5D Institute Explores <em>The City and The Book</em>

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Immersive design consortium 5D Institute [1] will explore the dynamic world of storytelling in interactive, virtual spaces during their upcoming summit, The City and the Book, being held September 20 and 21, 2012, in Los Angeles at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. This is the third 5D | flux world building and transmedia summit, with each session running from 7-10pm at the George Lucas Building, with a networking reception immediately following.

For The City and the Book event, 5D Institute in association with the USC of Cinematic Arts will gather its diverse, creative network of writers, architects and game designers to explore the possibilities of dynamic environments in digital publishing and virtual architecture across media. Provocative and disruptive dialogue will cover how worlds overlap when the City is virtual and the Book is interactive. Each session will feature two moderated panels comprised of a mix of authors looking at the future of the City and architects looking at the future of the Book. Scheduled participants include:

• Alex McDowell, Award-winning production designer, co-founder 5D Institute
• Brandon Oldenberg, CCO and co-founder Moonbot Studios, Academy Award winner
• Eric John Matthies, filmmaker and transmedia specialist
• Geoff Manaugh, editor, author of BLDGBLOG, co-director of Studio-X
• Greg Lynn, architect and founder of Greg Lynn FORM, studio professor at UCLA
  Habib Zargarpour, senior game designer at Microsoft
• Hernan Alonzo Diaz, architect and founder of Xefirotarch, SCIARC faculty member
• Holly Willis, Ph.D, dir. of academic programs at USC Inst. for Multimedia Literacy
• Jen Stein, design researcher, USC School of Cinematic Arts
• Kevin Slavin, transmedia designer
• Lincoln Wallen, head of research and development at Dreamworks Animation
• Mark Shepard, artist, archietect, researcher
• Michael Backes, technologist
• Michael Siegel, founder of MSA literary management company
• Peter Frankfurt, producer at Imaginary Forces
• Tawny Schieleski, technologist at INTEL
• Tracy Fullerton, gamer designer, USC SCA Interactive Media Division chair

Sessions can be purchased individually for $25 or $40 for a two-day pass, while student pricing is $15 per evening. Tickets are available here: http://the-city-and-the-book.eventbrite.com/ [2].

At this thought provoking event series, architects who contribute to the narrative of a city, and writers who are interested in new kinds of publishing will talk about the design and engineering of a new genus of storytelling filled with variations of choice and surprise. The panels will explore how the multi-authored narrative of the city can inform a different kind of storytelling experience and how the depth and coherence of the novelist's command of world building can inform the architect on how to bring a powerful personal engagement into the experience of the built environment. In addition to looking at how these worlds might overlap, discussions will include who will be the new authors of these interactive virtual spaces and how these new spaces will change the way stories evolve into tangible transmedia worlds.

For more information about the '5D | flux' The City and the Book transmedia summit, please visit: http://5dconference.com/articles/1153 [3]

Source: 5D Institute