What is the IMMERSION Lab?

​The IMMERSION Lab is an annual artist residency that takes place on the Jengo's Playhouse campus and is run through a partnership between The School of Making Thinking and Cucalorus Film Foundation. The residency is a combination of a virtual reality creation lab and an invitation for artists to engage the racial history of America within the context of a southern city: Wilmington, North Carolina. Bringing multiple meanings of immersion together, this residency is an opportunity to put critical thinking into practice through immersive media projects.

This year at IMMERSION 5.0, twelve artists gathered in the July heat of the Wilmington summer to explore how to deepen their connection to history, place, and each other through 360 video pieces. This VR EXPO showcases their work. Read more about each piece and artist below.

THE WORK & THE ARTISTS

IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY FIRST NAME

Sensing and Being in Memory, Wilmington, NC, 2023

Directed by Bonnie Jones
“It is from the present that the appeal to which memory responds comes, and it is from the sensory-motor elements of present action that a memory borrows the warmth which gives it life.”                 
                                                        Henri Bergson
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A poetic, sensory journey that becomes a memory that transforms the present and the past together.

Bonnie Jones
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
she/her/hers

Bonnie is a Korean-American improvising musician, poet, and performer working with electronic sound and text. She performs solo and in numerous collaborative music, film, and visual art projects. Bonnie was a founding member of the Transmodern Festival and CHELA Gallery and a member of the High Zero Festival collective. In 2010, along with Suzanne Thorpe she co-founded TECHNE, https://technesound.org/, an organization that develops anti-racist, feminist workshops that center on technology-focused art making, improvisation, and community collaboration. Born in South Korea she was raised on a dairy farm in New Jersey (Lenapehoking) - spent her formative years in Baltimore  (Susquehannock, Piscataway) and is currently pursuing a PhD in Music and Multimedia Composition in Providence, RI (Narragansett). bonnie-jones.com/

rooted in nature: an examination of joy, endurance, water & memory

Directed by brandon king
rooted nature: an examination of joy, endurance, water & memory (2023) is a VR short exploring resilience and joy under seemingly omnipresent conditions mired in despair. Through ritual, reverence, play, and sharing space with community, our human and non-human relatives, within and as a part of the earth’s ecology, king examines how these practices act as healing modalities to sustain one’s spirit amidst the ever-present destructive rationale of the world we live in and systems we live under. The impact of this rationale is still very present and alive in Wilmington and these genocidal cultural logics shape how people relate to one another. king’s first immersion into this realm, has been distilled into his first VR short. Record Warped on.tha Daily (2022) shares and exposes history about the Daily Record, a Black owned newspaper publication run by Alexander Manly, was ransacked and burned to the ground during the massacre or Coup of 1898. With a high probability and fear of being lynched, Manly managed to escape town with his life. 
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Here, in king’s second VR film, rooted nature: an examination of joy, endurance, water & memory.. (2023), lies an offering, examining an existence under dominant, destructive forces, tapping into life-affirming, non-genocidal intergenerational cultural practices and logic rooted in right relations with nature; some practices channeled through memory, while others iterated or created, which help to sustain and may be necessary to endure, survive, transform and thrive.

brandon king
​IMMERSION 5.0 FACILITATOR
he/him

brandon king is a dj/sound-selector, multidisciplinary artist, from the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hampton Roads VA, who creates installations exploring African Diasporic identities, honoring his ancestors’ stories through archival and found materials, sound collages, painting, film, and other forms. brandon is a founding member of Cooperation Jackson, a cooperative network in Jackson Mississippi and currently serves as Executive of Resonate Coop, an international music streaming platform cooperative that is open source. his work has been exhibited at the Virginia Contemporary Art Museum, the Brecht Forum, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, the Imari Obadele Community Production Center, and Kuwasi Balagoon Center for Economic Democracy and Sustainable Development, as well as at the Cucalorus Film Festival.  he is is also a member of the NYC based artist collective PTP (Purple Tape Pedigree) and is currently an MFA candidate at Queens College focusing on Social Practice and Installation.

Wilmington Escaped

Directed by Carrie Hawks
‘Wilmington Escaped’ takes you on a ghost tour culled from real accounts of enslaved people traveling to other worlds around the time of the racist insurrection of 1898. These short vignettes include a woman with a sharp oyster knife, a man who kept his literacy underwraps, a child in the cemetery, and venus flytraps seeking revenge.  (2023, 6 min)

Carrie Hawks
​IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
they/them

Carrie Hawks confronts self-imposed and external assumptions about identity in order to promote healing, particularly in relation to Blackness, gender, and queer sexuality. They work in animation, drawing, collage, sculpture, and performance, often incorporating humor. Their film black enuf* was nominated for a New York Emmy, screened at over 40 festivals, and made its broadcast debut on World Channel. They were selected for fellowships with the Jerome Hill Foundation, the Leslie Lohman Museum, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. They have curated programs for the Ann Arbor Film Festival and ASIFA-East and are an Assistant Professor at Parsons, The New School.

And You Can Point Towards The Horizon

Directed by Courtney ​Symone Staton
What does it take to remember the past when the past is all around you, carried in the marsh, the oceans and our bodies? And You Can Point Towards The Horizon, in collaboration, is a personal, poetic, archival-laced meditation on the weight of remembering the past as a Black person in North Carolina. In this piece, we ask, how do we continue to stay present and awake in spaces where trauma has occurred? And, we attempt to find answers in the same places Black people have always found an answer, in our own love, joy and community. ​

Courtney Symone Staton
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident

Courtney Symone Staton, from Greenville, North Carolina, is a Black organizer, poet, and filmmaker dedicated to creating space for collective liberation through the sharing of stories. Her debut documentary, a participatory short Silence Sam, about the systemic silencing of activism during a movement to remove a Confederate monument from campus, premiered at BlackStar Film Festival in 2019, and since then has had impact-driven screenings across the South. Courtney believes deeply in reclaiming Black history, and uplifting stories of Black changemakers whose legacy we live in in the present, creating and leading Youth FX’s History Reclamation Project, a program reconnecting local high school students to Albany’s legacy of activism through participatory documentary filmmaking. A NeXt Doc fellow and impact producer of “The Neutral Ground,” Courtney works to drive viewers past the point of empathy to the point of healing and action.

The waters whisper sweet solace

Directed by Ivy ​Nicole-Jonet
The waters, sands, lands, and trees of North Carolina hold the memories of the joys, collective nostalgia, and pain of Black life and folx. Honoring that we are presently living and molding our own Afrofuture and have been for 400 plus years with our ancestors’ guidance, The waters whisper sweet solace in collaboration, honors Afro-Carolinian resistance, creation, liberation, spirituality, and exploration of the past in building the future where we can exist and be.

Ivy Nicole-Jonét
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
she/they

As an artist creating for the Afrofuture, I seek to connect my art to the roots of my heritage while exploring ways in which Blackness is illustrated through immersive technologies. I explore the joys, collective nostalgia, and memories of Black life. Being an installation artist, AR/VR artist, and documentarian, I use varying immersive multimedia technologies in installations to create a space of honor, and freedom of exploration. I express my matriarchal, Afro-Carolinian, DC-born and raised, story and identity in ways that reach beyond the traditional use of filmmaking and documentary, bringing forth a story that resonates with other Black folx.

If _ Were Mountains​

Directed by Jaimes Mayhew
If ____ were mountains, what would change? Through scale shifts, participatory audio, and artificial landscapes inside an inflatable sculpture, this short speculates about the agency of mountains.

Jaimes Mayhew
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
​he/him

Grounded in research, conversation and humor, Jaimes Mayhew employs drawing tools, lenses, and digital realities to craft images that  queer, queery and trans relationships between beings (human or otherwise), their communities and their environments. By creating visual languages that speculate and articulate the natures and nuances of a trans lend, Jaimes hopes to inspire people (trans or otherwise) to expand the ways they see the world.
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Jaimes’ work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 808 Gallery (Boston), George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), Hoffmannsgallerí (Reykjavík, Iceland). He has received several grants and fellowships including The Fulbright Commission, Maryland State Arts Council, The Saul Zaentz Fund, and the Robert W Deutsch Foundation.Reviews of their work include Hyperallergic, Art Papers, The Creators Project, and Frontiers Journal. In the Fall of 2021, a book chapter of Mayhew’s was published in “Out of Place: Artists Pedagogy and Practice”.

Jaimes is a Lecturer at University of Vermont and serves on the Board of Directors of The School of Making Thinking.

Midst the Sky, 2023

Directed by ​Kiley Brandt
A poetic exploration of time, grief, and contemplating the multi layers of home on lands that hold memory beyond our own. Original poetry intertwined with excerpts from historic Wilmington born David Bryant Fulton’s works: “Hanover; The Persecution of the Lowly. Story of the Wilmington Massacre” and “Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter”, read by Elton Burgest. Footage and background audio filmed in Wilmington, NC the summer of 2023. (6:31 mins)

Kiley Brandt
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
She/Her

Kiley Brandt (MFA) is a video artist from North Carolina. In her work, Brandt attempts to inspire empathy through sound, poetry and immersive installation to better communicate dissatisfaction with the current political climate and the uncertain displacement many feel within it. Her research areas include diaspora, adoption, immigration and Mexican/American Border politics. She was a 2019 New Media Caucus: Border Control Presenter in Ann Arbor, Michigan and currently teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art- Digital Media at Clemson University, SC.

Gumming the Gridiron

Directed by Kristin McWharter
"Gumming the Gridiron" is not your typical football drill. On the hallowed turf of the football field, a group of speculative athletes blurs the boundaries between the underdog, the good sport, and the relentless drive for victory. This unconventional performance takes a deep dive into critiquing societal norms and power dynamics, with Legion Stadium serving as the epicenter for redefining what and who deserves their moment on the field.
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In a world where football fields often witness both unity and protest, "Gumming the Gridiron" beckons spectators to ponder the intricate interplay of art, sports, and politics. It is an artful and introspective exploration of how improvisational performance, physical prowess, and the spirit of teamwork can disrupt the status quo, evoking moments of joy, introspection, and playfulness.

Kristin McWharter
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
​she/her/hers

Kristin McWharter uses performance and play to interrogate the relationship between competition and intimacy. Her software installations and performative objects incorporate experimental technologies and playful interaction to speculate upon new social behaviors. Inspired by 20th century sports, collective decision making, and systems of play, her work blurs the boundaries of intimacy and hype to challenge the relationships of affection and competitive drive. Her work has exhibited with The Hammer Museum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center, Ars Electronica, Museo Altillo Beni, and FILE Festival among others. McWharter received her MFA in Design Media Arts and is currently Assistant Professor in Art & Technology Studies at SAIC.

Paper Boats

Directed by McLean Fahnestock
Bobbing in the open sea of a parking lot at the height of summer, paper boats negotiate their relationships to each other and their shrinking world. 
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Shot in Wilmington, N.C. during July 2023, the same month it was announced that the ocean off of Florida’s East Coast had reached a record high temperature of 101.1. The temperature reading was taken by a buoy at a depth of five feet in Manatee Bay, Florida.

McLean Fahnestock
IMMERSION 5.0 Facilitator
​she/her

McLean Fahnestock is a media artist and educator who seeks out footage, images, and items that expand our understanding of place, real and unreal, and question how desire shapes the landscape. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Aurora Picture Show and Menil Collection, Houston, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Technisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, The British Library, London, MOCA Hiroshima, Japan, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. She was an IMMERSION 4.0 resident and is excited to be returning as a co-facilitator for IMMERSION 5.0.

Statement from a Collaborating Artist

"I decided not to show my film in the context of the war in Israel/Palestine. The reasons are many and multiple. My film, 4 Jews in Wilmington, is about three Jews in Wilmington whose relationship to white supremacy shaped the city—and me. The film needs more context that I’m not able to provide or ask for right now. It requires community—more than just a solo artist—to hold space for complexity. I am dedicated to helping to create that necessary complexity in the future—in a world where Palestine is free." -C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek

C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
​they/them

Born in Lenapehoking (Queens, NY), C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek (they/them/theirs) is a theater maker and urban planner. Their current home is Yesan (Southwest Virginia), where they found love in a cohousing community. Meranda invites people into imaginative spaces that can make the seemingly impossible possible by creating room for people to connect across the lines that divide us. They consult on projects at the intersection of art, public health, and community development, and make living history plays with Ping Chong + Company. As a researcher with the Center for Arts in Medicine, they are creating methods to evaluate the impacts of the arts in public health. Meranda is a recent NEW AESTHETICS Fellow with Theatre Replacement, Visiting Fellow with Skidmore College’s Storytellers’ Institute, and Instructor with the Center for Communicating Science at Virginia Tech, where they taught equitable collaboration through applied theatre. Meranda’s Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, white diasporan body, queer identity, and working-class upbringing are important to their aesthetic process, and guide their approach to working in solidarity with the 140 million+ people in this country who are struggling to live healthy and fulfilling lives. www.merandissime.com @merandissime

EXHIBIT CURATORS

Akeema-Zane   
IMMERSION 5.0 FACILITATOR
​ she/her

Akeema-Zane is an artist and researcher whose practice centers the literary, music, cinematic and performance traditions. The artist has been a student, fellow and performer at Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Fellowship, Groundation Grenada, Cave Canem, The Maysles Documentary Center, Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism, UnionDocs, Recess and The School of Making Thinking. At The School of Making Thinking, the artist was a part of the 2018 Immersion 2.0 and has been a facilitator for Immersion 4.0 and excited for Immersion 5.0. Akeema-Zane currently serves on the board of directors of The School of Making Thinking and Cucalorus Film Foundation.

clay scofield
IMMERSION 5.0 FACILITATOR they/themmm

clay is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, wanderer, and collaborator. They practice deep play and dark play, as a practice of becoming/transforming. They experiment with a trans poetics that disentangles signifier from signified and emerges from the ruptures where technologies of language fail us. 
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Their work has been featured in publications including Number, Nashville Arts, Wussy, and Dinner Bell. Exhibitions and performances include Public Space One (Iowa City), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Ashville, NC), unrequited leisure (Nashville), Cucalorus Festival (Wilmington, NC), and SeedSpace (Nashville). They have been an artist-in-residence with Cucalorus, the School of Making Thinking, Lazuli, and the JHU-MICA Film Centre. They earned an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an MFA in digital art from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a BA from Vanderbilt University. They serve on the board of the School of Making Thinking, and are currently a visiting assistant professor in Digital Art at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Want to support this work? Donate to The School of Making Thinking.

This exhibit and the IMMERSION residency are made possible through a partnership between The School of Making Thinking and Cucalorus Film Foundation, as well as a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and sponsorships from the Film Studies & Digital Media departments at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), Toasterlab Media and Pomp&Clout.
Cucalorus Film Foundation
Pomp&Clout
University of North Carolina Wilmington
The School of Making Thinking
Toasterlab Media