FEAR AND WONDER II: An Expedition through the Landscapes of Fiction

On Friday, June 7th, the second installment of SCI-Arc’s Fear and Wonder Symposium will be held on campus in Keck Auditorium.

That our perception of the world is largely shaped through mediums of fiction is the conceit central to Fear and Wonder II: An Expedition through the Landscapes of Fiction. Organized by SCI-Arc EDGE Fiction and Entertainment Coordinator and Design Faculty Liam Young, the symposium will join an ensemble of directors, concept artists, video game designers, and storytellers for an expedition through an atlas of imaginary worlds, fictional cities, and speculative geographies.

Fear and Wonder II Teaser from liam young on Vimeo.

Event Program

6:00 – 8:30 Musical Imaginaries, Writhing Bodies and Costumed Cultures
Andrew Thomas Huang
Ruth Carter
Ben Babbitt of Cardboard Computer
Jasmine Albuquerque in conversation with Philippa Price*

8:30 – 10:30 Pixel Forests, Robot Ruins and other Immersive Worlds
Mike Hill
La Turbo Avedon
Ersinhan Ersin of Marshmallow Laser Feast
Chris Milk in conversation with Ersinhan Ersin

Conversations moderated by Liam Young
Introduction by Hernan Diaz Alonso

SCI-Arc is thrilled to welcome the following artists, designers, directors, and storytellers for the upcoming Fear and Wonder II Symposium:

Ruth E. Carter

Ruth E. Carter won an Academy Award (Oscar) for “Best Costume Design” for Black Panther (2018 Dir. Ryan Cooglar) and has garnered two nominations for Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1993) and Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1998). Carter received an Emmy nomination in 2016 for the reboot of Roots. She has worked in the industry for over three decades and has been credited with over forty films and counting. Carter and Lee have worked on over 10 films together beginning with School Daze, and including Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, and Old Boy. Carter is known for her research and diligence to the craft, and specifically for her outstanding work for period ensemble films like the highly praised Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Ava Duvernay’s Selma.

Andrew Thomas Huang

With a background in fine art and visual effects, Huang's work bridges the gap between video art and film, expanding beyond into alternative modes of storytelling. His film and video work has exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; MoMA PS1; The Barbican Centre, London; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Having developed a strong reputation for his collaborative practice, Huang has worked extensively with Icelandic artist Bjork, among others including FKA Twigs, Thom Yorke and British director Joe Wright. Huang served as creative director for Bjork's VR exhibition Bjork Digital, creating multiple immersive experiences within the pioneering traveling installation. With his strength in world-building, Huang carries on his visual aesthetic as he continues his foray into narrative feature film. Huang is a Cinereach Fellow, a recent fellow in Film Independent's Directors Lab, and a recipient of the K Period Media Fellowship grant.

Marshmallow Laser Feast

Marshmallow Laser Feast is a creative studio exploring the line between virtual and real-world experiences. Their award-winning projects include music videos for U2, light-painting machines for McLaren, and In the Eyes of the Animal, which won the Audi Innovation Award. Most recently, McLaren and the team at MLF won the Tribeca Storyscapes Award for Innovation in Storytelling for Treehugger: Wawona. MLF’s work contemplates virtual reality as a window to the world beyond our senses and an alternative means of reconnecting with nature.

Jasmine Albuquerque

Jasmine Albuquerque is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher based in Los Angeles. She is co-founder of WIFE and has performed with companies such as Hysterica, Blue13 Bollywood Collage Dance Theater, and Ryan Heffington's Fingered. Other performances include Soft Sex, Istanbul Light Festival, TEDx SoCal, KTCHN, We Are The World, Frequency Festival, Jane's Addiction, and Hecuba at venues including the Hammer Museum, Zebulon, El Rey Theatre, The Wiltern, MOCA, The Ford, Orpheum Theatre, and LACMA. Jasmine has choreographed music videos for St. Vincent, Devendra Banhart, Ry X, Monica Dogra, and has danced in videos for Beck Laura Marling, Rodrigo Amarante, Lawrence Rothman, Verve Records, Fitz & The Tantrums, MIKA, and Morcheeba. She has a degree in History from UCLA and trained in contemporary dance at The Edge Performing Arts Center in Budapest, Hungary. She has been teaching dance in Los Angeles for the past thirteen years and is currently working on a new piece for the Walker Museum, to be completed in 2019.

Cardboard Computer, Game Creators

Carboard Computer is a games studio founded by Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, and Ben Babbitt. They developed the award-winning game Kentucky Route Zero, a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky and the mysterious folks who travel it. Gameplay is inspired by point-and-click adventure games but is focused on characterization, atmosphere, and storytelling rather than clever puzzles or challenges of skill.

Mike Hill

Mike Hill has been working in the film and games industry for ten years as a concept artist, level designer, creative director, and IP consultant. He is co-founder and ex-Managing Director of Karakter Design Studio, a multi-Emmy Award-winning design studio. Hill has worked on some of the world’s biggest titles, from Blade Runner 2049 and Game of Thrones to games such as Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Killzone, and Horizon Zero Dawn, among others. He has created several educational seminars for Industry Workshops and Trojan Horse was a Unicorn (THU) that have been covered by websites such as GQ Magazine, How Stuff Works, Adam Savage’s Tested, HeyUGuys, and Aintitcool news. In recent years Hill has created concept designs for Blade Runner 2049 and Fractured Space – as well as other undisclosed projects for Tim Miller’s Blur Studios.

Chris Milk

Chris Milk is an American entrepreneur, director, photographer and immersive artist. He is co-founder and CEO of Within, a VR/AR entertainment and technology company. Milk is known for producing challenging and unique works of art by applying technical innovations to his creative process. Milk’s acclaimed interactive projects include ‘Life of Us,’ ‘Lambchild Superstar’ (with OK Go frontman Damian Kulash), ‘The Wilderness Downtown’ (with Arcade Fire), ‘The Johnny Cash Project’ and ‘The Treachery of Sanctuary.’ He is also behind Wonderscope, Within’s revolutionary AR app for kids. His interactive installation artwork has been showcased around the world, including at MoMA and Tate Modern. Milk has presented at two TED conferences, once about the power of virtual reality to advance humanity, and later on virtual reality as the last medium of storytelling.

Philippa Price

Philippa Price is a multi-media artist and director and has recently been announced as the new creative collaborator of Rhianna’s Savage x Fenty. Price first caught the world’s attention as the brains behind Rihanna's electrifying performance at the BRIT Awards, and has directed videos for artists such as St. Vincent, Banks, and Pharrell, and helmed short film The Uncanny Valley for Stella McCartney. Based in Los Angeles, the Price channels her love of science, mythology, and technology into her creative output.

La Turbo Avedon

LaTurbo Avedon is an avatar and artist originating in virtual space. Their work emphasizes the practice of nonphysical identity and authorship. Many of the works can be described as research into dimensions, deconstructions, and the explosion of forms, exploring topics of virtual authorship and the physicality of the Internet. They curate and design Panther Modern, a file-based exhibition space that encourages artists to create site-specific installations for the internet. LaTurbo’s process of character creation continues through gaming, performance, and exhibitions. Their work has appeared internationally, including TRANSFER Gallery (New York), Transmediale (Berlin), Haus der elektronischen Künste (Basel), The Whitney Museum (New York), HMVK (Dortmund), Barbican Center (London), and Galeries Lafayette (Paris).

Liam Young

Liam Young is an Australian born architect who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. He is founder of the think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today, a group whose work explores the possibilities of fantastic, speculative and imaginary urbanisms. Building his design fictions from the realities of present, Young also co-runs the Unknown Fields Division, a nomadic research studio that travels on location shoots and expeditions to the ends of the earth to document emerging trends and uncover the weak signals of possible futures. He has been acclaimed in both mainstream and architectural media, including the BBC, NBC, Wired, Guardian, Time Magazine, and Dazed and Confused and his work has been collected by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has taught internationally including the Architectural Association and Princeton University and now runs an M.A. in Fiction and Entertainment at SCI-Arc. Young manages his time between exploring distant landscapes and visualizing the fictional worlds he extrapolates from them.

This symposium is being presented by SCI-Arc’s 2018-19 Fiction and Entertainment program, which is generously supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

*Fatima Robinson will no longer be joining the event.