International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media

Cover, Editorial Details and Contents

2025-02-24T10:44:08+00:00

Cover, Editorial Details and Contents

Artistic Research Now

2025-02-24T10:44:11+00:00

Editorials typically start with discussions on emerging debates that may later establish new fields, often including future predictions and outlining potential roadmaps. Qua Vadis is a genre in its own right, as a result. This does not appear to be necessary or appropriate any longer when discussing artistic or practice-based research (from hereafter “artistic research”). Firstly, several opinions have already mapped out the potential future trajectories of artistic research. More importantly, a decade or more has usually passed since their original publication. Fifteen years have passed since an important issue of Art and Research: A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods (Birell, ed. 2009: 1–2), which explored the emergent field from a myriad of angles, and just short of fifteen years ago, a seminal collection – The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts (Biggs and Karlsson, eds. 2010: xiii–xvi) – was published that aimed to start the discussion from first principles.

Artistic Experiments in Expanded Animation

2025-02-24T10:44:30+00:00

This paper explores the integration of Virtual Reality, 3D printing, and anamorphic shadow techniques in the field of Expanded Animation. Using a collaborative and experimental Artistic Research method, the study contributes to extending the boundaries of animation, and to attributing a stronger sense of agency to the spectator or ‘eccentric observer’. The paper discusses different iterations in the development of the ‘Anamorphotrope’, an original installation work that has been exhibited in two modalities: as a VR installation and as a 3D-printed zoetrope. Both on a technical and conceptual level the novel approach taken in this project has a number of implications for future practices in animation and related artistic fields.

The Penned Parrot in the Writers’ Room

2025-02-24T10:44:17+00:00

This artistic research article explores the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the process of screenwriting, focusing on the Four Stage Story Generation method in collaborative screenwriting scenarios. The primary objective of this study is to explore and analyze the dynamics between human creativity and AI capabilities in crafting screenplays. By integrating AI into the traditional screenwriting process—which involves stages of writing, feedback, and rewriting—we investigate the transformative impacts on both the process and the outcomes of screenplay development.

Our research employs GPT-4 to co-create a screenplay for a short film. This collaborative approach highlights the potential of AI to act as a creative partner, contributing to the ideation and development phases of the script. The study is structured around a four-stage model: thematic conception, story world conception, character conception, and dramaturgical conception. Each stage is designed to leverage the strengths of AI in generating content that adheres to established screenwriting paradigms while also pushing the boundaries of traditional creative processes.

The findings from this study reveal that while AI can significantly enhance the screenwriting process by generating innovative ideas and content, it also presents challenges such as maintaining narrative coherence and depth in character development. The interaction between human screenwriters and AI showcases a complex interplay of creativity where AI’s contributions are curated and refined by human oversight. This research contributes to the understanding of AI’s role in creative industries and sets the stage for further explorations into the capabilities and limitations of AI in artistic collaborations.

Keywords: Collaborative Screenwriting, Human-Machine-Interaction, GPT-4, prompting, Artistic Research

Maintaining Creativity and Ensuring Research

2025-02-24T10:44:34+00:00

Current article is a reflection of a personal journey of transitioning from an artistic research track PhD student to a supervisor and lecturer helping the others in navigating the confusing and promising seas of artistic research. In 2020, I was the first PhD student to defend my thesis on the artistic research track of the /Anonymised/ School and as soon as I had defended, I was asked to serve in the position of the head of artistic research the track. As such, I experienced the trials and tribulations of the beginnings first hand and am now in a unique position to reflect upon the challenges we faced. As I write this, the two separate tracks of research in /Anonymised/ School have been merged into one, but as the period I experienced it, they were still separate, my reflection builds upon the previous structure.

Fiction, Documentaries and Voids

2025-02-24T10:44:20+00:00

The following piece focuses on how the inclusion of fictional elements into documentaries allows for a different relationship with the film, allowing creators to explore different narrative avenues, characters to relate in a different way to the events and for the audience to actively engage with the film.

I rely on two of my previous short documentary films and my current research as examples where I have used fiction inside the documentary form, and I examine how the insertion of fiction into the narrative, allows for a different perspective of the events depicted on each film.

My research centers on the relationship between roots, identity and belonging, explored through documentary film. I use the notions of affect, embodied memory, and relationality together with Bergson’s understanding of time and memory to explore my own family’s story and its voids through a documentary film.

Designing for Meaning

2025-02-24T10:44:23+00:00

Practice-based creative research, also known as research-creation, exists in a tenuous position between art and academia. There has been significant, ongoing research into the role of curatorial processes, research, and public-facing events as forms of knowledge production which draw from both traditional informational methodologies and creative or artistic approaches. However, much extant work on this subject is centered on gallery and museum spaces. This paper describes a creative research project carried out by a team of graduate students at Concordia University, which aims to bring research-creation into direct, engaged conversation with more traditional forms of academic research through the research collective’s development of interdisciplinary symposia. We discuss the importance of taking a design approach, including documentation and iterative practices, in order to create an environment in which creative research and scholastic research are treated as equally important forms of knowledge production. Specifically, we detail how the idea of meaningful methods influenced our approach, and how designing for connection and embodied experience are essential to creating event spaces which facilitate interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.

Exploring Empathy through the Design of an Embodied Installation Game

2025-02-24T10:44:27+00:00

This article discusses the design of the embodied installation game Sisyphus: Endless Dilemma, designed to help examine and resolve the inequalities faced by patients with mood disorders. By employing a critical design framework and the form of an interactive art installation, Sisyphus: Endless Dilemma creates a dystopian physical interactive environment to immerse players in an inescapable predicament to evoke empathy for mood disorder groups. This embodied installation game takes artistic research as an overarching method. Through the iterative creation of, and reflection upon, an experimental game within a performative context we aim to generate new knowledge on spatial and experimental game design. The resulting gameplay is not only shaped by a set of interaction mechanisms but also composed of elements such as various sensory experiences, bodily movements, and the physical environment. The article illustrates the potential of the embodied installation game based on artistic research in contributing to the discourse on contemporary game design as well as serving as a catalyst for addressing social issues, moral dilemmas and cultural challenges.

The Panorama of Congo: Decolonising Heritage Through Artistic Research

2025-02-24T10:44:14+00:00

This article delves into the complexities surrounding the Panorama of Congo, a challenging object of inquiry due to its exceptional size and contentious historical context. Commissioned by the Belgian Ministry of Colonies in 1913 to promote the Belgian Congo, the painting raises critical questions about colonial legacies amidst contemporary debates on decolonisation. Utilising artistic research as a central methodological tool, the FilmEU RIT Congo VR project explores the broader cultural issues hidden within this heritage object. Through a transdisciplinary approach, integrating artistic, media archaeological, and postcolonial perspectives, the research investigates the imperialist implications of immersive media, particularly panoramas, and the role of Virtual Reality in reinterpreting their embedded historical narratives. Highlighting the Congo VR project, the article showcases artistic creations and installations presented in exhibitions, emphasising the convergence of artistic research and decolonial approaches within museum contexts. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of colonial heritage and its implications for contemporary discourse on cultural representation and memory.