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Immersive filmmaker Karen Palmer to deliver Visionary Keynote at Screen Forever

Karen Palmer. 

Artist and immersive filmmaker Karen Palmer will deliver the Visionary Keynote at Screen Producers Australia’s (SPA) Screen Forever conference in November.

Palmer creates “immersive film experiences at the intersection of film, AI technology, gaming, immersive storytelling, neuroscience, consciousness, implicit bias and the parkour philosophy of moving through fear”.

Her work tackles issues inherent in the race towards technological singularity – the hypothetical point in the future where technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversibly changes human civilisation. Her current project with Thoughtworks in NYC explores unconscious bias in AI and how it can result in everyday racism.

Her previous projects include Evolution for the 2012 London Olympics Cultural Lead’; Syncself, which received an HBO Award nomination at Filmteractive Festival in Poland and RIOT, an emotionally responsive film which uses facial recognition and AI technology to navigate through a dangerous riot. RIOT premiered at Festival of The Mind in Sheffield, followed by screenings at SXSW and Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, and was honoured as part of the Digital Dozen Break Throughs in Storytelling in 2017.

A prolific speaker, Palmer has talked at the Future of StoryTelling (FoST) Global Summit in New York, the Strategic Storytelling Seminar in Canada, the Google Cultural Institute in Paris and TEDx Australia at the Sydney Opera House.

SPA introduced the Visionary Keynote in 2017, to celebrate those who are using technology to enhance both storytelling and our lives. It has previously been delivered by former Pixar CFO, Lawrence Levy and engineer, creator and futurist, Dr Jordan Nguyen.

The Visionary Keynote will be delivered at 9am on November 13 at the Crown Conference Centre Melbourne. Screen Forever runs November 12-14.