Welcome talk
Nonbinary avatar artist LaTurbo Avedon invites viewers to visit Dandelion, a simulated club space and site-specific installation, in this welcome talk that will kick off the BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY activities. They will discuss the impacts of automation and generative utilities in creative practice and reflect on the past decade of working solely through virtual environments.
LaTurbo Avedon is an avatar and artist, creating work that emphasizes the practice of non-physical identity and authorship. Avedon has developed a body of work that illuminates the ever-growing intensity between users and the virtual, pursuing creative environments that deepen the meaning of immaterial experiences. They curate and design Panther Modern, a file-based exhibition space that encourages artists to create site-specific installations for the Internet.
LaTurbo’s process of character creation continues through gaming, performance and exhibitions. Their work has appeared internationally, including MAK – Museum of Applied Arts (Vienna), The Manchester International Festival UK, Transmediale (Berlin), Haus der elektronischen Künste (Basel), HMVK (Dortmund), Barbican Center (London), TRANSFER Gallery (New York), Galeries Lafayette (Paris), and The Whitney Museum (New York City).
Presentation of virtual space for Realities in Transition
Carlos Martorell (Shoeg) is a Barcelona-based sound and visual artist known for his exploration of the complex relationships between humans and technology. His diverse work encompasses a wide range of research topics, including instruments and interfaces, gestures and biometric data, biomusicology, video games and nature.
The project We Are The AI Resynthesizers has been conceived by the artist specifically as a space for RiT (Realities in Transition) events. Its creation explores the relationship between the irruption and progress of artificial intelligence and creative processes that remain exclusively human. In it, AI has assumed an assistant role through text-to-image and image-to-image processes, becoming a tool for investigating and revisiting the 2K aesthetic and merging it with other speculative discourses on nature that Shoeg is currently investigating.
We Are The AI Resynthesizers has been developed using open source software such as Blender, GIMP and Inkscape, along with other tools such as Invoke, AFrame and Stable Diffusion. Right now, it is hosted to be visited in multiplayer format in Overte.org.
Overte is an open source virtual worlds and social VR software which enables you to create and share virtual worlds as virtual reality (VR) and desktop experiences. You can create and host your own virtual world, explore other worlds, meet and connect with other users, attend or host live VR events, and much more. It is managed by a NGO and its international community is very lively in Discord
XR EU Studio presentation
deletere is an association that produces and distributes multimedia works and performances that question the public’s relationship with Machines. deletere laboratories was founded by Adelin Schweitzer in 2013 in Marseille, a contemporary artist, stage director, and French performer who repurposes new technologies to create fictional experiences where reality is kept at a distance.
Schweitzer will be in charge of presenting deletere’s work at BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY. His works subvert techno-solutionist ideology and question the transformations it brings about in the social and political body. By inviting the public to live alternative experiences the artist offers a kind of self-defense manual, unusual and playful, allowing for a rethinking of a society nibbled away by technology.
XR Studio presentation
Liveforevr is an XR lab specialising in music, art, cinematography and interactive 3D experiences that aims to explore and shape the future of the audiovisual industry through the fusion of the digital and the physical. Founded in 2014 by Toño Cabanelas, this innovative project has become a benchmark in the creation of virtual scenarios on Web3: immersive spaces where art and audience converge simultaneously in a digital and physical world.
At BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY, they will share with the audience the work behind the production of immersive content and recordings of music and digital art in 3D taking as a starting point their project Ultravioleta, recently awarded by the Ministry of Culture.
“Ultravioleta” was an artistic collective between 1999 and 2014 that took part in fashion shows, clubs, festivals, performances or radio programmes. It was not only a light and a colour, it was a tool to liberate the world we lived in. It was also a dream that faded away. Now, it reappears 25 years later thanks to Liveforevr in the form of an immersive virtual reality podcast.
From a set in Madrid, the audience is taken to unique virtual environments, from fictional nightclubs to outdoor stages, with immersive sound and captivating visuals, to redefine the live music experience. Its first chapter will be dedicated to Appsolescencia by Lorena Madrazo, a multidisciplinary project that brings together design, music, visual art and technology.
Site-specific VR installation visit
The Portal Galleries by Space Popular is a site-specific VR installation that showcases research on the magic and mechanics of portals found in fiction. It is composed of over 1,000 portals and 23 archetypes—such as a door, a mirror, a crack in the floor, or a cave—taken from books, films, graphic novels, and games from the past 250 years.
Space Popular is an art and architecture studio that explores the future of spatial experience through research, design, and artworks. Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, directors of the studio, will lead an immersive visit through the installation at BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY.
Virtual Reality Rave / Online Exhibition
NeuroDungeon is an electronic music and art collective founded in 2020 and ruled by Yessi Perse. “NeuroDungeon” is a conceptual umbrella that encompasses a speculative art movement, a fictitious music genre, a potential urban tribe, a Sci-Fi Fantasy corporation, and an interdimensional club.
NeuroXcape is built through a series of virtual e-raves, augmented-reality hybrid actions, LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) and online exhibitions in metaverses, virtual reality environments (Club Cooee) and streaming platforms (Twitch), where attendees can interact and be part of the experience through 3D avatars while enjoying DJ sets, musical concerts and art installations.
NeuroXcape explores the vectorialist cyberfeudal fantasyland and their mental dungeons while playing sick beats to dance to. At BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY, they will host the NPC Coven e-rave, with live music by White Ring (Florida), Mother Cell (New York), Sissy Misfit (London/Istanbul), Mirrored Fatality (Nowhere), ABSRDST (Massachusetts), Hatechild (New York), Windowseeker (Berlin), Alfred Pietroni (London) and Yessi Perse (Barcelona).
The NEURODUNGEON virtual rave will be interactive through the Club Cooee mobile app, where you will be able to create your avatar and engage with other ravers.
Project presentation from Minecraft
Under the artistic name of PatriHorrillo, Patricia Horrillo presents at BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY the project The Uncensored Library, developed by Reporters Without Borders with the intention of overcoming journalistic censorship in countries that do not enjoy full freedom of expression. The project consists of a Minecraft server created by BlockWorks, DDB Berlin and MediaMonks in which censored reports from various countries around the world are displayed in a library-like structure. Inside, there are five rooms, each dedicated to a specific country: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Mexico, Russia and Vietnam.
Patricia Horrillo is an expert in communication and social networks, recognised for her activism in the democratisation of online knowledge. With the founding of Wikiesfera in 2015, she has worked tirelessly to increase female participation in Wikipedia and eliminate gender bias in this and other digital spaces. Her fight for equality has led Wikisphere to become a feminist community committed to social justice and the elimination of systemic biases in different fields of knowledge.
Art and Videogames projects presentation
ArsGames is a Barcelona-based organisation with more than 15 years of experience in artistic creation and social innovation through the use of video games and digital technologies. Co-directed by Luca Carrubba and Eurídice Cabañes, ArsGames is behind the most successful national exhibitions focused on videogames in recent years.
At BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY, they will present a series of works included in the online exhibition BiennaleVR – 01. Experimental video games created by artists, designers and digital developers that reflect on fabulation as a key to understanding the world of today, using various techniques and tools. Among them will be the interactive sound installation Audiogames by Carlos Padial and Bicélula, the artistic and acoustic investigation of aural architectures Resonant Spaces: WasteLands by Mathias Klenner, Sofía Balbontín and Joan Lavandeira; and the psychedelic sound experience Inercia created by Mónika Rikić, Rodolfo Venegas and Xavier Maixenchs).
Expert talk from the XR Industry
ASTREA is a global immersive distributor with the largest and most diverse catalog of award-winning virtual reality and mixed reality experiences. ASTREA strives to make virtual reality and mixed reality content accessible and visible online to audiences in their homes around the world.
One of the main challenges facing the distribution of artistic XR content is the coexistence of Virtual Reality platforms with more commercial content. It is therefore important to raise awareness of other proposals and alternatives in the distribution of online content, as well as to organise local events that showcase this type of proposals in artistic spaces and cultural institutions.
In close collaboration with producers and creators, ASTREA builds bridges between the virtual reality experience and story seekers. Jordan Moutamani, its Chief Operating Officer, will talk about ASTREA’s trajectory and the challenges it faces in its daily work, and will also give advice to creators on how to include distribution processes in artistic development.
VR Chat guided tour
Welcome to Uncanny Alley. A corner of the Metaverse that follows Gh0st, Glitch and other Metazins as they navigate their existence. Gh0st has disappeared while working on systems to cross worlds, so we follow the clues and revelations of this universe until we eventually discover an existence beyond what seemed possible. Breaking the 4th wall. Revealing a glimpse of the Open Metaverse. Ultimately leading the User to continue down the rabbit holes that are opened to these new worlds.
This immersive project created by South African director Rick Treweek (MetaRick) was in competition at Venice Immersive and won an award at Raindance Immersive. The project is set in VRChat, an ever-expanding universe driven by a passionate community creating and sharing virtual worlds, avatars and interactive experiences since 2015. The presentation at BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY will revolve around these new media formats, processes and tools used to build worlds and avatars.
Guided tours of Rick Treweek’s UNCANNY ALLEY and Kevin Mack’s NAMUANKI metaverses can be followed in virtual reality through VRChat, available on Steam.
