13.12.2022 at 11:00 a.m.
Central Technology House

Digital worlds in the perception of children and the youth

Children and young people represent a significant part of the users of digital projects, including a significant group of Internet users. These statistics have increased significantly over the past two years, when during the pandemic most of our activities — including education and maintaining social connections — moved online. At the same time, it is the youngest audiences that are most willing to experiment and show the greatest curiosity about what technological innovations, including VR, bring. However, there is a lack of clear opinions on the use of VR headset by young people and the impact of virtual reality on the well-being and development of the youngest recipients of digital experiences.

We will look at the results of analyses presented by researchers presenting the impact of VR and the perception of digital worlds on youth, in an attempt to outline a safe framework for the use of technology in cultural and educational projects.

Participants

Moderator
Anna Szylar
VnLab Visual Narratives Laboratory at the Film School in Łódź
Speakers
Ágnes Karolina Bakk
Moholy-Nagy Art and Design University Budapest
Marta Materska-Samek PhD
Department of Management, Media Economics
and Advertising, Jagiellonian University
Michał Pabiś-Orzeszyna PhD
Department of Film and Audiovisual Media
University of Lodz
Anna
Szylar

Anna Szylar – cultural manager, curator and digital culture expert with eight years of experience working internationally. Initiator and coordinator of the Digital Cultures festival, which was organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute from 2017 to 2020. Propagator and promoter of Polish creative industries, the recognition of which she built during her many years of work at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. She was responsible for the presence of Polish artists, game developers and VR experiences at international industry events abroad including SXSW (Austin), Game Developers Conference (San Francisco), AMAZE (Berlin), MUTEK (Montreal), Tribeca Film Festival (New York), Sheffield Doc Fest (Sheffield), IDFA (Amsterdam), among others. She is currently responsible for distribution and international relations at the Visual Narrative Lab. She cooperates programmatically with several new media festivals in Poland and abroad.

Marta
Materska-Samek PhD

Assistant Professor at the Department of Management, Media Economics and Advertising of the Jagiellonian University, researcher and experienced manager of research and development projects, expert in the film industry and regional, national and European funds. Author of expert opinions and publications in the field of cultural and creative industries, pro-innovation policies and financing the development of the creative sector. He lectures on strategic media management, entrepreneurship, new trends in management, as well as issues of cultural and media economics. Laureate of the Doctus Małopolski program, scholarship holder of the Government of the French Republic, scholarship and training fund and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the area of cultural management. Currently, she is the head of an international project in the field of immersive media entitled ‘Experience and immersive technologies – from creative practice to educational theory’ implemented by the Jagiellonian University in cooperation with the Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź, the University of Malta and the Kapodistrias National University in Athens. Entered on the list of experts of the National Centre for Research and Development, the National Agency for Academic Exchange and the National Agency of the Erasmus+ Programme. Mentor, business advisor, innovation coach. Mother of Maja, Małgosia and Maciek.

Michał
Pabiś-Orzeszyna PhD

Michał Pabiś-Orzeszyna, PhD – works at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media of the University of Lodz. Since 2019, he has been involved in VR/AR production and reception research (as part of the Visual Narratives Laboratory at the Łódź Film School), and since 2021 in film animation and special effects research (projects ‘The Development of a National Strategy for the Development of Industry Education for the Film Animation and Special Effects Industries for 2023-2030’ and ‘Animation Studios in Gottwaldov and Lodz (1945/47-1990) – Comparative Collective Biography). Since 2016 he has been a member of the steering committee of the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies. Since 2021, he has been a member of the advisory board of the project ‘Sustainable Film Production in the Netherlands’ (financed by the Netherlands Film Fund).

Ágnes Karolina
Bakk

Narrative designer and researcher at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. Her practice focuses on analog and digital storytelling, the science of magic, the concept of immersion and interaction (including between humans and non-humans). She is the founder of the immersive storytelling conference Zip-Scene (zip-scene.com), held for the third time in 2021, and co-founder of Random Error Studio, a lab that supports VR productions, and currently a curator of the Vektor VR section. She teaches escape room design, immersive&VR-storytelling and speculative design at MOME. She has presented her research on immersive theater and VR at various conferences and platforms, from Moscow (CILECT, 2019) to Montreal (SQUET, 2019), as well as at festivals, including DokLeipzig (2020). Her research has been published in international academic journals, and she is currently involved in several video game productions and VR artistic creation. She is a member of the board of directors of Action COST INDCOR and a member of the editorial board of the theater journals Designo and Játéktér.