Netherlands Film Festival welcomes new cohort of interdisciplinary makers as Fellows 2024-2025

17 May 2024

Radical Data, Simone C. Niquille and Victorine van Alphen will start their research into digital visual culture

Two new makers and one collective have been selected for the Digital Culture Fellowships program of the Netherlands Film Festival. Simone C. Niquille, Victorine van Alphen, and Radical Data, consisting of Jo Kroese and Rayén Mitrovich, have made their mark as interdisciplinary makers and are starting as the second cohort with research into new technologies and storytelling. The Netherlands Film Festival (NFF) is the initiator of the Fellowships program, which collaborates with many organisations. The three-year research provides a boost to the professional development of the maker and contributes to innovation within the sector.

Importance of research
Last year, the Digital Culture Fellowships program was launched together with makers Špela Petrič, Tina Farifteh, and the collective ARK. On Monday afternoon, 23 September, these Fellows will delve deeper into their findings and engage in conversation with the audience.

Artist and biomedical scientist Petrič, a participant of the first cohort, on the importance of space for research within digital visual culture: "Because this is the first time I have dealt with data archives, feedback and mentorship are invaluable. This is offered by the NFF Fellowship through their network of filmmakers and theorists."

Paulien Dresscher, NFF Digital Culture programmer:
"Finding time and space to conduct fundamental research is a challenge for many artists and makers. Yet, when this is so essential for the innovation and development of their own professional practice and the sector.
It is incredibly beautiful to see what happens when you bring together a group of inspired makers from different disciplines to discuss essential questions surrounding technology and society. It is an exciting and unique journey, and we are very pleased that we can share the results with such a broad audience during Storyspace."

Biographies of makers and research proposals

Simone C. Niquille

Simone C. Niquille is a Swiss designer and researcher based in Amsterdam. Through technoflesh Studio, she produces films and writing that investigate computation as the new optics. Her work focuses on visionary technologies, the images they make and worlds they create —from computer vision, 3D animation, and computational photography to synthetic training datasets.

During her research period, Niquille will focus on how storytelling can be used to intertwine the history of computer vision technology and children's television. She will specifically focus on machine learning: explaining, documenting, and commenting on its development while also using the technology to create the children’s series itself.

Radical Data

Radical Data, founded by Jo Kroese and Rayén Mitrovich, is a collective of experts in mathematics, technology, dance, and design. They believe that data, used with care, can move us towards a world that is autonomous, just and joyful. They create data analyses and digital tools that are infused with queerness and decoloniality.

In their research proposal, they focus on 'Applied Science Fiction'. This is a research trajectory aimed at telling new, powerful stories that move beyond the dichotomy of technological dystopia and utopia. With this 'third way', they aim to create new, bolder narratives about the future.

Victorine van Alphen

Victorine van Alphen is a transdisciplinary researcher, audiovisual artist, futurologist, curator, and philosopher from Amsterdam. In her work, she plays with our present from a future perspective. She is intrigued by the human tension between sensual experience and rationality, between senses and systems, and creates and discusses meaning through the experimental use of various media and methods. In 2021, she won the Golden Calf for Best Digital Culture Production with her work IVF-X: Posthuman Parenting in Hybrid Reality.

In her research project The Oracle: a Transformance, van Alphen works on a futuristic life- and technology-affirming ritual for humans, robots, and images, where the viewer is taken on an immersive, sensual, and rousing journey through a 'hypermedial' choreography. Her main question focuses on how we can relate to an unknown and 'post-physical', or hybrid, future in which (human) life and technology merge

Fellowships coaching
Creators and/or collectives are given the opportunity to explore new paths under guidance and establish multidisciplinary collaborations with creators and organisations from the visual culture sector. New insights are shared within the sector, fostering new impulses. Each research trajectory lasts a year, during which the three selected creators/collectives work at the intersection of society and technology with their research proposals in the disciplines of science, visual arts, film, gaming, design, or other forms of visual culture. The Fellowship program concludes each year with an exhibition in Storyspace during the festival in September, where the interdisciplinary research and report are presented. After the third year, a publication will be made available on the NFF website.

Collaboration in the visual culture sector
The Fellowships program is an initiative of the NFF with support from the Gieskes-Strijbis Fund. Over the course of three years, nine makers will have the opportunity to peacefully work on their research for a year, engage in experiments, exchange expertise and experiences, and present this during the NFF in the Storyspace exhibition. Within the three-year program, collaboration is sought with numerous organisations in the visual culture sector: Sound & Vision, Cinekid, EYE, IDFA, iii, IMPAKT, LIMA, MU Hybrid Art House, Next Nature, Nieuwe Instituut, Noorderlicht Internationaal Fotofestival, NP3, SETUP, STRP, Tetem, The Grey Space in the Middle, V2, W139, and Waag Futurelab. They support the creators with knowledge and possible further development of their research.

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