Oakland Festival of Immersive Arts

01/14/2024

"My biggest gripe about urbanization is it’s essentially unplanned except for one thing: commerce. That’s planned. Poverty is a design issue. It’s a failure to accommodate everybody."

A leading proponent of vertical farming discusses how urban areas should adapt to a perilous environmental future.

11/10/2023

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, is the leading economic forum for the 21 Member Economies of the Asia-Pacific region, facilitating trade and investment, economic growth, and regional cooperation. U.S. APEC 2023 will be ‘the most significant event with world leaders in San Francisco in recent history.’ Immersive Arts Alliance will activate the South Light Court of SF City Hall with an immersive installation by Michelle Grenier, working in concert with technical director Rich Trapani and project directors Miriam McGovern, Clark Suprynowicz.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference comes at a pivotal moment for the city as it struggles to rebound from the pandemic.

09/10/2022

IAA brings ambitious and compelling art to public spaces throughout the Bay Area. Here’s a clip from our last event, the inaugural Oakland Festival of Immersive Arts, which animated downtown Oakland’s Broadway corridor for two weeks in July 2022.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said: "The Oakland Festival of Immersive Arts celebrates our town's artists and culture makers, and our legacy as a place of social movements and innovation.”

07/23/2022

Don't miss out on the Panel Discussion: 'Rendering Climate Futures in Art + Data' Tomorrow at 8PM with 'TIDES'

This panel discussion will explore climate change, media art, social practice and data visualization — and the Bay Area as a unique nexus of that intersection. Moderated by Vanessa Chang (Senior Program Manager for LEONARDO/ISAST and Board Member of Immersive Arts Alliance).

Follow the link here --> LINKhttps://buff.ly/3b2aUE2.

Located at The Beckford Suite, 274 14th Street, Oakland

07/22/2022

Join us for the last weekend of the Oakland Festival of Immersive Arts!
Come check out free immersive art starting tonight at 8PM in Downtown Oakland.

Follow this link for more information! --> https://buff.ly/3RzYcwx

07/22/2022

Our final artist spotlight is on Ian Winters, exhibiting "TIDES".

Ian Winters, originally trained as a photographer and filmmaker, has over the past decade created innovative multimedia work, both individually and as part of collaborative teams. These works encompass photography, video, and installation-based performance work. Much of Winter’s recent work has centered around collaborative devised projects with choreographers, performers, and musicians in both staged projects and site-specific installations.

'TIDES' by Ian Winter is a video and photographic installation exploring the rapidly changing tidelands of San Francisco Bay and neighborhoods that will be lost under rising waters. Presented in collaboration and cooperation with LEONARDO and featuring a score by composer Wayne Vitale, 'TIDES' originated with a commission from the Creative Work Fund, and was originally premiered at the Minnesota Street Gallery.

Artist Ian Winters spent hundreds of hours gathering images and video from every point around the San Francisco Bay that he was able to access, building a composite portrait of an environment that we (the public) circle every day as we go about our business.

'TIDES' will be located at Broadway Event Hall, 2323 Broadway, Oakland

07/22/2022

Weekend Two of the Festival of Immersive arts is THIS Friday. Get ready for exhibitions, performance, and music throughout downtown Oakland's Broadway corridor, highlighting the potential of immersive art to spark conversations about vital issues.

Check out the SF Chronicle article here --> https://buff.ly/3B8LQWE

07/21/2022

Are you ready for weekend two of The Oakland Festival of Immersive Arts?

Our next artist spotlight is on Can Büyükberber. Can Büyükberber, born in Turkey and based in San Francisco, creates immersive audiovisual experiences. His practice embraces virtual and augmented reality, projection mapping, geodesic domes, large-scale displays, and digital fabrication. Büyükberber studied Physics at Istanbul University, and has a BA in Visual Communication Design from Istanbul Bilgi University and an MFA in Art and Technology from San Francisco Art Institute. His interdisciplinary education informs his practice, which connects art, design, and science. His work often focuses on human perception, exploring new methods for non-linear narratives, geometrical order, synergetics, and emergent forms which blur the sense of scale and presence in physical and digital environments. Their work, Khôra leans into the impossible, creating the effect of a moving, holographic installation (moving holograms have not been invented yet: that is the “impossible” part).

See the installation at Gaines Gallery, 1740 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA

07/18/2022

The work on view at the Oakland Festival of Immersive Arts shows off site-specific, community generated works with downtown as the perfect setting.

07/16/2022

While visiting the Broadway Event Hall at 2323 Broadway, be sure to check out 'Luminous Waveforms' by Phil Spitler and Victoria Mara Heilweil .

This work is an innovative and imaginative interpretation of seating. Comprised of parametrically designed, sculpted benches, the artwork transforms the mundane experience of sitting into an uplifting and creative experience. The organic curves are inspired by nature and sound waves, sliced into a repeating rhythm. The fluid elegance of the forms and gradual color shifts from the interior LED illumination transform the physical experience of the seating. The artwork is form and function, social as well as aesthetic.

As both a utilitarian object and a light-enhanced sculpture, it creates a place for rest, conversation and contemplation. 'Luminous Waveforms' is designed in 3D modeling software and then sliced into 2D planes. Each plane is then CNC cut out of 3/4 inch birch plywood and physically re-assembled back into its three dimensional form. The face of each slice provides a solid canvas for the intelligent LED lighting to cast upon. The lighting patterns are custom coded and site specific to create the mood of the piece, and engage participants with movement and color.'Luminous Waveforms' has been displayed at Burning Man (Black Rock Desert), the City of Los Altos, Wonderspaces (San Diego), The Autumn Lights Festival (Oakland), Friends & Family (Saratoga Springs), The Midway (San Francisco), Space 151 (San Francisco), and DZINE Gallery (San Francisco)

07/16/2022

Damien McDuffie’s 'AR Museum for the People' is a mobile augmented reality walking tour highlighting the narrative history of the Black Panther Party through mural art located both inside Festival partner Oakstop’s storefront at 17th and Broadway and at Black Panther monuments around the Downtown Oakland corridor.

Damien McDuffie has worked as a freelance journalist, has run brand strategy for the culture collective Wine & Bowties, and has facilitated the preservation of historical archives for the Huey P. Newton Foundation about the Black Panthers. McDuffie is now working on a more innovative way to document culture and history: augmented reality.

Black Terminus is a mobile augmented reality camera app & studio for Black art and the Black cultural archive. Download the app before entering Damiens installation!

You can download the Black Terminus App at:
iOS: https://buff.ly/3o6IE61
Google: https://buff.ly/3OjGM4M

Find more info on Damien at —> https://buff.ly/3o6HQy7

Link to IAA info page for tickets —> https://buff.ly/3o8lMTS

'AR Museum for the People' is located at Broadway Gallery Suite, 1723 Broadway

Photo Credits: Theo Schear