Karen Palmer

Karen Palmer’s background

Karen speaks about the impact of technology from a social justice perspective, about her emotionally responsive immersive documentaries from The Future at the intersection of AI, immersive storytelling, Neuroscience, consciousness and implicit bias and the necessity to democratise AI.

Karen is the creator of the RIOT prototype, an emotionally responsive film using facial recognition and A.I. technology to navigate though a dangerous riot.

In 2017, The RIOT prototype was honoured as part of the Digital Dozen Breakthroughs in Storytelling and acknowledged by Columbia DSL as the most innovative approach to Narratives in Digital media. RIOT has also been covered in Forbes, CBS TV, Fast Company, Engadget, NBC, and The Guardian described her work as “It leapfrogs over VR”, among others.

Her newest work, Perception iO (Input Output), is an installation for Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC. This immersive, emotionally responsive film will give you insight into how human bias creates biased networks and the necessity for A.I. transparency and governance.

Karen’s work has been exhibited at the V&A in London, The Future of Storytelling, SXSW Austin, The Museum of Modern Art Peru, and at the PHI Centre Montreal’s Sensory Stories Exhibition.

She has been described as a ‘Thought Leader’ in the realms of Immersive Storytelling, Futurism and Tech. She is a respected international public speaker on New Tech and Storytelling as she shares her vision for the future Media which she sees is gaming, film, consciousness and technology.

She has been invited to the Google Cultural Institute in Paris to talk about her work and has been a TEDx Australia Speaker at the Sydney Opera House. Her talk on the future of gaming, film and technology titled “Your Brain is a Remote Control” was a TEDx Australia highlight. She is often to be keynote speakers at events such as The Netherlands Film Festival and ZKM Living Amongst Intelligent Machines AI Conference in Germany. Commissions include the 2012 London Olympics Cultural Lead and an HBO Award nominations at Filmteractive Festival in Poland.