• 13:00 | PANEL:"The New Stage: Navigating Performance in the Digital Realm" | Conn Holohan, Tara Baoth Mooney, Eoghan Kidney. Moderated by Dr. Angela Butler.


• 14:00 | PERFORMANCE LECTURE: How to Buy/Own/Mint One Millilitre of the South China Sea (Nan Hai)? | Winnie Soon and Tzu-Tung Lee


• 15:00 | PANEL: "Future Archives: Digital Practices and Cultural Memory" | Basil Al-Rawi, Beulah Ezeugo, Conan McIvor, - Luke Clancy (Moderator).


• 16:00 | KEYNOTE: Kay Watson - Future Art Ecosystems: the role of art in shaping the technologies of the future | In Conversation: Nora O Murchú.

PANEL: "The New Stage: Navigating Performance in the Digital Realm"

Tara Baoth Mooney, Eoghan Kidney, Conn Holohan. Moderated by Dr Angela Butler.

As immersive storytelling evolves, the boundaries of performance are being redefined in exciting new ways. This panel will explore the interplay between technology and performance, asking crucial questions about the role of the actor and the audience in the digital landscape. Join us for a dynamic discussion featuring Tara Baoth Mooney, whose personal journey with breast cancer inspired the acclaimed virtual reality project Mammary Mountain, and Eoghan Kidney, a creative director known for award-winning VR experiences such as Goliath and Impulse. Dr Conn Holohan, Course Director of the BA in Film & Digital Media at NUI Galway, will discuss creating a project with clients of Galway Simon. Moderated by Dr Angela Butler this conversation will delve into how immersive technologies are reshaping narratives and performances, and what the future holds for artists and audiences alike in this ever-evolving digital age. Moderated by Dr Angela Butler, this conversation will delve into how immersive technologies are reshaping narratives and performances, and what the future holds for artists and audiences alike in this ever-evolving digital age.

Tara Baoth Mooney’s experience of breast cancer was the inspiration for Mammary Mountain, a 23-minute virtual reality project that premiered at the Venice Immersive, the Extended Reality section of the 81st Venice International Film Festival. Mooney is a visual and sound artist who works across different areas of practice including performance, composition, drawing and spoken-song.

Eoghan Kidney is a creative director and has worked on recent award winning VR experiences with ANAGRAM including Impulse and Goliath. He has a diverse set of technological domains including RT3D, VR, AR, applications, video, film & animation, enterprise and the entertainment industry. The past several years of mhisy career has been focused on software design and engineering. He is passionate about VR and AR. He contributed to the story and interaction design on the Emmy Nominated "Goliath: Playing With Reality" experience for the Meta Quest and its "sequel" Impulse. During my role at Accenture: The Dock, he contributed to and helped lead out a variety of projects centred around using VR and AR in Enterprise. They combined design thinking and agile processes to solve new and emerging problems using immersive technology, IOT, robotics and AI. During my time as company director and Chief Innovation Officer at Rotor, he gained experience in management and leadership.

PERFORMANCE LECTURE: How to Buy/Own/Mint One Millilitre of the South China Sea (Nan Hai)? | Winnie Soon and Tzu-Tung Lee
Forkonomy() is an art and activist project that critically explores sovereignty and ownership through a speculative question: can one buy or own a millilitre of the South China Sea? Despite being one of the world’s busiest waterways for international trade, the South China Sea is also among the most contested, with overlapping territorial claims from China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and others. These competing claims over its rocks, reefs, and undersea resources make the oceanic space not just geographically significant, but also economically, militarily, and politically charged.

In Forkonomy(), Taiwanese artist Tzu-Tung Lee and Hong Kong artist Winnie Soon conceptualize the project as a "commoning ship," inviting participants to challenge and queer notions of ownership, hierarchies, and the gendered division of labor. The project also serves as a resistance to the constant threats to autonomy over land and sea in the region.

In this performance lecture, we invite the audience to buy, own, or mint one millilitre of the South China Sea and participate in a conversation on ownership through the act of performing the contract.

PANEL: "Future Archives: Digital Practices and Cultural Memory"

Basil Al-Rawi, Beulah Ezeugo, Conan McIvor - Luke Clancy (Moderator)

In an age where memory and history are increasingly mediated through digital tools, how do we preserve and reimagine our cultural archives? Faced with increasingly challenges surrounding access and openness and the consolidation of memory and knowledge controlled by private entities, this panel brings together artists and researchers working at the intersection of technology, memory, and storytelling to explore the future of archiving. Conan McIvor, a video artist and filmmaker, examines the relationship between physical spaces and digital environments in creating immersive memory landscapes. Theo Little shares his experience managing Beyond 2022, a project reconstructing the lost Public Record Office of Ireland through cutting-edge digital techniques. Beulah Ezeugo, an Igbo curator, uses collective memory and myth to dream up postcolonial futures, while Basil Al-Rawi, a multidisciplinary artist, investigates how digital mediation and archival recomposition create new connections to the past. Together, they will explore how digital practices can reframe cultural memory and reshape our future archives.

Conan McIvor is a filmmaker and video artist who creates short films, video installations, immersive environments and video works for live performance, often mediated within a sculptural or site-specific presentation. ​ His work has been exhibited locally and internationally in cities such as New York, Trondheim, Sarajevo, Ojai, Edmonton and Paris in a variety of exciting venues including a disused police station, freight container and sonic lab as well as traditional gallery spaces, international film festivals, national theatres, Off-Broadway and broadcast on national television. He attended the University of Ulster, where he studied Interactive Multimedia Design before receiving an MA in Film and Visual Studies from Queen’s University Belfast in 2007.

Beulah Ezeugo is an Igbo curator and researcher. Her work centres on Black postcolonial dreaming using collective memory and myth. Her practice is informed by a social science background from University College Dublin and an MLitt in Curatorial Practice from Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow.

Basil Al-Rawi is an Irish-Iraqi multidisciplinary artist working with photography, moving image, sculpture, and immersive technologies. His practice is concerned with the landscapes of personal and cultural memory, identity, and the digital mediation of reality. Remediation, reconstruction, intervention, and participation are central to his processes. His recent work explores the potential of recomposing archival material to form virtual bonds with the past and create expanded photographic moments. Born in 1981 in Kuwait City. Lives in Cork, Ireland.

KEYNOTE: Kay Watson - Future Art Ecosystems: the role of art in shaping the technologies of the future

In Conversation: Nora O'Murchú

Kay Watson will present the mission and past projects of Serpentine Arts Technologies that explores the impact of technology through art, research and experimental projects with a programme that focuses on commissioning, production and R&D. She will make the case for art and culture as a site of experimentation and prototyping of and with advanced technologies for the benefit of the public.

Kay Watson is a researcher, producer, and curator working with art and advanced technologies, photography, and video games. She is Head of Arts Technologies at Serpentine, leading the art and technology programme. She is a Trustee of Mediale and The Photographers' Gallery.