R & D

Curiosity as method

The questions explored by the studio emerge from multiple contexts: the film practice; broader societal questions; and commissioned or collaborative projects.

Through research and experimentation, the studio explores how emerging technologies—often developed within startups and tech companies—shape character development, performance, and the ethical questions that arise from this. It also examines how actors and performance can contribute to the credibility of technology-driven characters.

At its core, the work is about believability: how characters are experienced by audiences and users and how performance can create emotional and perceptual impact.

Areas of Character Exploration

Immersive
environments

This area explores character creation and interaction in immersive environments such as VR and AR. It focuses on how characters are experienced within these spaces and how presence, interaction, and narrative influence their credibility and impact.

Performance &
Capture

This area explores how human performance is translated into data, movement, and digital form through technologies such as motion capture and volumetric capture. It examines the evolving relationship between performer and technology.

AI-based character generation tools

This area explores how AI-based character generation systems construct digital characters and how they are experienced as believable. It examines the tension between realism and deliberate artificiality and how credibility shifts between fictional and real-world contexts.

embodied
systems

This area explores how physical systems are increasingly designed to behave in human-like ways, from humanoid robots to responsive embodied technologies. It examines what makes these systems appear believable and how perceptions of lifelike behavior are constructed, as well as how credibility relates to their function in society.

What collaboration can look like

The studio engages in a diverse range of collaborations across research, artistic practice, and the testing of emerging technologies within industry contexts. These collaborations form a hybrid and dynamic field involving innovation labs, studios, and research and education institutions.

A selected collaboration is Touched by a Hologram, developed with composer and director Michel van der Aa in collaboration with Innovation Labs. Within this project, we explored character development for his work From Dust, which won the Immersive Competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.