An interview with Diego Galafassi, Stockholm
As a follow-up to “Impact of Covid-19 on Immersive Creatives,” I’ve continued to talk to artists about their pandemic experiences.
See other discussions with Raqi Syed and Areito Echevarria, Nancy Lee, and Stephanie Dinkins. See other discussions with Stephanie Dinkins, Nancy Lee, and Raqi Syed & Areito Echevarria.
Diego GalafassiDiego Galafassi is a visual artist, filmmaker, and sustainability scientist from Brazil living in Stockholm. He is the creator of an experiential immersive AR experience, Breathe, that had its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2020.
Breathe is a mixed-reality experience that uses body movement, gesture, and breath (through biometric sensors) to immerse participants in the story of air and connect them to the wider world.
I spoke to Galafassi from his home in Stockholm.
Before the pandemic, Galafassi had been in conversations with festivals for a European premiere, as well as a presentation at the Phi Centre. Suddenly, everything stopped:
“We were really counting on our future exhibitions to make it work,” he says. “We had a lot of conversations about how to fund it, and we counted on the exhibitions after Sundance.”
Galafassi remains optimistic about the future of Breathe as an AR exhibition. But, recently, Magic Leap announced that it is laying off 1,000 employees.
“Our project has been quite independent from Magic Leap, but we have received technical support,” he says.” We had someone working alongside us; they brought the devices to the festival. But what if they can’t afford that now? It’s an issue because they are pivoting towards enterprise uses of AR and away from the arts.”
Following Sundance, Galafassi applied for a cultural fund in Sweden to create more XR experiences. He now wonders if XR projects will be funded at all.
“I’m not sure how funders will react,” he worries. “And I’m very grateful to the work you and others are doing to document the impact of the pandemic because it’s necessary to show the funders the challenges.”
One way Galafassi is fortifying his creative practice is by revisiting older film projects and innovating new ones. With Breathe, participants literally play with each other’s breath. Diego and his team now face the challenge of redesigning the AR project for the pandemic era. I sneeze during our conversation and Diego is reminded of their team’s desire to create an online version of that that could animate breath: “If we had that app, your sneeze would have made its way all the way here to Stockholm!”
Diego captures me sneezing on
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