Anna Szylar

Curator and digital culture expert with a strong track record in producing and distributing impactful immersive experiences, including her involvement in the production of the award‑winning Gymnasia VR (Felix & Paul Studios, Clyde Hendy Productions, PHI Center) and Messages to the Post-Human Earth (Anagram). Anna is a founder of Monster Mind Studio and her comprehensive production services span from concept to execution, securing funding, and international team coordination. Monster Mind Studio explores future narratives, focusing on XR & AI, and champions Polish digital art globally. This holistic approach extends beyond production into shaping the cultural landscape itself. Anna, Monster Mind Studio’s founder is a trusted strategic mind behind major industry events, lending her vision to the programming of festivals, such as led by her since 2018 Digital Cultures or IDFA DocLab, where she serves as a Program Advisor. Her curatorial expertise brings cutting-edge XR and digital art to wider audiences through high-profile exhibitions, from the MDAG Vision (2025) to the internationally recognized "Ground Control" showcase in Venice (2023).

Irena Taskovski

Irena Taskovski, CEO and founder of Taskovski Films and the #DocsConnect Conscious Filmmaking Training Program, is an award-winning producer and distributor with over two decades of experience. She has mentored, consulted, and provided expertise in marketing, sales, financing, and impact distribution for numerous film institutions, including Sunny Side of the Doc, HBO Europe, TRT World, the Asian Cinema Fund, dok.incubator, Sources Germany, and Emerging Producers at Ji.hlava IDFF. She is the mother of a 10-year-old son, a certified 5Rhythms mindfulness-in-motion and movement facilitator and coach, supporting personal and professional growth for film industry professionals. Irena is also a passionate activist for the environment, peace, and human unity, and serves as a mental health ambassador for those working in the film industry.

Matt Szymanowski

Matt Szymanowski is a filmmaker and creative strategist from Silicon Valley, now based in Poland. He is the director of A Human Future, a global documentary on identity in the age of AI, and Captive Mind, a hybrid live-action feature film. As founder of Bear & Bot, he develops films, events, and experimental formats that connect filmmakers with emerging AI tools. He is committed to shaping a future where technology amplifies human creativity and stories continue to guide how we see the world.

Navid Khonsari

Founder and creative director of iNK Stories, Navid Khonsari is known for the cinematic look and feel for iconic game franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, The Warriors, Alan Wake, Home Front and the highest grossing VR game to date, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Visionary creator of 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, Khonsari’s work has garnered top honors from institutions such as BAFTA, Sundance, Tribeca, UNESCO, Academy of Interactive Arts &Sciences (DICE), International Mobile Game Awards, IndieCade Grand Jury Award, plus Facebook’s Game of the Year. Recent releases include Fire Escape: An Interactive VR Series that debuted at Tribeca Film Festival and Hero (a VR multi-sensory experience) and winner of the Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award. Khonsari is impassioned by the possibilities of a new wave of immersive entertainment. His latest project Lili was presented at the Cannes Festival 2025.

Paweł Schreiber

Assistant professor in the English Department at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, where he specialises in contemporary British drama. He is a theatre critic writing for major Polish theatre journals and co-author of the blog Jawne Sny, which discusses questions of video games and their relationship to other branches of culture. He has written on games for publications including Przekrój, dwutygodnik.com and PIXELMagazine.

Lunch

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The Dream of the Machine

Marcin Nowicki

"The Dream of the Machine" by Noviki is a multimedia artwork exploring AI’s ability to dream and hallucinate. Using generative design, video, and sound, it envisions a machine in a dreamlike state, producing abstract compositions beyond human perception. The piece examines the role of dreaming in reasoning within latent space, where artificial intelligence navigates hidden patterns and possibilities. By simulating subconscious-like processes, it questions whether machines can develop creativity and intuition through autonomous exploration of data.

AlphaGo_Lee. Theory of Sacrifice

Natalia Korczakowska

Year 2016, Seoul, a historic duel: Korean Go master Lee Sedol faces the computer program AlphaGo, powered by artificial intelligence. The human player carries the burden of representing all of humanity. The “epoch-making match” was organized by Google DeepMind, the creator of AlphaGo, to spark global media interest and pave the way for the company’s then-planned return to the Chinese market. A meticulously orchestrated PR campaign reached millions of viewers worldwide, turning the game into a powerful symbol of humanity’s defeat by AI. This theatrical performance reimagines the legendary duel as a ritual, drawing the audience into the act of creation while asking urgent questions about the social and environmental costs of technological progress.

Trasa

Andrei Chodera-Isakau

The person experiencing the installation, in the presence of a virtual female driver, undertakes an endless car journey through virtual landscapes that change depending on the selected radio station. We are free to look around from the passenger seat and switch radio stations, which play music and radio programs generated by AI. The goal of the project is to experience an endless journey, finding peace and immersing oneself in the process of travel. Depriving the viewer of agency emphasizes the meditative nature of the experience, allowing for focus on the visual and auditory narrative. The work examines AI as an aesthetic collaborator - how artificial intelligence co-creates our sensory and emotional experiences.

Neofeudal Oracle, Seraphic Circuit

Agata Lankamer, Agata Konarska

"Neofeudal Oracle, Seraphic Circuit" is an immersive installation and gaming experience exploring digital domination and new forms of power. Inspired by Y.Varoufakis’ Technofeudalism:What Killed Capitalism, it shows how the datification of life and tech monopolies create a landless feudal order where users become digital peasants ruled by algorithmic control. The player embodies a peasant in a divination ritual led by AI angels through layered digital heavens. From above, peasants labor in fields echoing Courbet or Chełmoński, yet holding smartphones and serving cloud capital. The work merges rustic fabrics, hay and farming tools with cybernetic prosthetics, provoking reflection on control, rebellion and visions of technological sovereignty.

Numiares

Marcin Życzkowski, Anna Molter

A narrative horror-driven 3D video game with a story conceptualised as a visual novel told through environmental storytelling. The game is deeply rooted in a brutal & unforgiving fantasy world inspired by the grim and dark tales & folklore of early medieval Central Europe with its harsh & bloody realities. Players take on the role of a holy warrior and shaman, battling a chilling menagerie of creatures, tasked with negotiating treaties with supernatural forces, acting as judge, jury & executioner.

Star Trek: Infection

Denys Zosym

How do you turn Star Trek’s optimism into fear you feel in your body? Star Trek: Infection is an experimental VR survival horror that uses a twist of science to shape tension, uncertainty, and player choices in full immersion. We show how we designed narrative and interactions, tested emotional responses, and solved VR challenges like presence-safe scares, spatial audio, and comfort. For the first time, players step into the role of an iconic Vulcan officer and experience survival horror through their eyes.

Dan Tucker

Dan Tucker is the Executive Producer of Exhibitions and Touring at East City Films, where he leads the presentation of In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats and the studio’s immersive portfolio at festivals, galleries, theatres, and music venues worldwide. An award-winning digital producer and curator, Dan brings over 25 years of experience across broadcasting, digital media, startups, and the arts. Passionate about interaction and storytelling, he works at the intersection of multiple screen industries, from television documentaries to cutting-edge virtual reality experiences. His diverse portfolio spans acclaimed TV productions like Charlie Brooker’s How Videogames Changed the World and groundbreaking digital projects such as the interactive drama Our World War and the VR documentary Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel for the BBC. As Curator of Alternate Realities for Sheffield International Documentary Festival, Dan curated a global touring exhibition of digital art and documentary, showcasing immersive works from The Guardian, Greenpeace, BBC, and the National Film Board of Canada. More recently, Dan has held key roles as a Commissioning Executive for BBC Arts and Arts Council England’s New Creatives, Head of Partnerships for Mediale, and a VR Researcher for the BFI. At East City Films, he continues to champion innovative immersive storytelling, bringing powerful experiences to audiences around the world.

Scarlett Kim

Scarlett Kim is a director and producer innovating the intersection of live performance and immersive technology. A polymath, Scarlett creates participatory experiences that reimagine liveness, drawing from theatre, XR, game, and ritual. As a producer, Scarlett bridges cultural institutions, community ecosystems, and innovative initiatives to champion artists imagining new worlds. Scarlett is Executive Creative Producer of Center for Unclassifiable Technologies & Experiences (C.U.T.E.); Interdisciplinary Fellow at Royal Shakespeare Company; Visiting Artist at Stanford Arts; Co-Founder of Independent XR Distribution Coalition at MIT Open Doc Lab; and Co-Founder/Co-Producer of Worlds in Play, a gathering of game and theatre practitioners. Scarlett serves on the board of Los Angeles Performance Practice, having produced its 10th Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival, is a member of The Kilroys, and mentors for NEW INC. Previously, as Director of Innovation & Strategy of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Scarlett led the transmedia department of the largest repertory theater in the US.

Przerwa

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Over 15 years in almost 15 minutes

Jakub Koźniewski

Jakub is a co-founder of PanGenerator - a new media art & design collective based in Warsaw, Poland, founded together with Piotr Barszczewski (ex-member), Krzysztof Cybulski and Krzysztof Goliński. Since 2010 the group creates unique projects exploring new means of creative expression and interaction with the audience. Their works are characterised by blending the ephemeral digital realm with the physical world. PanGenerator is mixing bits & atoms to create audience-engaging, dynamic and tangible experiences in opposition to typically static, hermetic and unapproachable conventions prevalent to traditional, mainstream “modern art” practice. In their 15th anniversary this year they will take a step back and reflect on the changing new media art landscape.

Animalis / Master of Reality

Agata Chodera-Isakau

Two immersive VR experiences explore humanity's complex relationship with animals and exploitation ethics. Animalis uses interactive 6DOF virtual reality to challenge our unconscious dominance over fauna, revealing how we strip animals of agency and reduce them to objects. Navigate uncomfortable territory between subtle appropriation and deliberate conquest of natural processes. Master of Reality confronts these themes through multi-sensory installation combining touch, sound, and vision. Feel contradictory pleasure stroking fur while generating ephemeral soundscapes, as an observing avatar witnesses your interaction. Both works examine animal status in human culture and broader exploitation of subordinated beings, questioning our role as masters of nature.

AI Social Lab

Jacek Nagłowski

He has been working on issues related to artificial intelligence since 2020. He directed and produced an interactive VR experience „Conversations” co-created with various AI systems ranging from text, image, sound and space creation in the Unreal engine. He is also developing a project called „Sideways of AI – Survival Guides,” which aims to popularize knowledge about the social and psychological risks arising from the development and rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence and methods of dealing with these risks. In parallel, he is developing an AI Social Lab venture aimed at creating and promoting artificial intelligence systems to help solve social problems unaddressed by the commercial sector, including helping excluded and marginalized communities.

Bjkowska Atlantyda

Daria Łuka

Daria’s project “Bojkowska Atlantyda” is a mobile application that serves as an interactive guide to the former Boyko region in the Bieszczady Mountains, Poland. The app allows users to explore the landscapes of vanished villages, as well as the traditions, beliefs, and art of this ethnic group. Using augmented reality, it brings back to life everyday objects and long-lost architecture, offering an immersive way to connect with cultural heritage. The project was developed in Unity, combining historical research with modern technology to create an engaging tool for education and cultural preservation.

Steel

Filip Jakubowski

The film "Steel" portrays two elderly women – Krystyna (90) and Marysia (85) – who in their daily work confront the rhythm of the contemporary, increasingly digitized world. The camera accompanies them through impersonal spaces: a factory hall and the last umbrella repair shop in Cracow. Their weathered hands and voices amid the hum of machines become testimony to a quiet exclusion – of people whose pace of life cannot keep up with the pace of technology. Visually, the film juxtaposes classically composed frames with modern LiDAR imaging and 3D renderings. This collision between analog tactility and digital abstraction creates a dialogue between filmic languages that also reflects changing perceptions of time and transience.

"Fractured Reflections"

Sefa Sagir, Anna Klimczak

"Fractured Reflections" is an interactive sound object that responds to its environment. It combines weather data, the flow of water in Polish rivers, and the subtle gestures of the participants to create hypnotic sounds and images. At its centre is a basin filled with water, made from a satellite dish. Pulsating patterns appear on its surface—an effect of the constant exchange of information and influences. The object demonstrates how individual actions and global phenomena intertwine into a single, ever-changing whole. It invites the viewers to pause, listen, and feel that we are part of a larger system.

Sara Szostak, Marta Grytczuk

CSW Zamek Ujazdowski

Networking

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