CONFERENCE
INTRODUCTION TO VIRTUAL REALITY & APPLICATIONS
Anokhi Shah | Architect and New Media Designer
DRONES AND ITS FUTURE
Anil Gupte | Podrones
Educated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Anil is an entrepreneur, innovator, and educator who currently runs his own company called Podrones that is on the cutting edge of IoT and Drones for use in Logistics. Anil is a serial entrepreneur who has created, grown, and sold several companies, and is the originator of several technology brands. He also advises small, medium, and startup businesses on Growth, Innovation, and Strategy.
He has been involved in Computer-Aided Design for ten years and Internet-based video delivery for fifteen years. In the area of CAD, he has consulted with Fortune 100 companies such as Brady Co., Rexnord, and John Deere. In the domain of Streaming Video, he has provided solutions to large and small organizations such as the Wisconsin (USA) Department of Transportation, Cumulus Media (then owner of over 200 radio stations), Houses.com, and others.
He launched iCinema in 1997 – one of the first websites ever to stream video and the first to stream full-length feature films, created and operated maxNetwork, a business-oriented ISP with Points of Presence (POPs) in Chicago and Milwaukee and customers from around the world. In 2006, he introduced Wizo, the first Digital Video Recorder launched in India, which allowed recording from cable or Internet and full control of live TV.
As Chief Technology Officer and Director of Technical Studies at Amplify Mindware (Bharati Vidyapeeth University) from 2008 to 2011, Anil introduced four new Bachelor Degree programs including the extremely popular B.S. in Animation & Gaming. He has taught extensively at several technical and business colleges in the USA and India.
Anil has won several awards including the Economic Times Power of Ideas competition, DST-Lockheed Martin Innovation Program, Red Herring Global 100 & The Wipro-Wharton Global Innovation Competition.
BIAS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Jaideep Khare | Machine learning
AI is built by humans, and it learns from humans. Since humans will always be biased, it is impossible to eliminate bias from AI. We can, however, be aware of this bias. Can we build our AI systems with care, so that human biases towards non-privileged groups of people don't translate into the AI that we are building?
GENERATIVE ART & THOUGHTS ON IMMERSION
Abhinav Mishra | Architect & New Media Artist
Abhinav Mishra is an Architect and a New Media Designer. His work is rooted in the relationship with technology and deals with spaces, habitat, learning, and behavior. He enjoys the cross-disciplinary nature of his work that spans across the domains of Design for Education, Architecture, Interactive Art Exhibitions, Video Game Design, Exhibition Design, Virtual and Physical Spaces, and Spatial Interfaces. He is equally comfortable designing Low-Cost Sustainable Prefabricated Architecture as he is with designing Narrative Experiences and Tangible - Hybrid Interfaces. Since 2018, he works as an Interaction Designer at Microsoft R&D, India Development Center.
In a presentation about his work, Abhinav will explore "generative" as a term, cite influences from art movements, design, and architecture. Abhinav will also explain the idea of "immersion" in New Media.
TEXTILES & THE DIGITAL
Shivani Dholepatil | Designer
Shivani Dholepatil is a designer based out of her hometown-Pune. ‘Making’ has been an important part of her childhood, it made her feel she could shape the world around her. She studied product design at MIT Institute of Design and later did her MA in textile design from the University of Arts in London. The shift was inspired by the need to understand the making of materials. Sustainability, tactility, and inclusivity are important aspects of her work with a focus on colors, materials, and forms. She enjoys working with different materials and has worked with ceramics, textiles, metal, and wood.
Working with one of the first ceramic artists in the country gave her a glimpse of the artist's life as opposed to a designer's. Telling stories through making once again reminded her of her childhood when she was "made" to express. Her art is inspired by the unconscious patterns and networks generated that we access every day to perform. She attempts to harness and hack patterns and make them visual.
IMMERSIVE STORIES FROM MUMBAI
Jyoti Narayan, Bambaiyya | New Media Designer
Jyoti is an experience designer and a storyteller. She enjoys conducting research and seeks to find hidden narratives in the subjects she studied. She is a strong advocate in experimental and experiential design processes, and the execution of technology at the right place and at the right time. She has worked on a couple of VR films exploring the area of heritage and culture through VR.
Bambaiyya VR has been created by a group of 5 creatives, each of whom contributed with their own unique technical expertise and skill. Alap Parikh, a new media developer, Archit Vaze, a 3D artist, Jyoti Narayan, a new media designer, Salil Parekh, a designer and Tejas Nair, a sound designer and music producer. This project was conceptualised at the EyeMyth New Media Arts Festival in 2017, and was subsequently funded by the British Council and Prince Claus Fund in 2018.
Mumbai is a very unique city, a city that is constantly changing and adapting to the kind of people who live in it. Many communities helped build Mumbai as we see it today with each contributing in their own unique way. History is often remembered through famous events, wars, dictators and deaths. Somewhere along the way, the mundane histories of community life have been lost. At a time of rampant modernization when culture and tradition are so transient, there is a need to conserve the intimacy of everyday life in Mumbai. In today’s digital era, how does one preserve culture? How does one document past traditions, history and heritage? Can technology help in preserving our heritage? In an attempt to answer these questions, Bambaiyaa VR is a virtual experience that takes you on a journey through different communities that helped shape Mumbai to its present form. A taxi ride takes you through a visual journey of the different communities which made Mumbai unique and why it is important to protect that unique flavor in this ever changing city.
PROCEDURALISM & VFX
Sylvan Dieckmann | Anibrain
Sylvan Dieckmann is a well-known award-winning VFX & FX Supervisor at Anibrain and brings with him over 20 years of experience working on feature films, television, and VR/AR at studios such as DNEG, MPC, Framestore, Weta, and Cinesite.
He is also an established photographer and researcher for Getty Images and has worked on major projects including the Oscar-winning Gravity, The Hobbit, World War Z, Harry Potter, and the Deathly Hallows, X-Men, Interstellar Thor: Darkworld to name just a few.
Anibrain is a world-class digital content creation company, founded by Jesh Krishna Murthy in 2006, constantly pushing boundaries, creating great imagery, telling compelling stories to bring images to life. They have worked on 300+ international blockbusters- more than any other Indian VFX studio. They partner with the best facilities globally including Netflix, Framestore, Marvel, Disney, Warner Brothers, Mr.X, MPC, LipSync, Tippet, Bang Bang Pictures, Rising Sun Pictures, Technicolor, Digital Domain, Imagica Japan, Goodbye Kansas, Important Looking Pirates, Method, Atomic Fiction, Spin, Image Engine and Myth to name a few.
Anibrain has been instrumental in changing the landscape of global VFX in India. Through their institution, The School of Media Design, they have built an ecosystem of hundreds of artists who have gone on to work for the biggest projects globally. They also run India’s leading children ‘s website, Mocomi.com, and are passionate about real-time technology.
Primarily using Houdini as a reference point, Sylvan covers the uses and benefits of procedural workflows in VFX, what that means, why it's efficient and how it provides better quality and volume of shots in production.