Dancing Paprika, rain sound made of clapping and snipping, and flying scallops – be prepared for a weird and unique experience!

Hsin-Hsuan Yeh explores associative thinking in her VR-experience "Sens of Nowhere". In this interview she talks with The Art Wire-host Sophia about the impressive sound design, visual choices and a lot of different interpretations (and a lot more, of course).

This interview was recorded at the ART*VR-Festival / ZIP-SCENE-Conference in Prag in October 2025.

Leo Metcalf made a VR-experience about memories of childhood, magical fantasy-worlds to escape reality and emotional stuntedness. In the interview he talks with The Art Wire-host Sophia about his personal experiences that he integrated in the art piece. Furthermore they talk about the dream-like imagery, about the sound design and the storytelling in "The Time Before" (and much more!). There even is a secret movie recommendation if you are looking for the saddest film in the world :)

This interview was recorded at the ART*VR-Festival / ZIP-SCENE-Conference in Prag in October 2025.

In Yvette Granata's VR-experience "I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs" you find yourself in the position of a mother getting pregnant again. However, you are not too happy about the news because your memories of your first pregnancy aren't good ones. You struggle with psychotic halluzinations as you come to an almost lethal decision...

In this episode Sophia talks with Yvette about the process of directing this VR-experience, politics and anti-abortion laws, the audience's feedback on the experience and much more.

CN: Abortion, (postpartum) psychosis, anti-abortion law, drug / substance abuse

If you struggle with any of these topics, please do not listen to this episode or do not listen to it alone.

Have you ever wondered where all the things you have lost in your life end up? Dime Gjorgjievski created a whole VR experience based on this very question. In this episode, he talks with Sophia about the process of creating and broadcasting it.

In this episode, gold extra´s Reinhold Bidner talks with Boris Labbé, a multiple award-winning French animator, director, and media artist. This conversation was recorded in mid-June 2025 during the Festival d'Animation d'Annecy, the largest animation festival worldwide.

Originally from the fields of fine arts and traditional animation, Boris Labbé has been expanding his work for years: besides animated films he also creates audio-visual performances, and shows his works in intallations and exhibitions. In the last years Boris also experimented and created with VR and AI, but he always maintains a clear understanding of the narrative he wants to deliver, a clear focus on his artistic style, and an ongoing research process combining traditional handcraft techniques with new technologies.

He has received numerous awards, including the Golden Nica at the 2016 Ars Electronica Festival (with Rhizome), the Grand Prix at Venice Immersive in 2024 (with Ito Meikyu), and the Off-Limits Award at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival (with Glass House). These are just three of the many awards he has received since 2011.

Boris Labbé’s work forms a cinema of multiplicity. Repetition, re-presentation, collages, patterns, metamorphoses, and perpetual movement, as well as constant citations of art history, literature, and philosophy have all become essential resources of his audiovisual language.

https://www.borislabbe.com/

https://www.goldextra.com/en

In this episode, host Evgeni Pozankov talks with Aleksandra Jarosz, the lead designer of Fantastic Annihilation, a subversive and intense “action-clicker” game made for Briefs 2024: Death. Developed with collaborators Thomas Feichtmeir and Alejandro Rodriguez Ramallo, the game challenges players to systematically eradicate all life on Earth— not as an idle diversion, but as a demanding, real-time experience.

Aleksandra discusses the game’s philosophical roots in Peter Wessel Zapffe’s “The Last Messiah” and her inspiration from conceptual art exploring ecological destruction. The gameplay riffs on idle genres like Cookie Clicker, but turns them on their head: instead of passively waiting, players must actively and aggressively click, sterilize, upgrade, and annihilate, facing a relentless struggle against organic reproduction and time.

The game’s standout feature is its dark, finite ending: players are ultimately forced to kill their ever-cheerful guide “Annihilation-chan”—a nihilistic cheerleader quoting existential philosophy—and finally, themselves. It’s a deliberate, unsettling closure that reflects on ecocide, ego, and the human desire for control, presented through grim humor and genre-bending design.

This episode dives deep into game design as narrative, balancing mechanics with message, and flipping conventions in both storytelling and player reward. A true clicker with an end, Fantastic Annihilation is a radical experiment in existential gameplay.

 Fantastic Humans are: Alejandro Rodriguez Ramallo, Aleksandra Jarosz, Thomas Feichtmeir, Hexenkraft

BRIEFS: https://www.goldextra.com/en/briefs-a-microgame-series

In this episode of ArtWire, host Evgeni Pozankov interviews Eva and Andrea of Studio Lichene, the creative duo behind Death to Venice, a visually rich Twine game developed for Briefs 2024: Death.

Studio Lichene—named after the symbiotic organism “lichen”—embraces themes of mutualism over competition, which echo throughout the game. Death to Venice is a hybrid of interactive fiction and visual novel, depicting a near-future Venice in ecological and social collapse, seen through six poetic vignettes told from the perspectives of humans, animals, a plant, an AI, a glass object, and even prisoners.

The team explores death in layered ways: ecological decay, cultural loss, social isolation, and forgotten memory. Each district (sestiere) of Venice is rendered with real photographs and manipulated visuals, creating a surreal yet grounded sense of place. Eva and Andrea reflect on the creative challenges, including managing agency across non-human protagonists and creating interactivity without traditional puzzles.

They also discuss lessons learned from their previous Briefs game (Parallelepipedon) and the deeper clarity and emotional resonance they aimed for this time around.

https://www.goldextra.com/en/briefs-a-microgame-series

In this episode of ArtWire, the Gold Extra podcast, host Evgeni Puzankov speaks with Soph Podestá, the developer behind A Pearl on the Road, a narrative-driven driving simulator created for the Briefs 2024: Death microfund. Soph shares insights into the formation of her team, Cameria Art Games, and their development journey.

The game follows an old trucker navigating through the Sierras of Córdoba, facing a choice: stop to reflect on meaningful moments or push forward to outrun an inevitable storm. The narrative explores themes of life, memory, and the inevitability of death.

Soph discusses the challenges of game development, including switching to Unreal Engine, long build times, and team coordination. Despite the struggles, she expresses gratitude for the experience and the opportunities Briefs provided.

The episode wraps up with reflections on game jams vs. Briefs, and advice for future participants: just apply and start early.

Check out A Pearl on the Road and other Briefs-funded games via the links in the show notes.

Note:

This episode includes discussions of explicit sexuality, adult themes, and violence in the context of art and creative projects. We explore unconventional materials and themes, which may be sensitive or uncomfortable for some listeners. Please be advised that this content is intended for mature audiences only.

About the episode:

On a lovely early-summer day, Sarah and I (Sophia) sat down at the steps outside of St. Virgil conference center in Salzburg. We met at the conference "AI between responsibility and innovation" where Sarah was part of gold extra's panel "AI an Art, Culture and Media". In this podcast episode we talk about Sarah's art projects, including "So tell me, GPT" and "Fan Fiction Wishing Well". Sarah even shares some inside information about her art project about an alter ego named "Horst" and his sexual relationship to chicken. Furthermore, we dive into the topic of fan fiction, AI and humankind and a lot more. Did you know, that "50 Shades of Grey" started as a fan fiction about "Twilight"? Me neither. So enjoy the episode!

In this special episode of The Art Wire, we delve into the unsettling parallels between Russia’s media transformation under Putin and concerning trends in the U.S. Drawing from my research in digital and AI literacy, recent talk feedback, and a detailed analysis of Putin’s tactics, I explore how small steps toward media control could gradually reshape democracies in the West. This AI-driven dialogue, grounded in my comprehensive document—which references the so-called Project 2025, Bob Woodward's recent book War, and many other sources—examines how "Putin's Media Playbook" might influence the future of U.S. media and society. For deeper insights, check out the supporting document here. Join us as we explore the line between influence and control.