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how to use and identify the appropriate tech for a particular application. It gives them the confidence to design a solution or respond to a client brief and determine where the technology is a suitable fit for that environment – rather than relying completely on others to validate their ideas. There’s also the importance of using industry-standard tools. From a higher education perspective, one of the things we often do is partner up with those we recognise as key players in the industry, rather than just using whatever technology happens to be available at the time. Managing those relationships is important. You want to avoid the learning environment resembling an AV warehouse, students feeling like they’re an unwilling participant in a sales pitch or acting as brand ambassadors. But at the same time, those relationships can yield great results; sometimes, we get our hands on products that haven’t launched yet. The partners can also get involved with the teaching and learning side of things, coming in as industry experts. They get to see how students are approaching their technology, using it in new and unusual ways they’d never considered before. Suddenly, they’re receiving high-quality feedback on what they are doing right and wrong, which they can use to improve their own R&D cycle. What key trends have you seen emerge that will impact AV’s future? Every sector is buzzing about how AI will help them build better and sell more products. My own relationship with AI isn’t as enthusiastic as some marketers. It certainly brings a lot to the table, but it’s crucially important that people who are promoting or relying on AI to do much of the legwork on something understand the limitations and biases it can bring. I have witnessed product designers working on the assumption that, by the time their product comes to market, the capability of AI will have sufficiently improved to the point that it can achieve what’s needed to make their product viable. An area I’m most excited about is XR. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many film studios weren’t able to do on-location shooting. But thanks to XR technology and VP studios, they realised it was still an option to continue film and television production while people opportunities to do more sustainable filming work increased. That’s just one aspect of it. What VP brings in terms of creating environments otherwise extremely difficult and costly to stage couldn’t fly around the world. Following the pandemic, the is very exciting. There are plenty of big-budget productions entirely shot using VP, and it’s amazing to see how that combines so many AV elements. Physical computing uses electronics and code to create systems that can respond to their environment
Your time on UAL validating committees has led to the launch of several key courses dedicated to different aspects of AV. Why is making AV more accessible in education so important? The challenge when you take someone studying a technology-embedded or a technology-enabled art or design discipline is then leading them towards a career in creative AV, since you are competing with every other area of tech or creative practice. The primary outcome for me is to have students work with complex AV and gain the confidence to develop content and design installations. This results in interdisciplinary practitioners better prepared for an industry where they must understand
Thanks to XR technology and VP studios, it was still an option to continue film and TV production while people couldn’t fly”
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