Speakers

Chris co-founded Limina Immersive with its CEO Catherine Allen in 2016. He looks after Limina’s current and future VR content strategy. Before Limina, Chris was commissioning editor for digital at the BBC for over a decade, where he commissioned many of the BBC’s first wave of VR experiences, including No Small Talk (a 360 talk show for millennial women), Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel, and Home: An Immersive Spacewalk Experience (winner of Future of Storytelling Jury award & Sheffield Doc/fest Audience award). His interactive docudrama commission “Footballers United” won the Prix Italia. Chris conceived and commissioned the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World reboot podcast, was the founding editorial lead of BBC iWonder and co-commissioned the BBC Bitesize app. Previously, Chris worked for AOL TimeWarner in New York City as a digital content strategist.

Gary has over 20 years as a musical artist playing in Manchester bands since the 1990’s such as Hilton and Moses Gate, from where Badly Drawn Boy, Damon Gough started out his career and is currently half of electro duo Modern Family Unit.

From childhood Gary has had an emotional connection and passion with both film and music. He understands the emotions that music can bring to the moving image and with a broad taste in all genres he is quick at complementing a project with the right sound.

Insook Choi’s creative work reflects her engagement with new media forms, emerging technology, also cognitive and human sciences, as well as her upbringing in a deep and abiding culture during a period of its remarkable growth. Trained as a musician and composer in both Western and Korean traditions, she adopted computational thinking as part of her creative process.

Working with interactive digital performance and virtual reality, she expanded her creative palette to include graphics and documentary media. Seeking to transform the digital canvas into a more intuitive and organic medium, Insook developed new techniques for interaction design and digital curation. As part of her creative process she designs the digital system architecture and tangible performance interfaces. Her research incorporates virtual reality, human movement studies, nonlinear narrative structures, simulation and modelling, distributed sensor networks, signal analysis, AI methods such as pattern recognition, and prototyping media performance systems.

Her most recent work, Touch Crescent Moons applied ambient smart objects connected to an Internet of Things, to control interactive documentary media. This work was curated by the European Cultural Center for their 2019 Venice Biennale exhibition.  

Javaad Alipoor is an artist, director, writer and activist who regularly makes theatre with and for communities that don’t usually engage in the arts. He is a Scotsman Fringe First and Columbia University Digital Storytelling Award winner.

He is Artistic Director of Northern Lines, resident of The Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio, a collaborator of The National Theatre’s Immersive Story Studio, a member of Arts Council England’s Northern Council, and was a founding trustee of Artistic Directors of the Future

Eloise Whitmore is a sound designer and audio producer, and MD of Naked Productions, an audio company delivering high quality sonic experiences through storytelling and sound.  She has been working in audio production for 20 years, starting in Radio Drama at the BBC in 1999. 

Eloise’s work ranges from producing radio programmes for the BBC to sound installations for the National Trust and Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to animations and binaural podcasts.

Clients include the film director Peter Strickland, Bjork at MoMA, Panoply, and the artist Samson Young for Manchester International Festival.

She has won several awards including a Sony Award for RIP Boy (Radio 4), an Aria for Sounds Like She (Radio 3) and a BBC Audio & Music award for The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Radio 4.)  She has previously won the Radio Academy Producer of the Year and Sound Designer of the Year awards.

Eloise has just completed a 5 year project with the BBC and S3A project to develop new listening technology in people’s homes, and is also leading the BBC/ACE New Creatives initiate in the North to find the next generation of audio makers.

She goes nowhere without a recording device.

Dan works for the Taking Part team at the Young Vic. As well as this, he is a performer for theatre and comedy, curator and producer. As a performer: Fine and Dandy (King’s Head), Live To Tell: (A Proposal For) The Madonna Jukebox Musical (New Wolsey Theatre for Pulse Festival, Yard Theatre for Live Drafts), They, Them, We, Us (Arcola Theatre), Cabaret Lab, Comedy Lab, Comedy Lab + (Soho Theatre), Digital Ghost Hunt (Battersea Arts Centre), Comedy at the Tramshed. As a producer: Carnation for a Song (Young Vic and tour) Bird la Bird’s Queer People’s History Show (nationwide tour with Duckie), Artist Climate Lab 2018 and 2019 (ACE funded). As a curator: Bloolips and Radical Drag. Dan is a resident artist at the Tramshed, the voice of Off Book, the Young Vic podcast, and a Creative Climate Leader with Julie’s Bicycle. 

Dan Vo FRSA is heritage consultant and museum freelancer. As a Victoria and Albert ambassador he founded the award-winning volunteer-led LGBTQ+ tours at the museum in 2015. He has since developed similar tours for Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales and University of Cambridge Museums (Fitzwilliam Museum, Polar Museum, Zoology Museum, Museum of Classical Archaeology, and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). He was the recipient of the inaugural Museums Association 'Museums Change Lives' Radical Changemaker Award in 2018. 

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He promotes diversity, equality and inclusion in the UK museum sector as a Museums Association Transformer, Fellow of the Arts Marketing Association (Future Proof Museums) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Additionally, he is a Stonewall BAME Role Model and is on steering committees for the Pitt Rivers Museum Beyond the Binary project as well as Queer Britain, and is a member of the Historic England Expert Advisory Group.

Lucy Dusgate produces the digital art programme for The Lowry, and a freelance Creative Producer of cultural events and exhibitions. From 2012 until early 2019 she was Producer of the public realm cultural programme Quays Culture at Salford Quays/ MediaCityUK. Her experience includes new commissions and presentations across galleries, theatres, cinema and public spaces in the buildings and outdoor locations. She is experienced in working across performance, dance, digital art, music and visual art for venues, festivals, corporate partners and the public sector.

Her work ranges from the intimate to the monumental, acting as a series of interventions and invitations to the public.  She produces and programmes local to international artistic talent in performance, visual arts and combined arts, as well as commissions that are site specific to unusual locations. Artists using technology in their practice are her specific specialism, as well as a broad knowledge in art programming for theatre, galleries, festivals and events. 

In August 2013 Chris established Polaroids and Polar Bears, a culture guide for West-Midlands featuring the latest news on dance, theatre, visual arts and music. As part of this role, he has delivered various workshops on audience development and engagement for cultural organisations, artists and startups. In addition to Polaroids and Polar Bears, Chris is also account director at leading technical and technology PR agency, Stone Junction a progressive, Stafford based, PR consultancy providing technical PR services to the engineering technology, technology and B2B sectors. Over the course of his PR career Chris has worked with clients such as LOCOG, Birmingham Hippodrome, Library of Birmingham, Chinese Cultural Administration, Visit Denmark, Birmingham City Council and Colmore Business District.

Harmeet Chagger-Khan is an artist, film maker and creative producer producing site-specific projects with a diverse range of individuals to harness their polymathic qualities and create subtle behaviour change within communities, organisations and cities. As a BOM (Birmingham Open Media) Fellow and Resident at Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol, she is currently exploring how technology, locative storytelling, immersive media, live art and theatre can create antidotes to life. As an Immersion Fellow for the South West Creative Technology Network her research and practice is currently centered around cultivating resilience and belonging through immersive technologies in real world environments.

Linda is Head of Digital at Birmingham Museums Trust. Birmingham Museums Trust is the largest independent charitable trust of museums in the United Kingdom, running nine museum sites across the city of Birmingham, including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, with a total of more than 1.1 million visits per year.

Linda leads on digital strategy, digital engagement (web, social and other experiences) and ICT across Birmingham Museums Trust and is passionate about getting people to use, re-use, mix and create using Birmingham's digital resources. Recent projects include making images of Birmingham Museums Trust’s  out-of-copyright collections freely available under a Creative Commons CC0 waiver, using the  resources to create projection based interactive artworks in the museum, digital vandalism and many other inclusive and accessible digital projects.

She is also a  member of the Pre-Raphaelites Online Network bringing together UK and US art galleries and museums, leading literary and historical scholars to create an online platform

Nick is a leading Social Content Producer within the BBC, where he runs social campaigns aimed at engaging an under 35 audience. As well as being instrumental in working with Tik Tok to set up the BBC’s first accounts across hugely successful campaigns for the Greatest Dancer and Eurovision, his personal TikTok is about to hit an audience of 1 million and his content has had over 50 million views. 

Starting out in comedy, in 2015 Nick picked up Snapchat just for fun, but it wasn’t long till he was helping brands with their social activations, and became part of a team that launched the UK’s first independent Snapchat event.

Nick is awful at writing bios, especially in the third person, so Nick apologises for the above.

Clare Freeman has over 10 years' experience in broadcasting; won awards for documentary making and has reported on some of the biggest breaking news stories of the last 5 years. 

She coaches, trains and consults with both first-time and established podcasters. In addition, she creates bespoke series for charities and business wanting to promote branded content, as well as presenting workshops and training sessions for in-house marketing teams.

Alison Norrington is a storyteller, producer and experience designer.  She is founder of storycentral, a London-based entertainment studio that incubates and develops ground-breaking IP with global partners in film, television, Virtual Reality, theme parks, animation, gaming and advertising.   She specializes in storytelling and experiences crossing traditional formats, live events, digital and location-based entertainment. 

Alison explores new frontiers of experiential storytelling and has designed and led labs at the London Film School, Singapore Media Academy/MediaCorp, Swedish Design Institutes and the Royal College of Art.  She is an expert program and event organizer, working with many global events and partners including Canada Media Fund, ITVFest, Canada Screen Awards, , Festival de Television (Monaco), The Children’s Media Conference, Banff World Media Festival and Canada Media Producers Association. 

Alison is Conference Chair for StoryWorld Conference, Exec Producer of the Virtual Reality Thread for The Children’s Media Conference, is a two-time TEDx speaker and has presented at a number of entertainment and media conferences worldwide.   She is featured on the BAFTA Guru series and is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The Writers Guild of Great Britain and Women in Film & TV.

Helga Henry is a consultant in the cultural sector with clients including Coventry City of Culture, the Royal Albert Hall and Jerwood Arts.  Until March 2018 she was Director of Organisational Development at Birmingham Hippodrome, leading on aligning the strategy with staff, board and volunteers.  Helga has hosted Hello Culture since its inception in 2009 and Hello Culture REMIX in Manchester in February 2019 and was host of TEDx Brum in 2012 and 2013 as well as her own "Helga Henry In Conversation With..." events. 

Her experience includes advising a range of national arts organisations and a secondment at St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY where she worked with the team on the strategic plan that led to the creation of an award-winning theatre space which opened in 2015.   A former Clore fellow (2008-2010 NESTA supported fellow for Entrepreneurial Organisations), she now develops talented staff and cultural leaders, most recently in partnership with Lara Ratnaraja on the ASTONish programme and also on the highly acclaimed RE:Present programme – Transforming the Diversity of Cultural Leadership (both funded by Birmingham City Council and Arts Council England).  

With her consultant colleague Dr Andrew Bass, she is the co-author of “NetworkAbility – Building your business one relationship at a time”, published in November 2016 and available on Amazon and Troubadour publishing.