Language: PL Join the waitlist
Anna Szylar, curator of Digital Cultures Lab

2027

Digital Cultures Lab

An eight-day residency for creators and producers of XR, VR and immersive storytelling, built around your project, not around lectures.

Join the waitlist See the programme

Pictured: Anna Szylar, curator of the Lab

Why the Lab

Discover the real value of what you’re making.

For eight days your project is at the centre of the work. Sometimes that means pushing it forward: a stronger structure, a clearer production plan, a realistic route to funding. Sometimes it takes one question from a mentor to show you what the project is really about, and why it matters.

Either way, you leave with a much clearer sense of the value and impact of what you are making, and a better chance of bringing it into the world, whether it is meant for a niche festival audience or for a wide one.

The Lab follows the model of Biennale College Cinema Immersive, adapted to the Polish context. Anna Szylar knows that model from the inside: she went through the programme as a producer of Channelers.

Format

Away from distractions. Leave your everyday life for a week.

Eight days in a secluded retreat. No commuting, no popping back to the office, no other deadlines. Every day: a concept session, one-to-one mentoring, hands-on work on your own project and a soft pitch. In the evenings, a shared table and decompression.

I know exactly what that does to a group, because San Servolo did it to mine. The people I met there are still the people I call.

Anna Szylar

Programme

Workshop areas

Each day focuses on one area. In the morning the whole group works on it together, then everyone returns to their own projects.

  1. Day 1

    XR Production

    The real pipeline, who does what in an XR team, and how that differs from film and games.

    Concept session led by Andrei Chodera-Isakau

  2. Day 2

    XR Distribution

    Festivals, VR platforms, museum installations and touring.

    On day two on purpose: distribution is something to think about from almost the first day of production.

    Concept session led by Anna Szylar

  3. Day 3

    Sound

    Spatial audio and the sense of presence.

    Concept session led by Dorota Błaszczak

  4. Day 4

    AI in XR Production

    Generative tools, copyright and the AI Act.

    Concept session led by Jacek Nagłowski

  5. Day 5

    Storytelling

    Presence, agency and non-linear narrative.

    Concept session led by Jakub Wróblewski

  6. Day 6

    Fundraising

    PISF, the Creative Industries Institute, Creative Europe MEDIA and strong applications.

    Concept session led by Maciej Hofman

Daily rhythm

A day at the Lab

Every evening each team pitches the day’s progress to the room. Every day, not once at the end of the week. By day seven, pitching your own project has stopped being a performance and become a habit.

  1. 08:00 Morning movementOptional walk or stretch
  2. 09:00-11:00 Concept sessionTheme of the day, whole group
  3. 11:15-12:15 1:1 mentoring · IYour project, one discipline
  4. 12:15-13:15 1:1 mentoring · IIRotating mentors
  5. 14:30-15:30 1:1 mentoring · IIIRotating mentors
  6. 15:45-16:45 1:1 mentoring · IVRotating mentors
  7. 17:00-18:00 Open studioHands-on work, VR testing
  8. 18:00-19:00 Daily soft pitchEvery team pitches the day’s progress
  9. 19:30 Shared eveningsDinner and informal exchange

Mentoring

Small group, personal mentoring

participants
8-10
mentoring disciplines
6
one-to-one sessions a day
4

Every day your team meets four different mentors one-to-one, and every one of those conversations is about your project. Over the week you rotate through all six disciplines; between sessions you keep building in the open studio.

That is why the group stays small: there is no back row, and no one sits through a session that isn’t about their own work.

  • Production
  • Distribution
  • Sound
  • AI
  • Storytelling
  • Art Direction

Mentors

Who you work with

Practitioners who make, produce and fund work themselves. Throughout the week they support you in developing your project.

  • XR production · 3D, game engines, simulation

    Andrei Chodera-Isakau

    Concept session (day 1) and 1:1 mentoring

    Artist, lecturer and researcher specialising in 3D graphics, simulation and video games. At the 3D and Virtual Events Studio II of the Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, he teaches 3D, VR and Unreal Engine 5, and his doctoral research looks at games in the context of contemporary art. A specialist in digital environments for virtual production, simulation and VR, he creates interactive works based on simulation and large language models, including Blok and Tristesse.

  • XR distribution · curator of the Lab

    Anna Szylar

    Concept session (day 2) and 1:1 mentoring

    Curator, producer and cultural manager, founder of Monster Mind Studio and artistic director of the Digital Cultures festival. From 2014 to 2020 she built and ran the Digital Culture programme at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and at vnLab, Łódź Film School, she led global distribution of XR projects. She has worked with Biennale Cinema Immersive in Venice, Tribeca, SXSW and IDFA DocLab, among others. As a producer she is developing the VR project Channelers within Biennale College Cinema Immersive.

    Full bio

  • Sound for immersive projects

    Dorota Błaszczak

    Concept session (day 3) and 1:1 mentoring

    Sound director, engineer and designer who has worked with virtual reality since the medium’s pioneering years. In Canada she worked at The Banff Centre for the Arts and in Char Davies’s team on Osmose and Ephémère, two of the most cited works of early VR art, which she is now remastering. She is a sound engineer at the Polish Radio Archive and an assistant professor at the Sound Engineering Faculty of the Chopin University of Music, where she teaches interactive sound. She brings experience from the studio, film, games and VR to every team’s sound layer.

  • AI

    Jacek Nagłowski

    Concept session (day 4) and 1:1 mentoring

    A philosopher by training, film producer and director, and new media researcher. He has produced nearly thirty films, including Gugara, selected for ACID in Cannes. Co-founder of Circus Digitalis; since 2018 he has co-led the VR/AR studio at vnLab, Łódź Film School. His VR documentary Whispers premiered in Venice and was a Cannes XR finalist. Since 2021 he has focused on AI, developing Conversations, a VR experience co-created with AI systems, and Bezdroża AI, a project on the social and psychological risks of AI.

  • Storytelling · art direction

    Dr hab. Jakub Wróblewski

    Concept session (day 5) and 1:1 mentoring

    Interdisciplinary artist, director and cinematographer; he runs the 3D and Virtual Events Studio II at the Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. His work spans VR, xReality, game engines and questions of embodiment. With the VR project Channelers (prod. Monster Mind Studio) he was a finalist of the 9th Biennale College Cinema Immersive. He created First We Feel Then We Fall, an interactive adaptation of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and was the cinematographer of Jaśmina Wójcik’s The Symphony of the Ursus Factory (Hot Docs 2019) and King Matt the First. Founder of the XR collective Inexsistens.

  • Fundraising and grant writing

    Maciej Hofman

    Concept session and workshop (day 6), elective block

    Independent consultant in culture, heritage and the cultural and creative sectors; he advises the European Cultural Foundation on EU cultural policy and the #CulturalDealEU campaign. Before going independent he spent many years as a civil servant at EU and national level, including at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC), where he worked on policy support for the creative sectors and EU funding mechanisms, including Creative Europe.

After one week

What you leave with

  • Hands-on skills

    Production, distribution, sound and narrative: the things people normally learn by making expensive mistakes.

  • A real network

    The people in that room become your co-producers and your first phone calls.

  • Funding readiness

    Which programme (PISF, the Creative Industries Institute, Creative Europe MEDIA) fits your project, and how a strong application is actually written.

  • A clear position on AI

    Where the legal line runs, and where the creative gain is real.

  • A rehearsed pitch

    Practised every day, then delivered to invited industry guests, with feedback from the mentors.

  • Certificate and alumni circle

    Proof of participation and a support network after the Lab.

Above all, you leave with a project you understand better, and one that is ready to look for funding.

Open call

Who the Lab is for

  • Directors and interactive creators working in or moving into VR, AR and XR
  • Film, game and new media producers
  • New media artists and game designers entering XR
  • Sound designers and creative technologists

How to apply

Open call for teams of 2 to 4.

Your project can be at any stage: an early concept, the first phases of production, or a work far enough along that you are looking for markets, festivals and distribution partners. The group brings together creators at different points in their careers, from first-timers to people with an established body of work, and they learn a lot from each other. Participants are selected by a programme committee.

Curator

Anna Szylar

Curator, producer and cultural manager. Founder of Monster Mind Studio.

12+
years in immersive media and digital culture
2014-2020
Digital Culture programme at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Digital Cultures
initiator and artistic director of the festival

Anna Szylar is a curator, producer and cultural manager with more than twelve years of experience in immersive media and digital culture. She is the founder of Monster Mind Studio, an agency specialising in curating and producing ambitious work at the intersection of art and technology.

She leads projects from strategy and fundraising through production to international distribution. She has worked with leading festivals and industry platforms, including Biennale Cinema Immersive in Venice, SXSW, MUTEK, Tribeca Film Festival and Sheffield DocFest, and has served on juries and advisory boards of festivals such as One World International Human Rights Film Festival and IDFA DocLab.

From 2014 to 2020 she worked at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, where she built from scratch and ran the Digital Culture programme, systematically promoting Polish digital art internationally. Within the programme she coordinated award-winning co-productions: Gymnasia (Felix & Paul / Phi Centre, Tribeca 2019) and Messages to the Post-Human Earth (Anagram, 2020). She then led global distribution strategy at vnLab (Visual Narratives Laboratory) of the Łódź Film School, bringing Polish XR projects to key festivals and building partnerships with the Venice Film Festival, IDFA DocLab and Art VR in Prague.

With Monster Mind Studio she has delivered a range of exhibition and production projects, including MDAG Vision, an XR exhibition at Millennium Docs Against Gravity (2025 and 2026), Platform: Still Human in Seoul (2025), Elusive Sense in London and Bristol (2025), the exhibition Nic nie umiera, bo niczego nie ma, a przecież wszystko jest (Nothing dies, for nothing is, and yet everything is; 2024) in Warsaw, and Latent Memories. Archives in the Age of AI in Athens and Thessaloniki (2026). As a producer at Monster Mind Studio she is developing the VR project Channelers within the Biennale College Cinema Immersive 2025 programme. She is also working on her own mixed reality installation, Nothing is Ever Really Lost, which explores memory and grief.

She regularly moderates panels and discussions at industry conferences and runs educational programmes, including Hub for Creatives, a networking and development platform for creators. She is the initiator and artistic director of the Digital Cultures festival and co-creator of the Scena Jutra conference programme.