#06
Immersive Experience Network Summit '24
︎︎︎03.11.2024
Two weeks ago I went to the Immersive Experience Network ‘Live Experience Summit ’24 on Oct 21st.
I attended in my own capacity, curious to expand my perspective in the following areas that span my current work streams:
a) Discover a better sense of the broader immersive industry and community beyond xR.
b) Explore industry perspectives on on/offboarding, to contribute towards my own research into Immersion Thresholds.
c) Gauge potential for this community to advise and influence the production of Immersive Training for emergency services.
Expecting to be on my own it was lovely to run into a few familiar faces: Carl, Caroline, Ruth, Emma, Rob & Jane - great to see you all there and catch up albeit briefly!
What follows is a summary of my notes and general thoughts on the huge amount of advice, information and passion which I experienced at the Summit - Thank you IEN and all their partners for putting it on!
Woolwich Works - where the summit was held
Welcome to the IEN Summit 2024
10:00 - 10:20 1. Fireworks FactoryI didn’t take that many notes at the welcome, I guess I was too excited, all I put was “Young organisation” and I remember them saying last year they had 300 people and this year they had 700, which is pretty awesome.
The Key of Dreams : Lessons learned from running a 24 hour immersive mystery game
10:30 - 11:30 3. BeanfeastIt was refreshing to hear Emily Carding & Ivan Carić of Lemon Difficult talk so candidly and passionately about their work.
Their advice and reflections around onboarding talked about helping audiences ‘grasp the grammar of the world’, allowing for ‘Read’ time and ‘starting with the mundane’ to establish a place of safety for their audiences.
If the goal of complete immersion was the top of a pyramid, I see that the establishment of safety is the foundation of that pyramid. I had a sense of this before the summit and it was so encouraging to see leaders in the industry confirming this as best practice.
Hearing Emily and Ivan reflect on small intense moments of their show, which they also perform in, made me so so keen to go to one of their shows myself. I am now saving up for it!
Agency & Alibi : Participant secrets from the LARP toolkit
11:40 - 12:10 2. Ropekeepers Simon Brind from Avalon LARP Studio gave a presentation that really engaged my Immersive Training brain.
LARPs are not immersive shows but are co-created experiences made from layered realities.
The organisers of LARPs largely stay out of the experience. They just establish the world, the rules and the coherences. The core experience is a result of “Intra-Immersion”, a kind of hive-mind immersion. This led me to draw a connection to Emergency service training, particularly large cross service simulations, which are essentially just LARPs.
The Alibi of the talk was that LARPs enable participants to do things they wouldn’t normally do, because they are inhabiting a character, and engage in activity with the underlying knowledge that they can step away at any time. That got me thinking about adopting this idea for Immersive Training.
Would enabling emergency service trainees to inhabit or act a part other than themselves during a simulation help them focus on the situation or scenario in a way that mitigates the initial stress and performance anxiety?
Can other safety tools (such as escalation and de-escalation techniques) from the LARPing community help encourage safer and more in depth learning for emergency service simulation training?
Near Woolwich Works - Assembly by Peter Burke
Horror & Trojan Horses : Hidden lessons learned from creating a theatrical scare experience
12:10 - 12:40 2. RopekeepersHearing Michael Badelt from INTYA Creative speak of the iterative process behind making his horror experience over many years was incredible.
At first, I thought this talk might not be as relevant to my interests, but I soon found that there are many mechanical and themetical similarities between creating an entertaining experience around Fear and a training experience around Risk.
Micheal talked about the associated risks of creating a horror experience that could potentially end up being a ‘serial exposure therapy experience’. I thought, isn’t this what simulation paramedic training is? Exposing trainees to risky or unlikely emergency situations so they can prepare themselves for the real thing?
Having not been particularly jazzed about horror experiences in the past, it was during Michaels presentation that I learned a lot about the mechanics of fear, the brain on fear and the chronological mapping of fear during an experience. All of which has given me an increased appreciation of horror experiences and perhaps want to experience more of them in the future.
Lunch - Sausage sandwich and Carrot cake
12:40 - 13:40 Woolwich Works CafeI had a lovely discussion with a man called Dave during lunch about my questions around whether trainees should perform scenarios as themselves or inhabit a character. We couldn’t decide whether enabling people to be a character, adding a separating layer between themselves and the scenario, as opposed to just acting as themselves would benefit or hinder the learning experience. Research needed!
Meet the Experts : Why immersive experiences crash and how to fix them
13:40 - 14:10 5. Coopers
Theo Holloway from Deterministic Ltd led a very helpful conversation in which I gained the following insights:
Immersive experiences are inherently collaborative but the systems that create and maintain them are often so complicated and so interlinked that they need visible and responsive leadership to be successful.
When things get big, it’s not just bigger versions of the small things, you need to plan for scaling from the start.
Theo had a lot of tips on avoiding tech failure, which I didn’t necessarily need at this point in time but I know will be invaluable in the future.
[2nd half of] In Conversation with Punchdrunk: Navigating the evolving landscape of immersive theatre
14:10 - 14:30 1.Fireworks FactoryI attended the second half of the conversation with Punchdrunk which actually reflected some of Deterministic’s insight in that they encouraged us to think through everything and to understand our experiences at scale before being at scale.
For newbies their advice included not to rush and to give time to creation, think through everything, collaborate and ask for help and finally when pitching back it up with figures.
All fantastic advice! - Wish I attended it all!
Break
14:30 - 14:50
From concept to reality: Building a high tech, narratively rich open world game
14:50 - 15:50 3.BeanfeastJeroen van Hasselt of Entered led a wonderfully detailed presentation about his immersive experience ‘Demise of the Gricers’.
His first piece of advice that he learned early on in his career and passed onto us was ‘Drop the ego’ which I agree is an important lesson for anyone in this very (almost exclusively) collaborative industry.
Echoing Lemon Difficult, Jeroen spoke of using ‘tutorial’ time at the start as an onboarding mechanic as well as employing 3 design ‘pillars’, in his case “horror”, “trains” and “World” - building mechanics around them, what I like to call ‘coherence’, that make sense of the world with those pillars from there.
He spoke of striving to instil a feeling for his audience that “There is always more to explore”.
Similarly to Emily and Ivan, Jorem spoke of establishing safety to begin with, saying that “The more safe someone feels the more open they are to fear.”
For training, this is the same I believe: the more safe and supported a learner feels, the more open they are to whatever the learning requires them to feel whether that be fear, stress, humility, or reflection.
An autumnal tree seen through a gate taken here.
Break
15:50 - 16:20I was getting fairly overwhelmed at this point and this was my only gripe about the summit - there wasn’t an indoor quiet space, an area to sit or lie down and recharge my social and intellectual batteries. I even wrote in my notebook for this time slot “nap time?” - I ended up standing in a disabled toilet to recharge but that felt weird after 10 mins so I moved to the main room and laid on the bleachers and closed my eyes for a bit but that only helped a little. I could have walked the short 3min distance to my hotel room I suppose but I then would have only had about 10 mins there anyway.
Unlocking the secret to experiences that leave a lasting impression
16:20 - 17:20 3.Beanfeast A very memorable talk from Gijs (Pronounced “Hyce”) Geers from DarkPark where I took away a great many notes, a select few being that ‘each experience is personal’ and that ‘we create circumstances, not experiences’.
Gijs encouraged my belief in the improvisational technique of “Yes and” as a helpful tool for letting audiences have their experience.
He was adamant to allow the audience just to have their experience, stating his secret was to ‘create something beautiful’ and then just “Shut up and Smile”.
One of the best pieces of advice I took away from his talk was ‘to notice moments where I feel something, to analyse those moments and then master the tools to recreate those feelings’. When asked during the Q&A one of my favourite things to think about - how does he define his audience, are they Players? [Immersants? Engagents etc?] Gijs simply suggested that we should just define our audiences as people and not necessarily label them anything else.
Trends, Traps and Opportunities in the Immersive experience entertainment sector
17:30 - 18:30 2.Ropekeepers
The final talk I attended was extremely insightful. Adrian Hon kindly shared his latest industry research where he conducted interviews with a variety of production companies in the immersive entertainment sector.
Something of the key things I took away from his presentation was that when it came to onboarding, everyone is still experimenting with this and there is no consistent standard of practice. Generally there appears to be a growing interest in Roleplay and experiences which offer early access is a good way to make money.
Some of the traps that he warned against was as the industry grows and matures, there is increased scrutiny and expectations for immersive experiences and perhaps makers need to have better disclosure about the content of their work. He later commented during the Q&A that most of the experiences that are marketed as ‘immersive’ actually could be better described as having strong ‘theming’ rather then ‘being immersive’. Adrian commented that the overuse of the term ‘immersive’ is diluting it’s meaning, so much so that many in the industry perhaps dislike using the term.
Something he recommended since experiences are often so transient - Document things better!
He said that there was still a lack of cross industry awareness which I would agree with since I asked this, Immersive Training could greatly benefit from the immersive entertainment industry.
Notes Summary
I am very glad I attended this summit, almost on a whim and mostly driven by curiosity. I achieved what I set out to discover, explore and gauge, finding a broad spectrum of experiences and companies actively pushing the boundaries of the industry. It was interesting to know that many people were still exploring the on/off boarding of their audiences and no standard of practice exists yet though there are shared foundations in care and safety which was very encouraging. Throughout the day, when I talked about my curiosity about how this industry can inform the Immersive Training variety of learning for Emergency Services, I was met with nothing but enthusiasm and encouragement. Everyone I spoke to, listened to and encountered was open and lovely. If I get the opportunity to attend next year, see you there!Thank you for reading and please reach out if you’d like to discuss any of these things further!
H
All photos taken by me during my travels home the following day, this photo was taken in Tottenham Court Road Underground Station:#05
Can we measure presence?
︎︎︎02.08.2024
As a resident at Pervasive Media Studio Resident I am encouraged to talk about the work I do via a ‘Luchtime Talk’.
On July 26th I decided to present a summary of all the work I did as a Fellow in Residence at Zero Point Motion.
And you can watch it all here!
On July 26th I decided to present a summary of all the work I did as a Fellow in Residence at Zero Point Motion.
And you can watch it all here!
#04
New Pervasive Media Studio Resident
︎︎︎30.04.2024
Having been a temporary residient for the last few projects based out of the Pervasive Media Studio, I am now officially a permanent resident! You can find my profile here:
https://www.watershed.co.uk/studio/residents/harry-willmott
https://www.watershed.co.uk/studio/residents/harry-willmott
#03
A short defence of Engagents
︎︎︎20.03.2024
When producing xR experiences I was often confused as to how I should define the individuals experiencing it. They are not just a Spectator or Visitor and they are more than a Participant surely? Though they aren’t always a Player, sometimes they are passive Observers other times they are active or even disruptive Learners. If you were building an immersive product, would you call them “Users”? That feels inhuman to me somehow, unfeeling. If I was making a piece of immersive theatre I may assign an audience specific characters or a role to help onboard them into the experience, something like Guests or Explorers.
There are so many names and descriptors for an audience of immersive media and so many producers trying to find the best single definition and everyone has a particular favourite likely according to their field, but we have yet to agree on a general descriptor.
Last year I read Mandy Rose’s summary of a round table discussion at IDFA about what to name the audience of immersive media and it reminded me of a term I developed during my Masters in xR during 2019. It may not be the perfect general term for xR audiences but I believe it’s a step in the right direction.
In her article, Mandy wrote about how media philosophers discussed what to call people who watched television eventually settling on ‘Viewers’. I would like to suggest we use the term “Engagents” as it follows a similar logic to the viewers of TV in that we should name our audience after what they are doing within immersive media, which is engaging with it. We could call our audience “Engagers” by that logic but I feel like we need a new word that encapsulates the more nuanced engagement an immersive audience experiences.
I had heard the descriptor ‘Agent’ for an immersive experience, particularly within VR experiences but felt this was too reductive, much like “User”, a default and bland term associated with the tech industry. However, Agent does infer the right kind of connotations like free will and intelligence. Agent is often used to describe NPCs or computer controlled entities within a program with a life of their own and free (with constraints) to make their own decisions. So our audience are intelligent, free willed people who can choose how they react to the immersive media, how they engage within it’s parameters. Whether passively or actively an audience member is ideally always engaging with what we immerse them in, otherwise the experience is not doing it’s job of being immersive. ‘Engaging’ infers a kind of momentum and activity, a presence. Engaging can also be an encompassing term for all the different states an individual may shift through while experiencing an immersive work. We can fold in all the other perceptions of how an audience may react within immersive systems or to a piece of xR media whether it be participant, visitor, player, observer or whatever, all hugged within the idea of ‘States of Engagement’.
It just so happens that “Engaging” and “Agent” roll off the tongue in similar ways and so can be combined into “Engagent” rather nicely.
Alternatively, we could call it ‘States of Play’ and have the term “Playgents”?
I’ve begun to adopt Engagents and having been using it quite a lot recently and I’m interested to hear what my collegues in the immersive maker space think about all this? What term do you prefer? Would you adopt Engagents? Let me know!
The above post is a draft version of what was eventually published on LinkedIn called “People experiencing xR - What should we call them?“
There are so many names and descriptors for an audience of immersive media and so many producers trying to find the best single definition and everyone has a particular favourite likely according to their field, but we have yet to agree on a general descriptor.
Last year I read Mandy Rose’s summary of a round table discussion at IDFA about what to name the audience of immersive media and it reminded me of a term I developed during my Masters in xR during 2019. It may not be the perfect general term for xR audiences but I believe it’s a step in the right direction.
In her article, Mandy wrote about how media philosophers discussed what to call people who watched television eventually settling on ‘Viewers’. I would like to suggest we use the term “Engagents” as it follows a similar logic to the viewers of TV in that we should name our audience after what they are doing within immersive media, which is engaging with it. We could call our audience “Engagers” by that logic but I feel like we need a new word that encapsulates the more nuanced engagement an immersive audience experiences.
Engaging Agents ︎︎︎ Engagents
I had heard the descriptor ‘Agent’ for an immersive experience, particularly within VR experiences but felt this was too reductive, much like “User”, a default and bland term associated with the tech industry. However, Agent does infer the right kind of connotations like free will and intelligence. Agent is often used to describe NPCs or computer controlled entities within a program with a life of their own and free (with constraints) to make their own decisions. So our audience are intelligent, free willed people who can choose how they react to the immersive media, how they engage within it’s parameters. Whether passively or actively an audience member is ideally always engaging with what we immerse them in, otherwise the experience is not doing it’s job of being immersive. ‘Engaging’ infers a kind of momentum and activity, a presence. Engaging can also be an encompassing term for all the different states an individual may shift through while experiencing an immersive work. We can fold in all the other perceptions of how an audience may react within immersive systems or to a piece of xR media whether it be participant, visitor, player, observer or whatever, all hugged within the idea of ‘States of Engagement’.
It just so happens that “Engaging” and “Agent” roll off the tongue in similar ways and so can be combined into “Engagent” rather nicely.
Alternatively, we could call it ‘States of Play’ and have the term “Playgents”?
I’ve begun to adopt Engagents and having been using it quite a lot recently and I’m interested to hear what my collegues in the immersive maker space think about all this? What term do you prefer? Would you adopt Engagents? Let me know!
The above post is a draft version of what was eventually published on LinkedIn called “People experiencing xR - What should we call them?“