Columbia DSL - April Newsletter
This month’s Columbia DSL newsletter is packed with bold experiments in storytelling—from award-winning innovations to provocative prototypes. Inside, you’ll find details on the 10th edition of the Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards and the return of our hands-on Summit at Lincoln Center. We’re also spotlighting LAST HUMAN, a haunting immersive experience actively prototyping in public, and unveiling our first student exhibition catalog featuring 17 groundbreaking projects that blend AI, XR, and speculative design. Plus, don’t miss the chance to register for Augmented Creativity, our summer course exploring practical uses of AI in storytelling, art, and design. Dive in and discover what’s next.
BREAKTHROUGHS IN STORYTELLING AWARDS + SUMMIT - RSVP
10th Edition of the Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards
The Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards recognize signal achievements across the broad spectrum of media that rely on digital technologies, including film, video, journalism, advertising, marketing, games, art, fiction, theater, virtual reality, augmented reality, and experimental narratives. This year's award presenters are Emilie Baltz, Shari Frilot, Kat Mustatea and Sandra Rodriguez.
Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards - online
Sunday, April 13 6:00PM to 8:00PM Eastern Time
2nd Edition of the Breakthroughs in Storytelling Summit
We're thrilled to invite you to the third edition of the Breakthroughs in Storytelling Summit, an annual gathering that shines a spotlight on works pushing at the edges of narrative possibilities.
Designed to bridge theory and practice, the summit offers a series of talks, collaborative exercises, case studies, and hands-on rapid prototyping sessions. This blend of formats is designed to spark creativity, foster collaboration, and provide practical insights into applying innovative storytelling techniques.
Guest speakers include: Evan Shapiro, Sam Barlow, Yasmin Elayat, Jazia Hammoudi, Shar Simpson, Nick Fortugno, and Frank Rose.
Breakthroughs in Storytelling Summit - in person
Monday, April 14 6:30PM to 9:00PM
Film at Lincoln Center - Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
SUMMER COURSE OPPORTUNITY - Augmented Creativity: practical uses of AI in storytelling, art, and design
This class is open to Columbia students as well as Non-Columbia students (Visiting Students). The course is taught by leading practitioners in the AI space - lead by Matthieu Lorrain, Creative Lead at Google DeepMind, with Benjamin Benichou, Manuel Sainsilly, Pierre Zandrowicz, Lauren Ducrey, and Alexia Adana.
We are entering a new age of creativity, where generative AI is transforming how artists and creators work. This course invites undergraduate and graduate students to explore the powerful intersection of AI and creative practice. Through hands-on experimentation with AI tools—ranging from large language models (LLMs) to image and video generators—students will unlock new creative potential across ideation, visual development, and storytelling.
The course emphasizes how AI can augment existing creative methods, from generating ideas and developing personas to blending AI with traditional storytelling techniques. Students will also critically engage with the ethical implications of using AI in art.
Culminating in a speculative design project, this course prepares students to envision and prototype the future of creative practice, where AI becomes a true collaborator in the artistic process.
REGISTRATION DETALS
Students already at Columbia may simply register for courses. Non-Columbia students apply to the School of Professional Studies, which manages admissions to Summer Session courses, as Visiting Students in the Arts in the Summer Program. The application is simple and does not require an undergraduate degree or transcripts or scores of any sort.* Once you apply and are accepted, you may register for any course offered by the School of the Arts in Summer Session. More information here.
*English language proficiency is expected, but test scores are not required. Visit this site for information on expected proficiency levels.
PROTOTYING IN PUBLIC on Metalabel
LAST HUMAN is an immersive storytelling experience that explores the eerie frontier of the “dead internet” — a world shaped by synthetic identities, AI manipulation, and fractured realities. Recently featured in Columbia DSL’s Test/Break program at Lincoln Center, the project is actively prototyping in public, inviting participants into a hybrid experience that unfolds across virtual platforms and a 10,000 sq ft physical installation. Designed as both a haunting narrative and a collaborative worldbuilding experiment, LAST HUMAN transforms its process into art through the release of a zine that documents the evolution of the project in real time. This living archive captures experiments, participant feedback, and design artifacts, pushing the boundaries of how immersive experiences can be made, shared, and reimagined.
The first issue of LAST HUMAN is currently available on Metalabel, a collaborative publishing platform. LAST HUMAN is a Columbia DSL adjacent project by DSL members Lance Weiler, Nick Fortugno, Shar Simpson and Josh Corn.
Eat My Multiverse: A Performance by Libby Heaney
Eat My Multiverse interrogates how quantum computing’s potential is reduced to commodified, consumable forms driven by capitalist greed. Artist Libby Heaney deploys a live virtual environment to challenge sanitized narratives that obscure the magical and queer aspects of quantum phenomena. The piece is drawn from Heaney’s own memories and associated emotions, exploring quantum as a metaphor for self. For MoMI’s monumental Redstone Theater screen, Heaney has used IBM’s quantum computers to create a real-time multiverse that she will also enter as she performs through her webcam feed. The performance invites a reconsideration of the concessions raised among the fundamental poetics of science, human existence, and market forces.
COLUMBIA DSL STUDENT EXHIBITION CATALOG
Last semester, Columbia DSL, in collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center, hosted an exhibition showcasing student work at the intersection of Generative AI, Machine Learning, XR, VR, AR, IoT, and browser-based technologies. Today, we’re excited to release our first exhibition catalog, featuring 17 student projects that push at the edges of storytelling, design, and play.
Featuring projects from the New Media Art and Digital Storytelling III: Immersive Production courses, the showcase invited audiences to engage with interactive installations, speculative artifacts, and Fluxus-inspired performances utilizing emerging technologies. Artifacts of Control transformed the space into a futuristic archaeological dig, unearthing speculative relics that critique contemporary surveillance systems. Meanwhile, DEMOCRACY IN FLUX blended robotics, AI, and performance with playful absurdity, examining the role of bureaucracy within democratic systems.
This exhibition marks an exciting step in expanding the dialogue around immersive media and digital storytelling. See the full catalog below.
LINKS
Evolving Immersive: The 2025 Immersive Industry Report
Evolving Immersive: The 2025 Immersive Industry Report is a co-publication of the Gensler Research Institute and the Immersive Experience Institute. It includes extensive industry research, expert interviews, analyses and reporting, and surveys conducted between September 2024 and February 2025 of immersive practitioners, commissioners, craftspeople, and audiences. (Requires sharing an email to download)
Why collaboration should feel like a fun conspiracy
This week in New Creative Era with Josh and Yancey, we dive into the topic of collaboration. How have we found ourselves in collaborative projects? What went well? What didn’t? Tune in for a deep and wide-ranging conversation that covers everything from emotions to economics to breakups to logistics.
Models All the Way Down
“If you want to make a really big AI model — the kind that can generate images or do your homework, or build this website, or fake a moon landing — you start by finding a really big training set.
Images and words, harvested by the billions from the internet, material to build the world that your AI model will reflect back to you.
What this training set contains is extremely important. More than any other thing, it will influence what your model can do and how well it does it.
Yet few people in the world have spent the time to look at what these sets that feed their models contain.”
Columbia DSL Newsletter
Get Involved
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Volunteers Wanted
We’re looking for volunteers to help with a new research project focused on bridging physical and virtual experiences. If you’re interested please email us at hello@digitalstorytellinglab.com