IDFA DocLab: Exhibition

The range of different projects in this exhibition means you’re assured of finding new perspectives.

In Future Botanica, you can get your virtual hands dirty as a futuristic gardener: with an augmented reality app you design new plant species to shape your own vision of the future of nature and technology. Groundbreaking audio project Drift also gives an alternate glimpse of the future: this generative audio experience paints a picture of how the climate crisis and rising sea levels will present us with a sink-or-swim moment – or have we already reached that point? Sincerely, Victor Pike (also presented in a full-dome version at DocLab at the Planetarium) also uses AI-generated material. But, in this case, to reconstruct fragmented memories from the past. In contrast, there’s nothing artificial to be seen in Lisa Schamlé’s live performance Me, a Depiction. As a living component of her own installation, she explores our ideal of beauty and seeks confrontation with her own body—and with the spectators.

Composition

1. Drift

Nienke Huitenga, Hay Kranen, Lieven Heeremans | Netherlands | 2024 | 750 min
Synopsis

It’s 2024, or—time doesn’t actually matter so much—2529: an octopus as narrator, old dikes that once formed the contours of land. In an generative audio experience, a podcast that is not a podcast, Drift connects rising sea levels and the climate crisis to the rise of AI. This story world combines the imaginary with factual sources, such as the IPCC climate report and real-time weather forecasts by the Dutch meteorological institute. In a distant future, society has learned hard lessons from environmental neglect. Due to pollution and rising sea levels, the Netherlands, such as it once was, no longer exists. The waters have now been injected with AI. A techno-liquid environment serves as a living repository of knowledge, merging ancient wisdom with futuristic insights. The pace and rhythm of the story are synchronized with the lunar phases and the tides, moving away from the rigid mechanical clock that dictates human life, and back to the way Mother Earth intended. Technology and nature combine to create a new reality that the listener can drift through.

2. Future Botanica

Nienke Huitenga, Hay Kranen, Lieven Heeremans | Netherlands | 2024 | 750 min
Synopsis

The idea that nature and technology are incompatible is outdated. Nature is full of cultivated elements introduced to serve the needs of human beings. The nature around us is subjected to -isms such as anthropocentrism, colonialism and capitalism. Add to this new technological systems such as AI and robotics, from which autonomous entities emerge that will probably also merge with nature, and an infinite number of possible future scenarios unfold. These speculations are the subject of the innovative augmented reality app Future Botanica. The app allows the user to design ecosystems with new nature using an AI. These virtual ecosystems are then planted in existing physical nature: you superimpose digital designs—one of the proposed scenarios or one you make yourself—on existing landscapes. By making your imaginings visible, you can safely explore ideas, expectations, fears and desires regarding the future of the natural environment. Winner of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant 2024. 

3. Me, a Depiction

Lisa Schamlé | Netherlands | 2024 | 30 min
Synopsis

In an intimate space it can feel slightly uncomfortable, voyeuristic even, to watch Lisa Schamlé draped as a living part of her own performance/installation on a mirrored object. In the mirror, Schamlé looks not only at herself, but also back at you, seeking contact with her audience in order to involve it actively in the process taking place. In this third and final part of her trilogy on sexuality, Schamlé reclaims the autonomy of her body from where it has been lost: in the public domain, that abstract area where the female body is always exposed to the objectifying and normative gaze of the other. A gaze that has an absurd degree of power over the way women see themselves, and through which they often judge themselves, and each other, mercilessly. Schamlé strives to escape the suffocating dictate of an idealized body image. This raises the question whether in art the gaze can become inquiring rather than judgmental. Winner of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant 2024.

 

4. Sincerely, Victor Pike

Gregor Petrikovič | United Kingdom, Slovakia | 2023 | 12 min

Synopsis

A poor memory leads Gregor Petrikovič to make audio recordings of conversations with loved ones, friends and acquaintances. Since 2016, he has been building an archive of anecdotes and recollections. With AI-generated visuals, Sincerely, Victor Pike, winner of the SOLO AI Award 2024, combines these faceless voices in a patchwork to produce a collective memory around the semi-fictional figure Victor Pike. The dreamlike, nostalgically grainy quality of the images raises questions about authenticity and the nature of memory. The images are clearly not real; the shapes and settings are recognizable, but full of anomalous and alienating detail. Cars fly through the air, bodies merge. At the same time, this may actually be true to the nature of memories, which lie on the boundary between the real and the surreal. This not only questions the relationship between technology and memory, but also challenges the notion of AI as an instrument detached from humans, precisely because it is used as a means to portray something as subjective as memories.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

About IDFA DocLac

DocLab is an interdisciplinary platform for interactive and immersive documentary art. DocLab is seen as the most significant première platform for interactive documentaries internationally.  IDFA DocLab pushes the boundaries of how we perceive and engage with non-fiction narratives by blending art, reality, and technologies. Founded in 2007, it fulfills a pioneering role in the turbulent development of digital storytelling, virtual reality, live performance, and artificial intelligence. Just as, more than a century ago, filmmakers discovered how they could use the language of film, DocLab now offers a platform to a new generation of makers through which they can invent their own languages and experiment with new forms of narrative and presentation.

Exhibition & Playrooms @droog is one of the main locations of the DocLab program. Here you play, explore, and experience interactive documentary projects that use VR, AR, AI, games, new media, and performances. Entry is free, but you need to reserve online via idfa.nl/doclab to secure your spot. New this year are the DocLab Playrooms. That’s where makers and the audience meet each other to playtest new projects, formats, and technologies. Explore the full program of IDFA DocLab at idfa.nl/doclab.

About IDFA

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is once again bringing an exciting selection of the world’s best documentaries to Amsterdam this year, from November 14 until 24. Immerse yourself in new work from emerging talent and established filmmakers, with world premieres, festival favorites, and thematic programs.

 

IDFA DocLab: VR Gallery

The latest virtual reality films and experiences

The selected projects cover a wide range of themes and subjects. Each and every story is eye-opening—even after you’ve taken off your VR headset… This year, the VR Gallery is home to the following projects: the hypnotizing VR film RAPTURE II – PORTAL (Alisa Berger); a glimpse into the mindset of a group of open-hearted people with ADHD in IMPULSE: Playing with Reality (May Abdallah and Barry Gene Murphy); and the story of the Chinese ‘rebel influencer’ Teacher Li in All I Know About Teacher Li (Zhuzmo). Experience the everyday spirituality of the Peruvian highlands in Ancestral Secret (Francisca Silva & Maria José Diaz); confront feelings of insecurity in Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home (Vincent Abert); or indulge in the dark sci-fi world of Limbophobia (Wen-Yee Hsieh). The VR Gallery is located at DocLab’s new location, @droog, within walking distance of De Brakke Grond. If you want to take in the entire VR Gallery selection, you’ll need three time slots (and so three tickets).

Composition

1. All I Know About Teacher Li

Zhuzmo | United States | 2024 | 20 min
Synopsis

The Chinese government took “Teacher Li” offline 50 times over a period of two months, but that didn’t hold him back. The Chinese student who created this persona kept making new accounts to publish bad news. In the interactive VR film All I Know About Teacher Li, you become part of this online revolution. Teacher Li became a global phenomenon in 2022 when, from Italy, he became a conduit for controversial news from China. Now you become this conduit. Messages float around you as paper planes. They unfold and turn into videos, made during the Covid lockdowns of 2022. The restrictions are sometimes so absurd that they become comical. But more often the videos reveal distressing and dehumanizing situations. As you toss back the countless messages so that they appear online, you begin to feel the power of collaboration and perseverance. The playful VR environment, with hand-drawn animation and 3D archive material, proves to be an inspiring form of storytelling.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

 

2. Ancestral Secret VR

Francisca Silva, Maria Jose Diaz | Chile, Germany | 2024 | 20 min
Synopsis

An ancient Inca prophecy says that the world will find a new harmony when the condor and the eagle again fly together. The condor represents the indigenous peoples and the eagle represents what we know today as the globalized world.

In this VR experience, co-created with members of the Q’ero Nation and available in English, Spanish, German and Quechua, the user is invited to participate in a series of rituals of the Q’ero Nation in Peru. A voice describes the meaning of the prayers, gestures and offerings with which the Q’ero perpetuate their bond with nature. The Q’ero, descendants of the Incas, live in the middle of the impressive Vilcanota mountain range in the Andes, where they weave colorful textiles in the traditional way. During their filmed rituals, the user sees the summoned magical and sacred powers become visible as animations in and above the landscape. In a fully animated vision of a spiritual dimension, the mythical serpent of wisdom Amaru slithers to the source of all water and the Q’ero see their prophecy fulfilled.

3. Impulse: Playing with Reality

Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla | United Kingdom, France | 2024 | 38 min
Synopsis

Chaotic, reckless, dangerous—living with ADHD can be a constant battle. Impulse: Playing with Reality translates this into a personal experience. After their award-winning film Goliath(about schizophrenia), Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla now delve into the minds of people with severe ADHD.

In this interactive VR experience Leanne, Omar, Errol and Tara talk about their lives and ways of thinking. Their stories are brought home through mixed reality. While you attempt to follow a train of thought, the stuff in your room sets off a chain reaction leading to all sorts of mayhem. Shadows on your walls become portals into labyrinthine worlds. Words spiral out into alternative meanings and possibilities.

Impulse makes clear that the world holds much more information than we can process. This maelstrom of possibilities and thoughts pushes some people to the edge of the abyss. Murphy and Abdalla provide powerful insights into their reality, in a form that always serves the four candid narrators.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

 

4. Limbophobia

Wen-Yee Hsieh | Taiwan | 2024 | 25 min
Synopsis

Limbophobia opens with a dramatic quote from the book Will Grayson, Will Grayson: “I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.” This spiritual crisis in a dark border region forms the introduction to Wen-Yee Hsieh’s misty nocturnal world in which visitors finds themselves in twilight zones of existential terror.

The powerful black and white graphics making up this hallucinatory world blur the boundaries between the real and the digital, the solid and the ephemeral, the eternal and the temporary. What starts as a glance through a misty window on a storm-swept beach turns into a wild ride into increasingly unstable realities rocked by explosions and collapsing buildings. All this is accompanied by music that sounds like the slow breath of the collective unconscious.

The fulldome version of Limbophobia is having its world premiere at IDFA. Limbophobia can also be experienced in the VR version which is part of the DocLab Exhibition and the VR Gallery.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

5. RAPTURE II – Portal

Alisa Berger | France, Ukraine, Germany | 2024 | 19 min

Synopsis

Structured as a hypnosis session, this is a trip through an abandoned apartment in the Ukrainian region of Donbas, which has been occupied by Russian troops since 2014. It belonged to vogue dancer Marko, who guides us through his home while he visits it for the first time since 2018, shortly before he fled the war.

For this project, the spaces—living room, bedroom, kitchen and hallway—were digitally reconstructed based on photographs of the apartment as he left it behind. But this is not a perfect reconstruction, and parts of the rooms and pieces of the things lying around are missing. The serene flight is occasionally interrupted by energetic, more abstract outbursts, inspired by Marko’s background as a dancer. They juxtapose the strength of the human body in dance with its vulnerability in the face of war technology. Meanwhile, in voice-over, Marko relates his memories of his home, from the liberation he felt when he first had his own place in the world, to the immense sense of loss now he has been separated from it by war.

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

6. Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home

Vincent Abert | Germany | 2024 | 15 min
Synopsis

From annoying wolf whistles in the street to unwanted touches in a tram or bar: these are experiences familiar to many women. But not all men mean harm, and sometimes a situation only seems dangerous. Why is this? This documentary places a young woman, the narrator, at various events and locations where she has felt unsafe. As a user, you experience the scenes as an invisible voyeur. In the middle of the lifelike 360-degree sets, you also feel a bit like a participant. At an uncomfortably close distance, you follow the sexually suggestive comments and unsolicited advances the young woman experiences. The narrator philosophizes about direct threats, and also about the ambiguity of certain situations. Was it only scary because of the darkness? Or because she had been taught from an early age to be careful on the street? Users will find themselves alone in a dimly lit, remote place. How does that feel to you?

Timeslots & tickets via IDFA

About IDFA DocLab

DocLab is an interdisciplinary platform for interactive and immersive documentary art. DocLab is seen as the most significant première platform for interactive documentaries internationally.  IDFA DocLab pushes the boundaries of how we perceive and engage with non-fiction narratives by blending art, reality, and technologies. Founded in 2007, it fulfills a pioneering role in the turbulent development of digital storytelling, virtual reality, live performance, and artificial intelligence. Just as, more than a century ago, filmmakers discovered how they could use the language of film, DocLab now offers a platform to a new generation of makers through which they can invent their own languages and experiment with new forms of narrative and presentation.

Exhibition & Playrooms @droog is one of the main locations of the DocLab program. Here you play, explore, and experience interactive documentary projects that use VR, AR, AI, games, new media, and performances. Entry is free, but you need to reserve online via idfa.nl/doclab to secure your spot. New this year are the DocLab Playrooms. That’s where makers and the audience meet each other to playtest new projects, formats, and technologies. Explore the full program of IDFA DocLab at idfa.nl/doclab.

About IDFA

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is once again bringing an exciting selection of the world’s best documentaries to Amsterdam this year, from November 14 until 24. Immerse yourself in new work from emerging talent and established filmmakers, with world premieres, festival favorites, and thematic programs.