeling sorry for saying hurtful words, Rose is determined to apologize to her mother who is currently working at the hospital. However, as the pandemic around her escalated, the way to the hospital has become dangerous and difficult. Would Rose, a sick little girl who does not know her way, be able to reunite with her mother?	In the fourth episode of the virtual reality series Unframed, the puppets of Paul Klee are reproduced accurately and faithfully. In this short film the puppets themselves recount the most important events and aspects of their creator's life. On the borderline between comic fiction and documentary, the story focuses mainly on Paul Klee's family life, his teachings and his escape from the Nazi regime in Switzerland.	in ancient times, a sun spirit placed a piece of her heart into an Onyo forest tree. Thus, the Tree of Light was born, bringing our world out of the darkness and allowing life to develop. But this energy is not eternal. Every 100 years, all forms of life gather to perform a sacred ritual and return the energy to the Tree. You will take part into this ritual, guided by a shaman-doe, to help this legendary tree grow once again.

Alicia, make me laugh!	The Miracle Basket	rEAD tAIL
Don't you get tired of Siri and Alexa, these artificial intelligences barely capable of telling time or weather? Alicia is different. Alicia is the first AI invented to make you laugh. The more you talk to her, the more she adapts to your kind of humor and the more you notice that something is very wrong with her. Alicia, Make Me Laugh! is an interactive audio adventure - available for free on smart speakers and mobile	VR journey that gives a glimpse into humankinds recent past told through an intimate childhood story . The Miracle Basket is a textured and layered story integrating socio-political thought with abstract subjects both metaphysical and contemporary. By describing the arrival of the west as the downfall of innocence, the VR experience relates to environmental issues of today and political uprising through storytelling.	At a train station floating in the cloud, a mysterious red tail catches the boys attention. Chasing the red tail, the boy has traveled through countless magical places, ran into the bizarre creatures, and finally he meets the gentleman, who know his secrets . When the red tail reminds the boy of his own memory and sadness, what's the secrets hiding behind, and where will it lead him next?

Each year within the framework of the NewImages XR Market, the XR Development Market brings together some 175 professionals from more than 30 different countries and organizes more than 450 one-to-one meetings in order to connect the most promising and recognized artists and/or producers of the moment with the most influential curators, programmers, and distributors coming from the whole world, as well as with the heads of content from leading technology companies.

As usual, the XR Development Market (dedicated to the co-production of projects under development) brings together new talents and award-winning artists from around the world, including Diego Prilusky (Grease XR), Stéphane Foenkinos (Jalouse), Amir Admoni & Fabito Rychter (Gravity VR), Joanne Popinska (The Choice), Navid Khonsari (1979 Revolution: Black Friday), Lilian Hess (Cosmos Within Us) and Matthew Shaw & William Trossell (Eternal Return).

Lastly, the NewImages XR Market will be hosting around eighty Decision Makers this year. Many museum curators and program planners from cultural institutes will be taking part in the event for the first time! Among the attendees are the Orsay Museum and the Orangerie Museum (Saskia Bakhuys), the Louis Vuitton Foundation (Candice Chenu), the Australian entre for Contemporary Art (Miriam Kelly), the Barbican Centre (Patrick Moran), Peer to Space (Tina Sauerlaender), Yahoo Ryot Studios (Nigel Tierney), and the Hong Kong Arts Centre (Teresa Kwong). Other names will soon be announced.

As a brand new section of the NewImages XR Market, the XR Art Fair program is the first marketplace entirely dedicated to the distribution of immersive artworks. About 40 companies will join the XR Art Fair to meet future partners to whom their projects will be presented.
With this new program, the NewImages Festival can be considered as the first professional event in the world entirely dedicated to the distribution of immersive artworks.

The XR Art Fair will be held in Paris and online from May 2022 as part of the 5th NewImages Festival. It is designed in such a way that all participants – whether they attend the event in real life or remotely – will be able to get the best quality of service and get the most from the event.
The XR Art Fair seeks to foster the spread of these works via a global network of museums and cultural centers. Many of the sector’s most innovative firms can be found in this brand-new section, including Atlas V, Makropol, Faber Courtial, Satore Studio, Interactive Media Foundation GmbH, Blimey, 3dar, Innerspace VR, Lucid Realities, Petrichor VR, and Diversion Cinema.

NewImages Festival Location : PARIS /DATE: JUNE 8-12/2022