CIIIC 2026 is the annual meet-up of CIIIC. A full-day programme where creators, researchers, organisations and policymakers come together to exchange perspectives, test ideas and explore what immersive creativity makes possible in practice.
Immersive experiences develop across different domains. From artistic practice and training to healthcare and public contexts. CIIIC connects these domains in one setting. Five thematic tracks allow participants to dive deeper, while shared plenary moments keep the full field connected.
Matt Cottam, founder of Tellart, will open CIIIC 2026 with a keynote on designing meaningful immersive experiences. He will guide you through the program and lets you experience SAM: an immersive AI project where, using your own phone, you co-create a unique, ephemeral film with other participants, a live collaboration between humans and AI.
Time to connect with peers across the IX chain and explore potential collaborations before the afternoon sessions begin.
Participants join one of five thematic tracks. Each track is structured in three steps: inspiration, exchange and application. International examples and current insights provide the starting point, followed by dialogue on shared challenges, concluding with identifying concrete possibilities for collaboration.
Matt Cottam — Tellart
Matt Cottam, founder of Tellart, will open CIIIC 2026 with a keynote on designing meaningful immersive experiences. He will guide you through the program and lets you experience SAM: an immersive AI project where, using your own phone, you co-create a unique, ephemeral film with other participants, a live collaboration between humans and AI.
Immersive creativity takes shape across different domains. That's why CIIIC 2026 is organised into five thematic tracks. Each track brings together creators, researchers, organisations, and policymakers to tackle real cases, exchange perspectives, and define concrete next steps in your field.
Immersive technologies are increasingly used as powerful learning environments. In this track, you explore how learning with immersive tools supports skills development, behavioural change and decision-making in complex contexts. Through real-world cases, we examine applications in areas such as safety, participation and professional training.
How do creation, research and distribution shape the future of immersive work? This track explores how artists build sustainable practices, reach new audiences and position themselves internationally. Drawing on research and real-world examples, it examines how creative development and distribution strategies drive long-term artistic growth.
Immersive technologies are increasingly used in public and societal contexts. This track explores how IX can support citizen participation, dialogue and engagement in urban development and social challenges. Through concrete projects and collaborations, we examine how immersive tools can strengthen public involvement and decision-making.
This track explores how immersive technologies can support patients throughout their care journey. With a focus on experience, autonomy and guidance, participants examine applications in rehabilitation, illness support and care navigation and how these technologies can improve healthcare experiences and strengthen patient agency.
Inclusive design is essential for the future of immersive experiences. This track explores how accessibility, diversity and representation can be integrated from the earliest stages of design and production. Participants will discuss ethical issues and the role of new generations in shaping inclusive immersive practices.
Throughout the day, experience cutting-edge immersive installations from talented creators. SXSW Austin has just passed, and this year several Dutch immersive works were selected. At CIIIC 2026, you'll have the chance to experience these installations yourself, because what is an immersive event without immersive experiences? Step into these interactive works and explore them up close.
In a seemingly empty world, the life of Ida (72) slowly emerges, guided by the voice of her husband through her home and memories. Through cassette recordings, an intimate reality unfolds where everything gains meaning and gradually begins to fade. A tender yet disorienting experience that reveals how fragile memory, time and identity truly are.
You move through a reconstruction of the memories of Sonja (84), who was separated from her parents during World War II and raised in Suriname. Built from fragments and inherited stories, a history unfolds that feels both tangible and elusive. A powerful experience about identity, loss and how the past continues to shape the present.
Create your own alter ego and navigate a vibrant world of raves, dates and encounters. What starts as playful and energetic gradually reveals the reality of coming out, prejudice and social pressure. With humor and sharpness, this experience makes tangible what remains a daily reality for many.
A sensory experience where dance, animation and music come together in a meditative world of movement, time and perception. In a continuously evolving environment where sound and motion reshape one another, a poetic journey unfolds with every cycle. From daily rhythms to the larger patterns of life, this experience slows you down, confronts and invites reflection.
Step into an AI-driven world where a former TV personality, the ‘Orator,’ continuously generates convincing yet fully fabricated stories. Based on your choices and interests, each encounter is different, offering a disorienting experience that explores how reality can be shaped when emotion matters more than facts.
An exploration of reality inspired by an experiment at Burning Man, where three participants spent the entire festival inside a sealed black box, cut off from the outside world. Documentary footage, 360° film, and interactive VR elements reveal their experience from multiple perspectives. Solipmission questions where the boundaries lie between physical and virtual realities.
Discover the collective memory of Kattenburg, an Amsterdam neighbourhood shaped by urban redevelopment. Oral histories from residents are transformed into immersive visualisations that reconstruct places and stories at risk of being lost. The experience reflects on how immersive technology can preserve lived experiences and imagine shared futures.
City Forest Communities (CFC) IX is an immersive planning tool for urban design, architecture, and participatory decision-making. Using MR and VR, the experience allows stakeholders to step into spatial proposals and explore future scenarios firsthand. By experiencing design choices in an immersive environment, participants can better understand their impact and engage in collaborative discussions about the future of shared spaces.
Gracia showcases truly volumetric photos and videos that allow you to move through captured real-world environments. Using advanced capture techniques, scenes are reconstructed as immersive 3D volumes rather than flat images. This experience offers a glimpse into photorealistic immersive media, where memories and spaces can be explored from different perspectives as if you were physically present.
Draw your own butterfly and see it come to life in an interactive digital garden. As more visitors contribute, the environment grows into a shared immersive landscape. Vlindertuin showcases how emerging talent engages with immersive tools to create accessible and collaborative experiences.
Create your own digital fish and watch it swim in a shared virtual environment. This playful interactive experience invites visitors to contribute to a collective underwater world. Developed within OASIS, Fishy-Fish highlights how the next generation explores immersive technology through creativity and experimentation.
Practise difficult conversations with lifelike virtual partners in an immersive environment. Receive instant personalised feedback from an AI coach on both verbal and non-verbal communication. This experience demonstrates how immersive technology can support learning and skill development in a safe and accessible way.
As part of research into public space and accessibility, Love vs. the Pig is a playful AR prototype that turns the city into an interactive canvas. Using icons of housing, media, and consumption inspired by Amsterdam and popular culture, it explores how gamification can transform public spaces into dynamic, site-specific narratives, building on research projects like Extended Spaces and Lost Hood that layer location-based stories, archival material, and digital elements into urban environments.
CIIIC 2026 takes place in the industrial setting of the Werkspoorkathedraal in Utrecht. A space that offers room for encounter, exchange and new connections.
16 April 2026 — Werkspoorkathedraal, Utrecht. A full day of immersive creativity, exchange and collaboration.
Register now