Immersive Design Summit and the Awkward Tango

This weekend was exactly the short sharp shock of positive energy, desire for change, and gifted artistry that I was needing in my life.

Featuring opening speeches and workshops that grounded my presence in myself and within my community, the summit reminded me of the social value that inherently permeates the work we do. In my own corner, creating small immersive experiences and seeking to run them through a serger with social relevance and a desire to prompt both questioning and adventure, sometimes I lose track of the incredible, intelligent, and inspirational artists who abound in the world around me.

I am so honored to have been approached and thanked by those who attended my workshops. Each of these artists are trailblazers in their own rights, putting into stunning imagery and potent phrasing many of the thoughts that I am often still striving to form. We each share our own niche of expertise so that together, our innovations can motivate new artistic developments and industry-wide change.

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to offer the insights that my work has led me to in exchange for learning from this community!

Some of my takeaways and highlights from the weekend:

Fri Forjindam’s verbiage of the Awkward Tango. We often weave this choreography into our own work, but I had never heard this specific pairing of words used to describe immersive performance. The dance between cognitive discomfort, perseverance, and growth—what Kumashiro calls learning through crisis—is the awkward tango. I think I will use this phrasing forever now.

Johanna Koljonen attended my workshop Implementing Consent: Activating Audience Agency. Her work has inspired me for years, and I am so eager to read her upcoming book for my dissertation research, so having her in the room and eagerly participating in my workshop was mind-blowing, and our conversation about the importance of alibi will definitely make an appearance in my research.

Discussing edularp and the potential therein for with Tara O’Con, whom I have adored since my first encounter with Then She Fell, was humbling and centering. She has to be one of the most beautiful, gracious, and strong spirits I have ever met, and I enjoyed her opening workshop immensely, and was honored to serve on the ethics panel with her!

Just, this quote. Remember, almost everything you do is going to start out too hard. You know it, because you’re living it. When the audience first comes in, they’re out to sea. To take a page from Shakespeare, immersive makes groundlings of all of us.
-Haley Cooper, from Strange Bird Immersive

Thank you to Noah Nelson for inviting me to present; to Tara O’Con for grounding me and reminding me that my work is valid; Jenny Weinbloom, Fri Forjindam, Mikhael Tara Garver, and the team of 13Exp for voicing my desire to use our art for social change—and for acting upon that desire; to Johanna Koljonen for preaching the values of priming and debriefing audience participants; to Strother Gaines for your glee in accompanying me to an array of immersive events, and to all of the glowing, loving, and aspirational artists with whom I had the privilege of speaking, playing, and learning this past weekend!