Karen Palmer

Meet Karen Palmer

Karen Palmer is the Storyteller from the Future, she is an award winning XR creator and futurist who explores the implications of A.I and technology on societal structures and the impact of in-equality.

She does this through enabling participants to experience the future today through her immersive experiences.

She creates films that watch you back using artificial intelligence and facial recognition technologies. The narrative branches in real time depending upon the participants eye gaze and emotions. Enabling participants to simultaneously experience AI bias, surveillance technologies and their potential integration into the everyday world around us and how that could be used to impact societal structures, human rights and civil liberties.

Karen recently won the coveted XR Experience Competition at SXSW 2023 with her film Consensus Gentium. It is a powerful exploration into the implications of today’s AI technology. This immersive experience is designed to drive discussion about data privacy, unconscious biases and the power of technology. Which transports audiences on a unique quest to discover what could come about if we succumb to unchecked surveillance.

There have been numerous interviews and articles on her work from Channel 4 News, BBC News, CBS News and press in Wired Magazine, Forbes, PC Mag, CBS TV, Fast Company, Engadget, The Guardian “ It leapfrogs over VR”.

Karen is a TED Speaker and has been described as a Thought Leader in A.I, Immersive Storytelling for Impact, Futurism and Tech. She has been featured in innumerable interviews and events. She has been opening Keynote speaker at AT&T Shape Conference, L.A, Wired for Wonder Festival Australia, Sydney & Melbourne, MIT and TEDx Australia Speaker at the Sydney Opera House. Delivered keynotes and workshops to corporate clients and Leadership Summits include Microsoft Seattle, Vertex Berlin, ThoughtWorks Toronto and Google Cultural Institute in Paris.

She has exhibited at The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum NYC, the V&A London, PHI Centre Montreal, Sensory Stories Exhibition, Armoury Arts Week NYC, Museum of Modern Art Peru, International Film and Storytelling events include the SXSW, ARS Electronica, The V&A, the Netherlands Film Festival to the Future of Storytelling in NYC. She has worked closely with prestigious organisations such as the British Councils in Canada, Western Balkans, South Africa and Peru. Invited to speak, ZKM Living Amongst Intelligent Machines AI Conference in Germany. CPH:DOX, Art, Technology & Change to name a few.

2020 she received Honorary Mention for the STARTS Prize ARS Electronica for Perception iO, the future of law enforcement. This is A.I. Law enforcement training simulation which will watch you back. Perception iO will enable participants to experience how easily human bias can be intergraded into networks by humans and therefore understand the necessity for Transparency and Regulation in AI.

In 2017 her installation RIOT was acknowledged as one of the Digital Dozen Award for break throughs in storytelling. RIOT makes the player aware of their subconscious behaviour and enables them to consciously build new neurological pathways in their brain. Her work is at the intersection of Neuroscience, Behavioural Psychology and the Parkour philosophy of moving through fear.

She has been a research based artist working with Artificial Intelligence since 2015. Her Hack the Future Labs created 2020 are Think & Action Tanks at the intersection of Art, Film, Neuroscience Technology, Activism, Social Justice, Spirituality and the Parkour Philosophy of moving through fear. Creating interdisciplinary conversation and discussions to enable explorations of solutions for urgent issues impacting this rapidly changing society.