I speak with the curators of the 28 immersive documentary projects being featured at the 18th edition of IDFA DocLab including Caspar Sonnen, Nina van Doren, and Toby Coffey. The theme of this year's program is "This is Not a Simulation," and there were many immersive projects that featured AI this year. We talked about each of the experiences in this year's program, except for the three projects I've previously covered at Venice Immersive 2024 (All I Know About Teacher Li, Fragile Home, & Impulse: Play with Reality) . We also briefly discussed the IDFA campaign around being complicit and challenging neutrality.

[UPDATE: December 23, 2024]. Here are links to all of my coverage from IDFA DocLab 2024:

#1492: IDFA DocLab Curators Preview 2024 Slate of AI & XR Immersive Documentaries

#1493: "About a Hero" IDFA Opening Night Doc Blends Realities, Written by AI Trained on Werner Herzog Corpus

#1495: Getting Roasted by Unfiltered "AI & Me" Photobooth Installation

#1496: Using GenAI to Recreate Erased Family Photos with "Burn From Absence" 4-Channel Video

#1497: Experimental VR Doc "Rapture II: Portal" Blends Hypnotic Audio with Spatial Scan of War-Abandoned Home

#1498: Immersive Installation Frames Provocative "Töngö Sondi" Animation on Langauge, Censorship, & Identity

#1499: From Interactive Biohacking Lecture to Speakeasy with "Drinking Brecht: An Automated Laboratory Performance"

#1500: Sharing Indigenous Knowledge with AR on 360 Video and Embodied Rituals in "Ancestral Secrets VR"

#1501: Roaming as Resistance: "Entropic Fields of Displacement" wins DocLab Digital Storytelling Award

#1502: Candid Audio Clips Juxtaposed with Poetic GenAI Video in "Sincerely Victor Pike"

#1503: "The Liminal" Spatial Audio Installation Blends Audio Doc with Specualtive Arab Futurism

#1504: Open World, GenAI Podcast "Drift" Reflects on Climate Change from 500 Years in the Future

#1505: Immersive Journalist Features Volumetric Sexual Harrassment Testimonies in "Walking Alone, Text You When I'm Home"

#1506: Going on a Virtual Date in "ROAMance" that Generates Novel Encounters with Defamiliarization

#1507: From Selfies to Virtual Offspring, "Ancestors" Turns Strangers into Family and Intergenerational Speculative Futures

#1508: Virtual Architecture Vibes Part 1: "Limbotopia" VR & Dome at Film Gate Interactive

#1509: Virtual Architecture Vibes Part 2: "Limbophobia" VR & Dome at IDFA DocLab

#1510: Poetic VR Exploration of Iranian Protest Blindings in "Speechless Witness of a Wandering Tree"

#1511: Cultivating Virtual LGBTQIA+ Safe Spaces in VRChat with "Dollhouse for Queer Imaginaries"

#1512: DocLab Immersive Non-Fiction Winner "Me, A Depiction" Performance Installation Confronts Objectifying Gaze

#1513: From Daily News to GenAI Irish Sean-nós Songs in "You Can Sing Me on My Way" Audio Installation

#1514: Creating GenAI Flower Ecosystem with "Future Botanica" AR App

#1515: VR Researcher Julia Scott-Stevenson on Embodiment in Story & Why Docs are Perfect to Explore AI

#1516: Myriam Achard on Phi Studio's Expansion into LBE Distribution & the Fusion of Immersive Art at Phi Contemporary

#1517: LBE Lessons Learned from 20-Venue Tour of "In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats" with Producer Dan Tucker

[Resuming post from November 13, 2024] For more information on each of the pieces in this year's program, then be sure to check out the time stamps below to hear what the curators have to say.

12:15You Can Sing Me on My Way

15:01AI & ME

17:59About a Hero

22:54Oryza: Healing Ground

26:26Future Botanica

27:42Ancestors

31:00Drift

32:58Burn from Absence

36:13Sincerely, Victor Pike

37:22Limbophobia

40:20Ancestral Secret VR

41:04Drinking Brecht: an Automated Laboratory Performance

45:21Dollhouse for Queer Imaginaries

46:36The Liminal

49:38Me, A Depiction

53:55Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home

56:00Rapture II – Portal