That’s the million-dollar question. Or near enough. There is $750,000 in funding on offer for arts institutions – as well as technologists, companies and artists partnering with arts institutions – looking to answer it.

There is $750,000 in funding on offer by the Knight Foundation for ideas that demonstrate the ability of immersive technologies such as VR and AR to strengthen audience engagement
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The grants are being put forward by the Knight Foundation for ideas that demonstrate the ability of immersive technologies, such as virtual and mixed reality, to strengthen audience engagement.

“Arts institutions need more knowledge to move beyond just experimenting with these technologies to becoming proficient in leveraging their full potential.”  Says Knight director Chris Barr.

To help them do this, winners will receive a share of the $750,000 in funding, and optional technical support from Microsoft, including mixed-reality coaching, mentorship and technology access and training, as well as the opportunity to be featured across Microsoft marketing channels.

“We’re incredibly excited to support this open call for ways in which technology can help art institutions engage new audiences,” says Mira Lane, Partner Director Ethics & Society at Microsoft.  “We strongly believe that immersive technology can enhance the ability for richer experiences, deeper storytelling, and broader engagement.”

The new call for ideas is part of Knight Foundation’s arts and technology focus, which aims to help arts institutions better meet changing audience expectations and use digital tools to help people better experience and delight in the arts.

“When done right, life-changing experiences can happen at the intersection of arts and technology,” said Victoria Rogers, Knight Foundation vice president for arts speaking at the initiative’s launch at the Gray Area Festival in San Francisco. “Our goal through this call is to help cultural institutions develop informed and refined practices for using new technologies, equipping them to better navigate and thrive in the digital age.”

The Foundation’s goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, something it believes is essential in a healthy democracy. To achieve this, they invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers.

Winners will receive a share of the $750,000 in funding, and optional technical support from Microsoft, including mixed-reality coaching, mentorship and technology access and training
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Last year, Knight made a $600,000 investment in twelve projects designed to harness the power of technology to engage people with the arts. Most recently, Knight launched the “On View” podcast, which examines how museums and cultural institutions are evolving to keep pace with a changing world.

In the week since the announcement, the call has attracted quite a lot of attention
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“In just one week’s time, the call for ideas has already garnered immense interest in the arts and technology fields. Our initial informational webinar was booked to capacity – 200 attendees – in just a day,” says Barr. This positive response reflects the momentum around exciting opportunities happening at the intersection of culture and tech. We’re thrilled by this interest and hope to see a wide-range of projects equipping arts institutions to better engage audiences with new technologies.”

Successful projects will address one of the following areas or related concepts:

• Engaging new audiences: How might arts institutions use immersive experiences to better welcome and engage new and diverse audiences?
• Building new service models: How can institutions design pleasant and efficient audience experiences that avoid clunky interactions with technology?
• Expanding beyond walls: In what new ways can arts institutions use immersive immersive technology to reach people beyond their physical space?
• Distribution to multiple institutions: How can immersive experiences become more portable and be presented easily at multiple institutions?

Those interested in applying can do so until August 12 and learn more about it here. Recipients will be announced in late fall 2019.

Those interested in applying can do so until August 12
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Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Engaging Audiences With Immersive Technology appeared first on Tech Trends.

How can we use technology to tell compelling and worthwhile stories, engage audiences, and make a living in the bargain?

Those were some of the questions I got to explore during a recent visit to the University of Oregon. Fellow Brit Damian Radcliffe, who is the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism at UO, invited me when he heard that I was over in this part of the world, and so I found myself as a guest in the Demystifying Media series, which aims to give students a real taste of what working at the coalface of the creative industries is really like.

The Demystifying Media series aims to give students a real taste of what working at the coalface of the creative industries is really like
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The highlight of my tour was a talk I delivered in a rather large auditorium to about 200 of these bright young minds
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Now, I’m extremely lucky that in my line of work I get to talk to lots of really interesting and intelligent people who are doing amazing things, so my bar is set quite high. Add to that the fact that I’m quite a jaded and cynical journalist (is there any other kind?) and I really wasn’t expecting to be quite so impressed by a group of people who (it still hurts me to think it, but there it is) are young enough to be my kids. But impressed I was – both by how informed and by how enthusiastic they were. If we’re going to salvage the world from the mess it’s currently in, we’re going to need this sort of fresh energy and creative thinking.

Over several days I visited both the Eugene and Portland campuses and was a guest in several classes and seminars where budding journalists (as well as people looking to career paths in PR, Advertising and other communication and media industries) asked insightful questions and engaged in thoughtful debate around the many difficult issues that face us in a world rocked by disruption of every kind.

Disruption is here to stay. Get over it because the only thing you can count on about the future is that everything is going to keep changing
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The highlight of my tour was a talk I delivered in a rather large auditorium to about 200 of these bright young minds. You can check it out below, but the TL;DR version of it goes pretty much like this:

Disruption is here to stay. Get over it because the only thing you can count on about the future is that everything is going to keep changing. Don’t count on having a job, or on jobs even existing. Instead, develop a flexible, modular skillset and deploy it creatively, like an entrepreneur. For the professionals who manage to master this, disruption presents an opportunity rather than a threat.

I was then interviewed by the students for the University’s TV and Radio programs as well as the Demystifying Media podcast which you can listen to here.

Don’t count on having a job, or on jobs even existing. Instead, develop a flexible, modular skillset and deploy it creatively, like an entrepreneur
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Q’s:
0:34: @alicebonasio explains @techtrends_tech origins and purpose
2:20: What topics and themes resonate with your audience?
3:48: How do you define immersive media?
6:30: What immersive content have you seen recently that stands out? pic.twitter.com/DGcNxhsWMO

— Damian Radcliffe (@damianradcliffe) February 4, 2019

It was also fantastic to be able to talk to a range of students, from pre-major to postgraduate. In the University of Oregon School of Journalism & Communication, those postgraduate courses are based in Portland, where they had recently opened their Reality Lab, a state-of-the art immersive facility for students, housed in a lovely historic building in the heart of the town.

My host was Donna Davis, who is the Director of the Strategic Communication Master’s program, and as I arrived for my class, her students were busy exploring the Sansar virtual world under the expert guidance of Second Life legend Bernhard Drax and Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg. We were also joined by fellow guest speaker Lisa Peyton, who is Immersive Media Strategist at Intel.

Students were exploring the Sansar virtual world under the guidance of Second Life legend Bernhard Drax and Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg
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Over the next few years, we’re going to see platforms emerging that will test different ways of blending the real and the virtual worlds
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My own contribution was a discussion on why the Social VR space is so exciting, but also of the many difficulties and pitfalls that developers and content creators face in creating the immersive social platforms of the future.

Immersive technology is not about one type of hardware or experience. At its core this is about a fundamental shift in the way that people interact with information – and with one another.

In a digital age where so many of our social interactions are mediated by technology, what even constitutes a real experience any more?
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In a digital age where so many of our social interactions are already mediated by technology, what even constitutes a “real” experience any more? That’s a particularly pertinent question for journalists in the context of a “fake news” age.

Over the next few years, we’re going to see platforms emerging that will test different ways of blending the real and the virtual worlds. That will also shape new ways for people to interact with one another socially. Humans are inherently social creatures, and the kinds of things we do in the physical world, as well as our newer social media practices such as sharing YouTube Videos, Facebooking baby pictures and inventing Twitter memes will start being blended into immersive experiences as the spectrum of those technologies becomes more pervasive.

What are the difficulties and pitfalls that developers and content creators face in creating the immersive social platforms of the future?
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There is a sea change coming where soon we will start demanding higher levels of engagement, interactivity and emotional connection afforded by immersive media.
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Which platform will emerge dominant, or will we see a more pluralistic model than with the previous social media wave? For me the question is not so much who will be “the Facebook of VR,” but perhaps how do Facebook and other social media platforms fit into this evolving landscape. As VR experiences become more commonplace, they will provide content that we will want to share through social media, much like our real-world experiences do. What we will need to figure out is how this interplay between existing social platforms and VR will play out.

These are extremely exciting times to be a creative communicator, whichever branch(es) of the creative industries you happen to choose
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I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but after these discussions I felt I had better questions, and that’s a great outcome in my book. I also came away with a sense that there is a real appetite and urgent need to equip this next generation of communicators with the tools to tell their stories in an immersive medium, creating experiences rather than passive content. There is a sea change coming where soon we will start demanding those higher levels of engagement, interactivity and emotional connection afforded by these new media.

Which platform will emerge dominant, or will we see a more pluralistic model than with the previous social media wave?
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The rulebook on immersive storytelling is yet to be written, and those entering the industry now have the opportunity to be among its pioneers
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These are extremely exciting times to be a creative communicator, whichever branch(es) of the creative industries you happen to choose. The rulebook on immersive storytelling is yet to be written, so people entering the industry now have an awesome opportunity to be among its pioneers. If the ducklings I met are anything to go by, they’re up to the challenge though.

Had an awesome time speaking today with @alicebonasio and @draxtor for @UOsojc’s Building Brands in #SocialVR class. THX @dzdavis for allowing me to play! #VR #AR #XR pic.twitter.com/pYpHI6GhN6

— Lisa Peyton (@lisapeyton) February 2, 2019

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Demystifying Media appeared first on Tech Trends.