The 43rd SIGGRAPH is coming up fast and, as usual, it's the place to be for anyone interested in a dive into computer graphics and interactivity, with many different disciplines and areas of interest coming together for one highly concentrated week of programming. This year's conference and exhibition takes place July 24-28 at the Anaheim (CA) Convention Center, where scientists, researchers, educators, creatives and more will rub shoulders and stick their noses deep into practical technology as well as the latest in bleeding-edge and next-generation thinking. StudioDaily spoke with 2016 SIGGRAPH Conference Chair Mona Kasra, also Assistant Professor of Digital Media Design at the University of Virginia, about what you'll see at the event, how it came together, and how attendees can make the most of their time in Anaheim.
SIGGRAPH conference chair sounds like a really huge job. How do you get a grip on all of the tasks required?
A lot of it has to do with the team you bring together — committee and program chairs. That team really works together for about 18 months. As a chair, you come into the loop earlier because there's so much to observe, take in and plan prior to those 18 months. But once you have a very skillful, experienced, and expert group of individuals together, it's really just a dialogue. Because we serve a lot of communities, it's impossible for one person to have the vision and knowhow to approach all of those. Yes, there are the overarching fields of the arts, science and technology, but there are so many different communities within those — enhanced reality, games, mobile, robotics, visualization. Practitioners, creatives, researchers and scholars come together from all of these groups and share what they've accomplished in the past year. And SIGGRAPH functions as a hub that brings them together.
So what themes and ideas are driving this year's conference?
My goal, and my team's goal, was to build on the history we have and try to build stronger connections between the communities. Some are emerging, and some are converging. VR is booming right now, and that brings games, graphics, interactivity and interfaces all together. Mobile graphics is another, along with health and the internet of things. We are really striving to provide opportunities for more networking, more thinking about what can happen when these communities come together. That goes to our tagline: render the possibilities. What can we do to inspire, integrate and — one of the things very close to my heart — have technology that makes a positive contribution to ther world we live in.
That's the overarching vision. But the idea of the juried collection of content is quite dear to us. We have to sit back and encourage communities to submit their seminal work, but also ask what the community is sharing with us and what is coming out of this rigorous jury process. That is the interesting and fun aspect of putting together a conference. You're really asking the community to contribute to it.
What will be different this year compared to what attendees have seen in the past?
We are boosting our Experience Hall. One of the key aspects of our conference is that you need to be there to explore some of these technologies. You can be at home, watching YouTube and reading about what's there, but being at the conference and going to Emerging Technologies or VR Village and being able to wear the headsets and use the interfaces and tools is a better way of understanding. So some of our key programs, including the Art Gallery, the Studio, the VR Village and Emerging Technologies are all going to be in one giant space. Really, it's a playground. We're trying to let go of the separations between these spaces, because a lot of things are converging and that's exciting. The Art Gallery this year is focused on network culture — data materialities, focusing on data-driven creative works. The Studio is a making space where you can fabricate things that you can take with you.
And there's a new initiative we haven't done before called Feuding Cities. During the week, attendes can go into the space and build cities. At some point toward the end of the conference, the two cities will have a battle and be demolished, but the virtual cities will stay. It's a way to get the maker space into the game and into the virtual space, as a reflection of how communities are emerging and converging together.
Some other areas our attendees are excited about include the Electronic Theater, showcasing the most innovative, accomplished and amazing short films and VFX and animation. A prestigious international jury is going through the hundreds of submissions. And Real-Time Live! is going to be even more fantastic. It's a show that's about an hour and a half, and about a dozen presenters go on stage, on by one, and do demonstrations of their latest real-time graphics. The content this year comes from many industries and includes movies, VR, art and gaming.
I don't want to leave out the Technical Papers, which are so prestigious and have a reputation that's second to none. We'll have interesting content on fabrication, displays, and interaction. The trailer is out now.
Do you have any tips for readers who are unsure how to get the most out of a conference of this scale?
It can be overwhelming if you're a newcomer, and 20% to 30% of our attendees are first-time attendees. As a first step, go to the Attend page on our website. There is a link to Reasons to Attend, and we will have one soon for first-time attendees. We will have focus pages. Are you interested in mobile? Go to these sessions. Art? These are your sessions. That will be available on the website and on the app, and that will be a good way for attendees to find paths through the conference. In terms of strategy, we're working on more blogs and other pages that will help people navigate. And if someone is really interested in a specific area, our website has the contact information for reaching out to the program chairs and subcommittees, and they are more than happy to help individuals get an idea of what not to miss or really check out. I encourage everyone to be in touch with us — the program chairs put 18 months into this, so they would be happy to guide anyone on their path during the conference.
SIGGRAPH 2016: s2016.siggraph.org
