Speaking Events
Cloudred team members are often asked to speak at events about our projects. Here are the highlights!
Games for Change 2021: Aesthetics and Empathy: Why Art Matters
New York, NY
In this talk, Illya Szilak argues for expanding current approaches to empathy by returning to the original meaning of empathy as aesthetic sympathy.
Credit Photo: V&A. Photos by Peter Kelleher.
Victoria & Albert Museum
London, United Kingdom
Illya talks about how creators use new technologies to engage audiences in new and creative ways at V&A as part of London Design Week 2019. In this talk, Illya hypothesizes that psychophysiological space is not linear, and that is the reason why VR is such a powerful tool for empathy.
Games for Change 2019
New York, NY
So, why is VR such a powerful tool for creating empathy? To understand this, we have to understand what VR is good at. What is so special about VR? For most people the most remarkable part of VR that distinguishes it from other forms of storytelling is a feeling of presence, a sense of being in a particular place and time that seems unmediated except by your own senses.
Photo courtesy of NYC Parks
NYC Open Data Week 2019
New York, NY
Allen presents NYC Trees project to NYC Parks volunteers and enthusiasts at a NYC Open Data week event.
Photo © Xavier Ripolles Arasa
Geneva International Film Festival
Geneva, Switzerland
Creative & Technical Director Cyril Tsiboulski presents Queerskins: a love story to the Geneva International Festival audience and jury.
VR FEST MX 2018: Creating Empathy in VR
Mexico City, Mexico
What are the strategies VR creators have to create empathic states? In her talk “Creating Empathy in VR” in Mexico City, Cloudred’s Illya Szilak argues that VR is not an “Empathy Machine” but rather a tool that creators can use to activate the visitor. Through the thoughtful use of scale, movement, sound, camera position, and interactivity, we have an opportunity to enable visitors to connect emotionally with stories.
Photo courtesy of NY Tech Alliance
New York Tech Meetup
New York, NY
Cloudred partner Allen Yee present NYC Street Trees at a NY Tech Meetup in July 2018. NYC Street Trees project is recognized as “Most Creative” by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics in the 1st annual citywide competition.
Photo by Randall Michelson, Courtesy of LA Film Festival
LA Film Festival: Women’s Voices in VR
Los Angeles, California
Cloudred’s Illya Szilak discusses what led her to immersive technology as a medium for her work and the importance of VR as a spatial medium.
Photo by Andreas Psaltis © 2018 ACM SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH 2018
Vancouver, Canada
Illya Szilak and Cyril Tsiboulski discuss storytelling as a way of organizing information and how different media privilege different kinds of information and information processing: linguistic, visual, auditory, proprioceptive. Watch on Youtube →
The 2018 Ars Electronica Festival
Linz, Austria
If we could develop a perfect form of communication, what would the world look like?
VR FEST MX 2017
Mexico City, Mexico
In this talk, Illya discusses narrative strategies for telling stories in VR. Drawing on a wide range of other VR experiences, she shows how the language of VR is evolving and discusses the importance of VR as a spatial medium.