MiyubiCredit: Felix & Paul Studios
Through You
Credit: Cameron Berton
Hue
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Park City, UT - Now in its second decade of breaking new ground at the forefront of art and technology, Sundance Institute has curated an in-depth vision of storytelling's future for the 2017 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival, January 19-29 in Park City. The full slate - including storyworlds in Augmented Reality headsets, projection-mapped acrobatics, a VR beauty salon producing neuroscience data via the internet of things and a host of socialized, interactive and immersively haptic VR story experiences - stands as a testament to New Frontier's expertise in identifying, developing and amplifying the most relevant and high-impact modes of tech-enabled narrative.
Live performances, a feature film and augmented reality experiences will complement a total of 20 VR experiences and 11 installations, showcased between three venues in Park City. The historic Claim Jumper will host 7 immersive installations focused on cross-disciplinary story construction and and 2 video works; the VR Palace will feature 15 VR experiences alongside additional installations, and the VR Bar will offer a lineup of mobile VR. Three projects are part of the Festival's The New Climate program, which highlights the environment and climate change. More New Frontier projects will be announced in the coming weeks.
Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute, said, Every year, more artists are drawn to the vanguard of art and technology: independent, creative storytellers have more tools to break the mold than ever before. For the last decade-plus, New Frontier's vision has evolved and grown with this expanding palette, to curate and showcase the most exciting new work made with the latest advances.
Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer and Chief Curator, New Frontier, said, In an era that has recalibrated economies, redefined social realms and rewired the connection between the individual and the world, we must also reimagine what it is to be human. Through Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and various crafted immersive experiences, New Frontier this year challenges the very nature of perception and what we consider to be reality.'
Through New Frontier's history, Sundance Institute has been at the forefront of new media storytelling, recognized as a pioneer of story-based, tech-enabled experiences; New Frontier alumni include Doug Aitken, James Franco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Milk, Nonny de la Pe a, Pipilotti Rist and Jennifer Steinkamp. The Institute's support extends well beyond its curated slate of Festival projects, and includes the annual New Frontier Story Lab, which offers mentorship and development opportunities for new media storytellers, New Frontier Day Labs in cities nationwide and the New Frontier Residency Program, which combines the might of partners such as MIT Media Labs Social Computing Group and Jaunt Studios to drive groundbreaking data-visualization and VR storytelling tools, training and resources to independent artists.
2016 marked New Frontier's 10th Anniversary, with celebrations at MoMA in New York City, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
In addition to the New Frontier program announced today, films in U.S. and World Competitions and NEXT have been announced and are listed at sundance.org/festival.
FILMS AND PERFORMANCE
18 Black Girls / Boys Ages 1-18 Who Have Arrived at the Singularity and Are Thus Spiritual Machines: $X in an Edition of $97 Quadrillion / U.S.A. (Director and writer: Terence Nance) - In this pair of performances, the artist Googles the phrase one-year-old black boy and one-year-old black girl, ascending in age to 18, allowing Googles popular searches algorithm to populate what words will follow.
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? / U.S.A. (Director: Travis Wilkerson) - This documentary murder mystery about the artist's own family is a Southern Gothic torn apart and reassembled. Journeying straight into the black heart of a family and country, this multimedia performance explores a forgotten killing by the artists great-grandfather-a white Southern racist-of a black man in lower Alabama.
World Without End (No Reported Incidents) / U.S.A., United Kingdom (Director: Jem Cohen) - Close observations around Southend-on-Sea, a small English town along the Thames estuary, reveal not only everyday streets, everyday birds, unflagging tides, mud and sky, but also prize-winning Indian curries, an encyclopedic universe of hats and a nearly lost world of proto-punk music.
INSTALLATIONS
A selection of single-channel works by the collective A Normal Working Day / Switzerland - A Normal Working Day is an artist collective consisting of the installation artist Zimoun and the choreographers and dancers Delgado Fuchs (Marco Delgado, Nadine Fuchs). Formed from the bodies of the two performers, these splendidly hypnotic projections are visual rabbit holes that shimmer with a presence that is larger than the sum of their parts.
Full Turn / Switzerland (Artist: Benjamin Muzzin) - This installation explores the notion of the third dimension with the desire to get out of the usual frame of a flat screen. The rotation of two tablets creates a three-dimensional, animated sequence that can be seen at 360 degrees, unlike any other type of display.
Heartcorps: Riders of the Storyboard / U.S.A. (Artist: dandypunk, Key Collaborators: Darin Basile, Jo Cattell) - Follow the story of Particle, a two-dimensional light being, as you walk through the pages of a giant, immersive comic book. Hand-drawn illustrations come to life around you using projection-mapping technology, while high-level Cirque du Soleil performers interact with animated characters in this digital light poem. Cast: Eke
