DailyProgram21. – 26. 10. 2025

VR Exhibition: More-than-Human Perspectives

What stories emerge when we look at the world through the “eyes” of trees, animals, plastic particles, or even AI? And what if we already are all of these entities? This curated VR section opens worlds where human perception merges with vegetal, animal, and synthetic forms of life. This section includes 11 immersive projects ranging from 8 to 20 minutes in length.

ART∗VR International Competition

The ART∗VR International Competition presents a selection of the best artistic virtual and mixed reality projects from the past year. This edition explores the theme of identity – personal, collective, and digital. The creators delve into memories, the search for home, and the relationship between body and technology, using immersive media to reveal layers of human existence that usually remain hidden. This section includes 14 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 40 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: AsteRisk*

In writing, the asterisk (*) points us to something that cannot be overlooked – a note, a remark, an afterthought that turns out to matter most. In this section, ART∗VR marks the projects that carry this sense of urgency. They confront us with human rights, moral choices, and deeply personal stories, asking us to pause, to witness, to reflect. This section includes 6 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 25 minutes in length.

ART*VR Opening Ceremony

Join us for the festive opening of the third edition of the ART*VR Festival! Besides from a cozy get-together by the fire, you can look forward to guided tours and an exclusive access to the VR installations of International Competition, More-than-Human Perspectives & AsteRisk* sections.

ART∗VR International Competition

The ART∗VR International Competition presents a selection of the best artistic virtual and mixed reality projects from the past year. This edition explores the theme of identity – personal, collective, and digital. The creators delve into memories, the search for home, and the relationship between body and technology, using immersive media to reveal layers of human existence that usually remain hidden. This section includes 14 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 40 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: More-than-Human Perspectives

What stories emerge when we look at the world through the “eyes” of trees, animals, plastic particles, or even AI? And what if we already are all of these entities? This curated VR section opens worlds where human perception merges with vegetal, animal, and synthetic forms of life. This section includes 11 immersive projects ranging from 8 to 20 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: AsteRisk*

In writing, the asterisk (*) points us to something that cannot be overlooked – a note, a remark, an afterthought that turns out to matter most. In this section, ART∗VR marks the projects that carry this sense of urgency. They confront us with human rights, moral choices, and deeply personal stories, asking us to pause, to witness, to reflect.

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 1: Meaning-Making Strategies

The session will include these talks: Inclusive VR Experiences for Visually Impaired People: Making an Accessible XR Toolkit for the GLAM Sector (Hailey Austin, Lynsay Shepherd, Naman Merchant, William Kavanagh); How we play matters: Player typologies and cognition in gaming (Viktorie Račková); Critical City Cycling: Navigating Urban Attention Through Augmented Reality Play (Sophia Reiterer); Ambiguous Communication in Tabletop Role-Playing Games (András Hlavacska and Orsolya Nagy)

ART∗VR International Competition

The ART∗VR International Competition presents a selection of the best artistic virtual and mixed reality projects from the past year. This edition explores the theme of identity – personal, collective, and digital. The creators delve into memories, the search for home, and the relationship between body and technology, using immersive media to reveal layers of human existence that usually remain hidden. This section includes 14 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 40 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: More-than-Human Perspectives

What stories emerge when we look at the world through the “eyes” of trees, animals, plastic particles, or even AI? And what if we already are all of these entities? This curated VR section opens worlds where human perception merges with vegetal, animal, and synthetic forms of life. This section includes 11 immersive projects ranging from 8 to 20 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: AsteRisk*

In writing, the asterisk (*) points us to something that cannot be overlooked – a note, a remark, an afterthought that turns out to matter most. In this section, ART∗VR marks the projects that carry this sense of urgency. They confront us with human rights, moral choices, and deeply personal stories, asking us to pause, to witness, to reflect.

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 2: Re-Connecting with Our Attention

The session will include these talks: Attention! Attention! A production studies perspective on fragmented audiences (Frédéric Dubois); Reconstructing memory and attention through locative AR storytelling (András Szabó); From Curiosity to Cognitive Cost: Designing for "Attention" in interactive systems (Niels Erik Raursø); Light in the Belly: Calatrava's Digital Renaissance (Alessio Caccamo, Anna Turco, Gaia Casaldi). Moderated by Hailey Austin.

Meet the Authors 1: How to Disappear Completely: On Leaving One’s Body, or Getting Back to It

Panel discussion in which the authors in the ART*VR selection present their projects and describe their creative process. Konrad Mihat (amniotic artheraπ), Joren Vandenbroucke (The Great Escape), Hsin Hsuan Yeh (Sense of Nowhere), Leo Metcalf (The Time Before).

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 3: Narratives of Seeing

The session will include these talks: Effects of Narrative Structure on Attentional Processes (Felix Carter, Iain Glichrist, Danae Stanton-Frasert); Finding human connection in digital double duet: Replica (Kerryn Wise and Ben Neal); Visual Styling of Extended Reality (Emir Durmisevic and dr. Selma Rizvić). Moderated by Alessio Caccamo.

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 4: Audiences Driven by Senses

The session will include these talks: Sound Distance Estimation in Virtual Reality (Pavel Srp); Fragmented Focus: Eye-Tracking Fixation Entropy in Portrait vs. Landscape Videos and the Future of Viewer Attention (Jan Černík); Walking with VR: Wayfaring and Witnessing in Shared Digital Tours (Martin Látal). Moderated by Felix Carter.

Meet the Authors 2: Space Oddity: When Environments Speak Back

Panel discussion in which the authors in the ART*VR selection present their projects and describe their creative process. Kaho Albert Yu (The Building), Chuang Ho (Demo:Dome), Cia Himiân Lí (Across the Lake/Kòe Ô͘), Owen Hindley & Nanna Gunnars (Fallax).

Fulldome Competition: More-than-Human Perspectives

This lineup of the best contemporary fulldome films invites viewers on a meditative and visually stunning journey beyond the human perspective. The main themes are the interconnectedness of life, ecosystems and the universe, as well as the transformations and cycles that shape the world around us.

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 5: Co-existing Bodies in Spatial Narratives: Choreographies of Attention

The session will include these talks: How to choreograph the audience’s attention in a mixed reality performance –narrative strategies for site-specific work (Marika Hedemyr); Breaking narrative, producing confusion, refusing empathy: Restaging XR for disabled storytelling through crip attentiveness (Puneet Jain and Yesica Duarte); The Body as the Site of Community: Virtual Storytelling Women's Health as Advocacy (Camille Baker); Orchestrating Engagement: Interactive Puppetry in Physical-Interactive Storytelling (Daniel Echeverri). Moderated by Agnieszka Przybyszewska.

ART∗VR International Competition

The ART∗VR International Competition presents a selection of the best artistic virtual and mixed reality projects from the past year. This edition explores the theme of identity – personal, collective, and digital. The creators delve into memories, the search for home, and the relationship between body and technology, using immersive media to reveal layers of human existence that usually remain hidden. This section includes 14 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 40 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: More-than-Human Perspectives

What stories emerge when we look at the world through the “eyes” of trees, animals, plastic particles, or even AI? And what if we already are all of these entities? This curated VR section opens worlds where human perception merges with vegetal, animal, and synthetic forms of life. This section includes 11 immersive projects ranging from 8 to 20 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: AsteRisk*

In writing, the asterisk (*) points us to something that cannot be overlooked – a note, a remark, an afterthought that turns out to matter most. In this section, ART∗VR marks the projects that carry this sense of urgency. They confront us with human rights, moral choices, and deeply personal stories, asking us to pause, to witness, to reflect.

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 6: Slow Frames and Moving Bodies: Rethinking Engagement in Virtual Worlds

The session will include these talks: Using Soma Social VR as a methodology for anti-immersion and attentional agency (Lisa Thomas); Frame/less: How removing the frame impacts emotional engagement with narrative short films (Ola Røyseland); Relate Series (Andrea Familari); Movement methods and environmental complexity, and their impact on navigation and spatial memory (Oliver Kobián); Opera, Slowness, and Immersion: Temporal Strategies in LuciaVR (Toby Young). Moderated by Daniel Eccheverri

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 7: Sensing Together: Collective Presence and the Art of Attention

The session will include these talks: Collective Thought Spaces: Co-Creating Performance and Presence in Mixed Reality (Taavet Jansen); Plantáž (Daniel Randus); Beyond the Screen and Headphones: Engaging All Senses in Digital Nature (Lukáš Hejtmánek and Magdalena Jonáková); Attention is All You Need (Krzysztof Piljarski). Moderated by Lisa Thomas.

Zip-Scene Conference Panel 8: Echos and Fricitions

The session will include these talks: “Sylleptic you” and the intended deconstruction of seamless embodiment. On experiencing "Turbulence: Jamais Vu" (Agnieszka Przybyszewska); Future Echoes: mixed reality and collaborative interaction (Julia Scott Stevenson); Sensory F(r)ictions: How Can Immersive Storytelling Reclaim Agency and Reconnect Us with Overlooked Realities? (Petra Ardai); KineDok: Distributing (VR) Films at Unique Places (Ivana Formanová). Moderated by Lukáš Hejtmánek.

Meet the Authors 3: Come Together: Stories of Connection from the Visegrad Region

Panel discussion in which the authors in the ART*VR selection present their projects and describe their creative process. Adela Lujza Lučenič (Building Comfort: Safe Space in Virtual Reality), Stanislaw Liguzinski (ROAMance), Ondřej Moravec (6 Degrees), Joanne Popińska (The Choice - Chapters 2 & 3), Miloš Tasić (Oneiro).

Meet the Authors 4: Human Behaviour: On Being Human in an Artificial World

Panel discussion in which the authors in the ART*VR selection present their projects and describe their creative process. Aria Wolf (Lichtung), Ben Neal & Kerryn Wise (Replica), Fresh Do: James Hosken, Katie Eggleston, Lauren Fitzpatrick, Mimi Harmer (The Last Tree), Patrick Muroni (RAVE), Kris Hofmann (Out of Nowhere).

Fulldome Competition: Horizons of Resilience

A selection of the best contemporary fulldome films inviting you to an intense journey through human courage, perseverance and the discovery of boundaries. The main themes are determination, survival, experimental exploration of the environment and people's relationship to the space that surrounds them.

Pitching Forum ART*VR 2025

ART∗VR International Competition

The ART∗VR International Competition presents a selection of the best artistic virtual and mixed reality projects from the past year. This edition explores the theme of identity – personal, collective, and digital. The creators delve into memories, the search for home, and the relationship between body and technology, using immersive media to reveal layers of human existence that usually remain hidden. This section includes 14 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 40 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: More-than-Human Perspectives

What stories emerge when we look at the world through the “eyes” of trees, animals, plastic particles, or even AI? And what if we already are all of these entities? This curated VR section opens worlds where human perception merges with vegetal, animal, and synthetic forms of life. This section includes 11 immersive projects ranging from 8 to 20 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: AsteRisk*

In writing, the asterisk (*) points us to something that cannot be overlooked – a note, a remark, an afterthought that turns out to matter most. In this section, ART∗VR marks the projects that carry this sense of urgency. They confront us with human rights, moral choices, and deeply personal stories, asking us to pause, to witness, to reflect.

Poster session of IFS students from Cologne

Meet the Authors 5: Across the Universe: New Dimensions of Fulldome Storytelling

Panel discussion in which the authors in the ART*VR selection present their projects and describe their creative process. Sergey Prokofyev (Eternal Habitat), Carlos Hurtado (Smoke and Mirrors), Agata Staszczuk, Daniel Mikulik (UP).

Fulldome Competition: More-than-Human Perspectives

This lineup of the best contemporary fulldome films invites viewers on a meditative and visually stunning journey beyond the human perspective. The main themes are the interconnectedness of life, ecosystems and the universe, as well as the transformations and cycles that shape the world around us.

Meet the Authors 6: The Passenger: On Migration, Movement, and the Search for Home

Panel discussion in which the authors in the ART*VR selection present their projects and describe their creative process. Négar Motevalymeidanshah (Less Than 5Gr of Saffron), Domenico Singha Pedroli (Another Place), Marko Kolomytskyi (RAPTURE II - PORTAL), Nienke Huitenga Broeren (Lacuna), Vitalijus Žukas (Creation of the Worlds), Vincent Abert (Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home).

ART∗VR International Competition

The ART∗VR International Competition presents a selection of the best artistic virtual and mixed reality projects from the past year. This edition explores the theme of identity – personal, collective, and digital. The creators delve into memories, the search for home, and the relationship between body and technology, using immersive media to reveal layers of human existence that usually remain hidden. This section includes 14 immersive projects ranging from 7 to 40 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: More-than-Human Perspectives

What stories emerge when we look at the world through the “eyes” of trees, animals, plastic particles, or even AI? And what if we already are all of these entities? This curated VR section opens worlds where human perception merges with vegetal, animal, and synthetic forms of life. This section includes 11 immersive projects ranging from 8 to 20 minutes in length.

VR Exhibition: AsteRisk*

In writing, the asterisk (*) points us to something that cannot be overlooked – a note, a remark, an afterthought that turns out to matter most. In this section, ART∗VR marks the projects that carry this sense of urgency. They confront us with human rights, moral choices, and deeply personal stories, asking us to pause, to witness, to reflect.

Fulldome Competition: Horizons of Resilience

A selection of the best contemporary fulldome films inviting you to an intense journey through human courage, perseverance and the discovery of boundaries. The main themes are determination, survival, experimental exploration of the environment and people's relationship to the space that surrounds them.