Five projects and an award for Onassis ONX at the SXSW 2024 in Texas

What power do myths have? How do the myths of the future get shaped? “The Golden Key” brings audiences into contact with the mythological dreams of an AI as it writes and visualizes a never-ending story. The AI has been trained on tens of thousands of folk tales from around the world, a dataset of narrative fragments that echo our most basic stories and concerns. As the installation proceeds, an infinite progression of narrative, sight, and sound unfolds as audience members are invited to take on the role of the "trickster" to actively shape the narrative of this generated story and explore the concealed structures that sit behind AI's purported magic. Presented by Deloitte.

Executive Producer, Co-producer
Directors: Marc Da Costa, Matthew Niederhauser
Executive Producer: Onassis ONX
Technical Director: Aaron Santiago

"The Golden Key" by Matthew Niederhauser & Marc Da Costa has won the XR Experience Jury Award at the SXSW 2024 festival.

Embark on an immersive exploration in a psychotropic cyberpunk universe, where each element – from spatial audio to tactile haptic systems – is meticulously crafted to represent the emotional spectrum of a lived bipolar disorder experience. Lotus flower speakers resonate with personal stories, while triptych displays visualize the journey from turmoil to tranquility. This experience, deeply personal yet universally resonant, offers a window into the life of an individual navigating the complexities of bipolar disorder, pre- and post-treatment. It's a shared exploration that invites understanding, empathy, and a collective reimagining of mental health narratives.

“Antipsychotic” delves into the manifestation of psychotic features in bipolar disorder type 1, focusing particularly on the experience of paranoia. While acknowledging the individual nature of bipolar disorder experiences, I offer insights into grappling with paranoia within this context. The narrative zooms in on how mood shifts can trigger intense paranoid delusions, which often persist relentlessly. Despite the support of loved ones, breaking free from these pervasive thoughts proves challenging. Through “Antipsychotic,” I aim to shed light on the often-overlooked dimension of paranoid delusions in bipolar disorder.

Executive Producer, Co-producer
Director: Matt McCorkle
Executive Producer: Onassis ONX
Producer: Jessica Kidd, Jazia Hammoudi
Guitarist: Mark Sidney Johnson
Installation Set Designer: Jessica Kidd
Creative Technologist: Joe Daleki

Matt McCorkle is an Emmy-nominated artist working at the intersection of sound, art technology, the natural world, and mental health. Using augmented audio, foley, spatial audio processing, 3D models, haptics, and game engines his work seeks to help people experience the world in new ways.

To exist in the virtual world is to have two bodies, four hands, two hearts. In “Shadowtime,” a guide to this double world leads you through questions around the climate crisis, irreconcilable realities, and the virtual as a place to take shelter.

The VR installation is accompanied by the directors' previous short film “Our Ark.” Together, these projects present a diptych of a rapidly changing world: One chronicles the desire to digitally preserve, and the other critiques the allure of the virtual and its impact on our physical realities.

Co-producer
Directors: Sister Sylvester, Deniz Tortum
Producer: Firat Sezgin, Ecegül Bayram
Screenwriter: Deniz Tortum, Sister Sylvester
Music: Alican Çamcı
Principal Cast: Rawya El Chab
Co-Production Company: Onassis ONX Studio
Lead Developer: Sjoerd van Acker
3D Artist: Bats Bronsveld
AI Artist: Arjan van Meerten

Sister Sylvester works in performance and new media. She is a resident at ONX Studio; a 2019 MacDowell Fellow; an alumnus of the Public Theater New Works program and CPH:DOX lab. Her most recent film, “Our Ark” (co-directed with Deniz Tortum, 2021) and her most recent performance, “The Eagle and the Tortoise” (2022) both premiered at IDFA and toured internationally.

Deniz Tortum works in film and immersive media. His latest film, “Our Ark” (co-directed with Sister Sylvester, 2021), premiered at IDFA and screened internationally; his feature documentary, “Phases of Matter” (2020), premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and received the Best Documentary awards at the Istanbul and Antalya FF.

A new site-specific soundwalk, created by Tribeca Immersive Award-winning duo Point A (artists Andrew Schneider and Annie Saunders), in collaboration with astrophysicists and the local community. Accessed in public space with headphones, the walk is full of “was-that-part-of-it” moments, sound activated by location and time of day, narration researched and recorded in Austin, and live interactions hidden in plain sight. Just another day, regular people doing regular things and then suddenly, magically synchronous. Like an eclipse.

This work was made possible by the Simons Foundation, is part of its “In the Path of Totality” initiative, and was created in partnership with the Long Center.

Directors: Andrew Schneider, Annie Saunders
Executive Producer: Simons Foundation, Long Center
Producer: Dax Stringer
Screenwriter: Andrew Schneider, Annie Saunders
Editor: Andrew Schneider, Annie Saunders
Sound Designer: Andrew Schneider
Music: Andrew Schneider
Production Stage Manager: Dàtil de la Garza

Andrew Schneider is mostly interested in how humans telling stories about ourselves to each other can make us better at being humans. He is an OBIE award-winning, Drama Desk nominated performer, writer, and interactive-electronics artist creating original works for theater, dance, sound, video, and installation since 2003.

Annie Saunders is a multidisciplinary creator and director of site-specific experiences, and has made award-winning installations and performance works for major arts institutions as well as immersive projects in disused buildings and experiential works for public space.

“Tulpamancer” explores how the intersection of generative AI and VR can shape new ways of encountering ourselves. Sitting down at a computer terminal, participants first encounter the Tulpa through a series of questions about their lives. They are then invited to meet in a world prepared uniquely for them in VR by the Tulpa, embarking on a journey through a series of uniquely generated scenes that evoke and question the memories of their past and potential fates. These uniquely generated experiences are destroyed at the end, left only to resonate in the minds of each participant. Presented by Deloitte. Powered by Onassis ONX Studio

Executive Producer, Co-producer
Directors: Marc Da Costa, Matthew Niederhauser
Executive Producer: Onassis ONX
Technical Director: Aaron Santiago
Installation Designer: Michelle Oliver Gutierrez

Matthew Niederhauser (USA, 1982) is an artist and educator. His latest work pushes the limits of emerging immersive XR technologies within a wide range of mediums including VR, installation, and video. He otherwise continues to work with Sensorium, an experiential studio he cofounded, and acts as the Technical Director at Onassis ONX Studio.

Marc Da Costa is a multimedia artist living in New York whose work explores the interplay between archives, technology, and lived experience. His recent work considers how AI can be seen through poetic, ecological, and mystical lenses. Da Costa holds a PhD in cultural anthropology and previously led a global data analytics company.