Tech Day

Tickets

Virtual Switzerland’s yearly conference, this event gathers together professionals in the audiovisual industry and start-ups that work with innovation and technology, to address new forms of narration and immersive contents.

The event aims to foster networks, provide a platform to discuss current issues with Swiss and international experts, and to bring together academic and private circles in order to enhance and promote the creation of XR content.

Limited places and paid registration between 10am and 1:30pm. Free admission in the afternoon, subject to availability. Free admission all day for all accredited and GIFF pass holders.

10am - 5pm

PROGRAM

Morning: Meet-the-Experts Session
At Fonction:cinéma

10:00-12:00 Interactive masterclass format followed by discussions around 4 challenges XR is facing today.

Experts
- Kent Bye (Journalist at Voices of VR Podcast, US)
- Caecilia Charbonnier (Research Director at Artanim, Chief Innovation Officer at Dreamscape Immersive and President at Virtual Switzerland, CH)
- Raffaël Dickreuter (CEO & VFX Specialist at SUPERBA AR, US)
- Jonathan Droz (Founder & Director at Wowl, CH)
- Judith Guez (XR Artist, Researcher & Engineer, Founder & Director of Recto VRso at Laval Virtual, FR)
- Tiziano Leidi (Head of the Institute for Information Systems and Networking ISIN at SUPSI, CH)
- Max Rheiner (Founder & CEO at SOMNIACS, Head of the Master Design Interaction at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste – ZHdK, CH)

12:00-13:30 Speed-Dating Meetings with the Experts (10 minutes per meeting)
Networking Lunch in parallel

Afternoon: Conference & Panel
At Fonction:cinéma
Held in English with translation available

13:30 GIFF & Virtual Switzerland Welcome
13:40 Fiction & Immersion with Marc Atallah (Director at Maison d’Ailleurs and at Numerik Games Festival, CH)
14:10 Immersive Research in Cinematic Virtual Reality with Michael Brönnimann (Commissioning Editor for 360° Videos at Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen – SRF, CH) and Samuel Frei (Researcher, Lecturer & Coordinator of Continuing Education at Hochschule Luzern für Design & Kunst – HSLU, CH)
14:45 Wonder with Judith Guez (XR Artist, Researcher & Engineer, Founder & Director of Recto VRso at Laval Virtual, FR)
15:15 Storytelling with Kent Bye (Journalist at Voices of VR Podcast, US)
15:40 Panel on content creation led by Kent Bye (Journalist at Voices of VR Podcast, US), with Ian Ravenshaw Bland (Co-Founder & CEO at So Real Digital Twins AG, CH), Allison Crank (Head of Digital Experiences at Wowl, CH), Ellen Kuo (Director of Business Development & International Lead at Funique VR, TW/CH), Tiziano Leidi (Head of the Institute for Information Systems and Networking ISIN at SUPSI, CH) and Ulrich Schrauth (Artistic Director at VRHAM! Virtual Reality & Arts Festival, DE
16:10 VR in Film Production and AR Advertising of Movies with Raffaël Dickreuter (CEO & VFX Specialist at SUPERBA AR, US)

17:00 Access to Virtual Territories at Maison Communale de Plainpalais (Pitoëff) + Cocktail

18:30 Conversation with Jan Kounen (VR Artist, FR)

In partnership with

With

Marc Atallah, Maison d'Ailleurs

Marc Atallah is the Director of Maison d’Ailleurs (Museum of Science-fiction, Utopia and Extraordinary Journeys), Director of the Numerik Games Festival and a lecturer and research at the French Department of the University of Lausanne. His research mainly focuses on “conjectural literature” (utopia, dystopia, imaginary trips, science-fiction) and literary theory (theory of literary genres, fiction theory). He has authored many articles and co-published several books.

Kent Bye, The Voices of VR Podcast

Since May 2014, Kent Bye has conducted over 1100 “Voices of VR” podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists who have driven the resurgence of virtual and augmented reality. Bye is a philosopher, an oral historian, and an experiential journalist who has helped define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, and the ultimate potential of XR.

Raffael Dickreuter, SUPERBA AR

Raffael Dickreuter has spent over thirteen years in Hollywood working on virtual production, previsualization and visual effects for blockbuster movies, supporting directors such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Campbell, and Zack Snyder. He has founded Superba AR, a company based in Los Angeles and Bern that helps brands tell their stories using augmented reality.

Allison Crank, Wowl

Allison Crank is an XR designer and researcher who works at the intersection of technology, media and architecture for public and commercial spaces. She is currently Head of Digital Experiences at wowl, a Swiss XR and immersive media company. She was previously a design researcher at the EPFL+ECAL Lab, leading a two-year research project on the design of immersive experiences for public spaces for the Montreux Jazz Festival’s UNESCO-listed digital archives.

Judith Guez, Laval Virtual

Dr. Judith Guez is an artist, curator and researcher in VR/MR. She is associate researcher at the INREV laboratory from University Paris 8. She is founder and director of the artistic pole at Laval Virtual. In this context, she has created in 2018 the international Art&VR festival Recto VRso. She is also co-founder of the VRAC (VR Art Collective).

Michael Brönnimann, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen – SRF

Michael Brönnimann has worked in different positions at Swiss Radio and Television for the last thirteen years. He is currently the buyer and program executive for fictional TV content and a commissioning editor for the SRG SSR’s new media fund, “Pacte de l’Audiovisuel”. He holds a Master of Arts in Communication, Film Studies and Art History from the University of Zürich.

Samuel Frei, Hochschule Luzern für Design & Kunst – HSLU

Samuel Frei works as a design researcher and lecturer at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He addresses design knowledge as well as creative processes, initiates research projects and implements them together with partners from the industry and cultural scenes. He is also currently working on his PhD at the SMARTLab in Dublin, which focuses on learning with mobile technologies in the broader field of knowledge media and experience design.

Caecilia Charbonnier, Artanim

Caecilia Charbonnier is the founder, President & Research Director of Artanim, a center specialized in motion capture technology. She is also the founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Dreamscape Immersive, a VR entertainment company, and President of the national thematic network Virtual Switzerland. Charbonnier is one of two creators of the award-winning “Real Virtuality” VR technology, leveraged by Dreamscape and Hollywood to create the next generation of location-based VR entertainment centers.

Robert Müller, Hochschule Luzern für Design & Kunst – HSLU

Robert Müller is an artist, a moviemaker and a producer who has been using a variety of film formats (animation, documentary, artistic projects) since 1984. Since 2000, he has also been a teacher and researcher at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. His research focuses on short movies in new media and his latest work is the 360-degree movie Nachtspiel, which will premiere at GIFF 2019.

Ulrich Schrauth, VRHAM! Virtual Reality & Arts Festival

Ulrich Schrauth is the initiator and Artistic Director of VRHAM! – Virtual Reality & Arts Festival in Hamburg as well as a creative director for various international projects in the field of digital media. He regularly features as a jury member, e.g. for Laval Virtual and VRE Fest Rome. Schrauth has also given lectures and presentations with a thematic focus on immersive arts at SXSW Festival Austin and the Cannes Film Festival, among others.
vrham.de

Tiziano Leidi, Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana - SUPSI

Tiziano Leidi is Director and Professor in Multimedia Processing at the Institute for Information Systems and Networking of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). He was awarded a diploma in Computer Science from ETHZ in 1999 and a PhD in Computer, Communication and Information Sciences from EPFL in 2012. Leidi’s current areas of expertise include digital audio processing, spatial audio, and audio technologies for virtual and mixed reality.

Max Rheiner

Max Rheiner is head of the Master Design Interaction Program at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He received his diploma from ZHdK in the field of New Media Arts in 2003. The main areas that he specializes in are Embodied Interaction and Physical Computing. Of these topics, he conceived and developed the Physical Computing Laboratory for the Department of Interaction Design that has been running since 2006. In 2015 he founded the first ZHdK spin-off company "Somiacs", which transformed the research project "Birdly" into a commercial product. His research and artistic interest center on interactive and immersive experiences which utilize methods from Virtual/Augmented Reality and Immersive Telepresence.

Jonathan Droz, Wowl

Jonathan Droz founded XR Studio Wowl in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) after focusing on VR healthcare. Driven by the development and potential of technology, the Marketing and Business Development graduate now manages projects in both education and entertainment. He designs and creates user-based experiences as well as content in fields as diverse as healthcare, luxury and culture. Wowl’s expertise is often called upon to launch innovative projects.

Ellen Kuo, Funique VR

Funique VR, a leading 8K stereoscopic 360 VR content creator, has developed numerous exclusive technologies and creates the most advanced immersive experiences. It focuses on 8K per eye stereoscopic VR content for the industry and aims to create a new generation platform for viewers. Ellen Kuo joined Funique VR in 2018 where she carries out international co-production projects.
funique.tv

Ian Ravenshaw Bland, So Real Digital Twins AG

Ian Ravenshaw Bland is co-founder & CEO of SO REAL Digital Twins AG. SO REAL is a venture that aims to “make the world smaller”. By mass-producing cinematic-quality, XR-ready 3D objects, SO REAL enables global access to immersive experiences and thus accelerates the journey to global understanding. Ian Ravenshaw Bland is also the creator of Kev & Jewell: The Electron Chronicles and founder of IRB Business Development GmbH.
soreal.ch