“Extended Reality: Long-Term Preservation, Presentation and Distribution of Immersive Works”: AVENUE Masterclass organised by Film Commission Torino Piemonte
12 Maggio 2026
As part of the European project AVENUE CoVE – ERASMUS+, a masterclass with Avinash Changa, led by Sara Tirelli, will take place on 28 May 2026 at 11:00 am: “Extended Reality: Long Term Preservation, Presentation And Distribution Of Immersive Works”.
As immersive productions move through a rapidly shifting ecosystem of headsets, engines, platforms, and presentation contexts, their long-term survival cannot be taken for granted. This masterclass explores how producers and distributors can respond to technological obsolescence and to a hardware landscape that is still evolving. The masterclass conducted by Avinash Changa (WeMakeVR) will focus on practical and curatorial strategies for extending the life of XR works: documenting not only the files but the experience itself, preserving software dependencies, planning for migration and emulation, working with legacy hardware, and developing adaptable exhibition formats and stronger distribution networks that allow projects to circulate across venues and remain accessible over time.
Avinash Changa, one of the first practitioners in the field to address this challenge directly, will share both his hands-on experience and his forward-looking vision for the future of immersive works. He will also present the preservation and updating system he has developed, offering a concrete model for how XR projects can be maintained, refreshed, and kept alive well beyond their initial release.
Topic: As devices, engines and platforms disappear, how can museums, festivals and creators keep today’s XR experiences alive for tomorrow’s audiences? How can we create a long-term sustainable ecosystem for the Immersive sector? This masterclass looks at practical strategies for preserving and distributing immersive works.
Audiences: Immersive industry students and professionals, Media Archival/Preservation Institutes, Creative Industry/Immersive funding organisations, Museums and Festival curators/programmers, Immersive Production companies and Presentation Facilitators.
Format: Lecture, case-examples, Q&A / interactive Q&A
Duration: 2 hrs. incl. Q&A
Speaker: Avinash Changa
Host: Sara Tirelli
Overview
Over the past ten years, many Immersive works have been lost. Because there were no proper preservation-solutions, these works cannot be presented to audiences anymore. The Immersive domain moves forward fast, continuously utilising newer technologies to explore uncharted grounds. But to move forward, we need to be able to learn from the past. In the Immersive domain, this is very challenging; presenting older works is not an easy task, and in some cases even impossible.
While every new software and hardware innovation opens new creative possibilities, each step forward leaves older works behind. In many cases, just a few hardware or software updates can prevent an Immersive work from functioning. These fast-paced developments and related technical incompatibilities fundamentally prevent new talents as well as experienced makers from learning for previous works, since the works and associated learnings and other knowledge are not retained.
In this masterclass, attendees will gain insight in the challenges related to Immersive preservation. They will also see how a new technology is solving these challenges, and will better understand how they can formulate Preservation and Distribution-strategies for their works.
About the Masterclass Speaker
Avinash Changa, founder and CEO WeMakeVR and founder IMPRES (The Institute of Immersive Presentation & Preservation), is VR-maker, director, Creative Technologist, and international speaker on the topic of Immersive works. Multi-award-winning studio WeMakeVR has notable productions such as “Ashes to Ashes”, “Meeting Rembrandt”, “Ahorse!”, “Angels of Amsterdam”, “The Saga of Sage”, “VR2Dome”, in collaboration with Dollhouse for Queer Imaginaries (IDFA DocLab ‘24), and Feedback VR, un musical antifuturistica (IDFA DocLab ‘25). In 2026, following the IDFA DocLab 2025 announcement presentation, he is launching IMPRES, which has developed a presentation, preservation & distribution platform to keep immersive works accessible through time, which unlocks a sustainable ecosystem for creators, venues and funders.
More about Avinash Changa:
A talk by Avinash on XR and its role in our future
More about Avinash Changa and his Immersive journey
About the Host
Sara Tirelli is an artist and filmmaker with over twenty years of experience in commissioned audiovisual production, where she has worked as an author and director across cultural, broadcast, and commercial contexts. Alongside this professional practice, she has developed her own artistic research in moving images, between cinema and art pushing the frontiers of cinematic language. Her works and immersive installations have been presented internationally at venues, museums, and festivals including the Rome Quadriennale, Sonje Art Center in Seoul, Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, and the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, among others. Her artistic research in immersive media has developed through residencies contexts including Goldsmiths, University of London; XR2C2 - Extended Reality Research Center and Creativity at Université Côte d’Azur; and the AN-ICON ERC Project at the University of Milan. She co-founded CSC Immersive Arts, the XR department of the Italian National Film School, serving as Artistic Director until 2024. She is Professor of Expanded Cinema at Università Iuav di Venezia and works as a mentor and consultant in the XR industry.
The event is organised by Film Commission Torino Piemonte as part of the AVENUE CoVE – ERASMUS+ project. To participate, registration via THIS form is required by midnight on May 27, in order to receive the Zoom link.