Interview with Advisory Board Member Joris Weijdom: 'IX is not only an end product for experiences or applied applications, but also a design and development environment.'

The Advisory Council of CIIIC consists of 24 carefully selected members who provide both solicited and unsolicited advice to our program team on key content areas. As representatives of the IX community and ambassadors of IX in the Netherlands, they are crucial for the connection with the industry. But who are these members, what do they do, and – most importantly – how do they view IX?

In part 18 Joris Weijdom, IX lecturer at the HKU, on three-dimensional psychedelic environments and experiential visions.

Who are you, what do you do?

‘My name is Joris Weijdom and I am an Associate Lecturer at the Research Group (Dis)connected Technology & Creativity of the University of the Arts Utrecht (HKU). We research the possibilities and limitations of technology in creative production processes, with my focus particularly on IX and ‘embodied’, physically and interactively experienced forms of designing and experimenting. For this, we have established the HKU Artistic Extended Reality Lab (AXRLab), for practice-driven design research and innovation.

Additionally, I coordinate the interdisciplinary HKU Minor Artistic Immersive Experiences, and I am involved as a lecturer in various BA and MA graduation programs at HKU Media, HKU Theater, and HKU Games. Finally, I am also regularly involved in innovative IX productions as a so-called technological dramaturge, where I combine artistic production methods for designing embodied meaningful interactive experiences with an in-depth knowledge of the (im)possibilities of the technology.

By ‘meaningful’, I mean that the experience is focused on creating meaning and expressive power, based on artistic aesthetic considerations and philosophical ethical issues. This contrasts with, for example, designing technical training or functionally deploying IX for a clearly instrumental purpose.’

Why 'immersive', what is your connection to new content/technology?

'XR technology and IX experiential spaces are essentially a three-dimensional psychedelic sketch environment where multiple designers and stakeholders can interactively experience new ideas at a very early stage of concept development. This allows for trying out and testing ideas from a shared physical experience, where design choices are based not only on mental knowledge and assumptions but also on a felt context, bodily cognition, and social intelligence.

Thus, IX is not only a potential end product for aesthetic experiences or applied applications but also a design and development environment – with current software and hardware being quite affordable and usable for rapidly developing and testing experiential prototypes.

Additionally, this technology allows for connecting people and spaces for collaboration in so-called networked hybrid environments. Together with the Lectoraat Transdisciplinary Design Network and the Transrealities Lab of the Design Academy Eindhoven, we have enabled a linked interdisciplinary design and development process with professional and emerging designers at two physical and virtual locations simultaneously. In the spring, SURF will also release a beautiful documentary and report on this, as part of their Future Campus project.’

Why did you want to join the Advisory Board, what specifically appealed to you in/about the program?

‘With the CIIIC, we have the opportunity to build a truly sustainable infrastructure in the Netherlands where artistic deepening, knowledge development, and an innovative creative industry can be internationally leading in terms of meaningful and innovative IX experiences and applications. I truly believe in this with more than 25 years of experience in this still-developing field!

Especially when you see how we win top prizes at various international venues like SXSW, the Festival in Cannes, and Venice Biennale with our artistic IX productions, we must cherish these often small IX design studios as the source of our innovation. Since CIIIC is focused on making and keeping the Netherlands competitive on the world stage, I believe the program should not only focus on building a more robust infrastructure with larger players but also be an environment where small players are supported to continue exploring and creating innovative and meaningful IX.

I see it as the role of knowledge institutions like the HKU to be an essential part of this infrastructure, researching and developing knowledge about IX design with small creators and larger partners, and then translating this knowledge into education and training for the new generation of IX designers.’

What is your IX dream/mission?

‘It is my and our mission at HKU to learn to use and misuse old and new technology to create critical and meaningful experiences that inspire wonder, awareness, and discussion around societal themes in which technology is both a curse and a blessing.

Additionally, it is my mission as a researcher at the research group and as a teacher in arts education that young and old creators, along with other societal stakeholders, use immersive environments to discover, share, develop, and present their dreamed vision together on national and international stages; experiential visions that are necessary to better understand ourselves and each other by learning to look, experience, and communicate from multiple perspectives. This can lead to artistic immersive experiences for festivals and other cultural stages or at home, but also to new applications in non-artistic fields such as (mental) healthcare.

These IX environments for communal embodied design and training can be offered at HKU to creators and the industry in the form of, for example, the AXR Lab, but we also see them as a continuous, ongoing research [the further development of these environments] with various knowledge institution partners to increasingly enrich them in different forms – so that we can form a national and ultimately international network of linked embodied IX research, design, and development environments.’

Which developments in the field do you see as important to strengthen and why?

‘It is clear that Big Tech companies are steering towards smart glasses that should replace our mobile phones in daily life. Here, immersive VR will be a smaller part of the overall field, with AR/MR applications in public spaces undergoing greater development. Furthermore, recent generative Artificial Intelligence developments will seamlessly collaborate with these smart glasses. Thus, two major technological developments are converging. This means that Big Tech companies have a significant interest in shaping this mixed public and private space in which we will increasingly live our lives.

Therefore, it is of great, eminent importance for the creative industry in the Netherlands and Europe that we create inspiring examples of what meaningful IX can be in our daily lives and train designers who will significantly contribute to designing these environments. I would find it regrettable if our mixed public and private space of the near future is determined and shaped by Big Tech, which is mainly focused on collecting our data instead of creating meaningful experiences and encounters with multiple diverse perspectives.’

Public values play an important role at CIIIC, what is your view on that? Extra stimulating or a potential obstacle?

‘Both. It becomes an obstacle if you think of them as just a few ethical checkpoints to tick off at the end of your design and production. It is stimulating if you ask yourself from the beginning of your process why you are making what you are making, for whom you are making it, and for what purpose.

It goes without saying that in the arts we must always be aware of the ethical aspects of the work we create and take care of the people with and for whom we create it. At the same time, the artist also has the role of exploring and questioning boundaries, making ethical considerations an essential, critical part of the research and creation process. IX productions, in my view, may also confront, disrupt, and question what the ethical boundaries are and what we see as shared public values. Not to try to remove or permanently change them, but to consciously keep them alive as an ongoing discussion.’

Finally, the Advisory Board gives advice – what is your message to the community? And how can people find and 'engage' you to potentially share their ideas with the community?

‘Let's stop trying to compete with each other in this very small country and really make efforts to initiate sustainable cooperation., and let's cherish small innovative parties and continue to provide an environment where they can foster new inspiring ideas and knowledge that we can potentially scale up. I, and we at HKU, are happy to open our doors for collaboration where we want to discover with diverse stakeholders what IX can really mean in all its glory.’

Joris can be contacted directly through HKU or like all other Advisory Board members via: adviesraad@ciiic.nl.

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Composition: Nils Adriaans

Photography: Ben Houdijk