While in its infancy the cinema was a wellspring of technological innovation and creative diversity, but Hollywood narrowed and prescribed its dominant forms of production and narration. This situation has been dislocated by the new digital modalities of cinematic production and presentation, and over the last fifteen years we have been witnessing a mediamatic renaissance with a whole new range of experiences, from handheld micro-movies and interactive mash-ups, to video games and immersive telepresence in virtual 3D worlds. Professor Shaw’s keynote presentation will discuss the convergent multiplicity of these inspiringly new techniques of cinematic representation and intercommunication, with examples of ground breaking artworks that herald the digitally expanded cinema of tomorrow. Shaw will refer in particular to benchmark research he and his associates are currently undertaking at the CityU Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALiVE), which push the boundaries of stereoscopic representation, immersive experience and interactive narrative.

Curriculum Vitae

Jeffrey Shaw has been a leading figure in new media art since the 1960's. In a prolific oeuvre of widely exhibited and critically acclaimed works he has pioneered and set benchmarks for the creative use of creative media in the fields of virtual and augmented reality, immersive visualization environments, navigable cinematic systems and interactive narrative. Shaw was the founding director of the ZKM Institute for Visual Media Karlsruhe (1991-2002), and in 2003 he was awarded an Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship to co-found and direct the UNSW iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research. Since 2009 Shaw is Chair Professor of Media Art and Dean of the School of Creative Media at City University in Hong Kong, as well as Director of the Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment. (ALiVE) and the Centre for Applied Computing and Interactive Media (ACIM).