{"id":18703,"date":"2024-12-03T15:05:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T14:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/?p=18703"},"modified":"2025-02-25T13:55:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T12:55:34","slug":"wake-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/en\/wake-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"wake! Tour, when the Walloon and Brussels digital creative industry boosts its profile"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nLast October 23, as part of the KIKK Festival, several delegations of Belgian and foreign visitors headed off at the same time to travel to the four corners of Wallonia. Their common goal: to discover the talents of the Walloon and Brussels digital creative industry. An opportunity offered by a particularly ambitious programme, wake! by Digital Wallonia.\n\r\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\u2018When I got here and saw so many people in the hall, I thought, \u201cWow, something is really happening here\u201d.\u2019\u00a0 Thierry Dutoit, facing us, is wearing a broad grin. It is a little past 13.30 and the Director of Science at the Mons-based creative hub Le CLICK<\/a> can barely contain his enthusiasm when we ask him what he thinks of this first edition of the wake! Tour: \u2018It\u2019s incredible, because 5 or 10 years ago we would never have been capable of displaying something on this scale. And now we are at a point that, when foreign visitors come here, we can really showcase the Wallonia-Brussels Community\u2019s firepower in the cultural industries domain. It is really stunning.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indeed, there is good reason to feel happy, because an hour earlier a coach full of the inquisitive from every part of Belgium but also from abroad \u2013 we spot some Spaniards, Poles and English people \u2013 had drawn to a halt in front of the Mons creative hub. Entrepreneurs, investors, but also representatives of the public services coming to discover the Walloon exhibitors on-site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big hitters to demonstrate Walloon know-how<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Amongst them, a renowned figure of Walloon digital tech: Nicolas d\u2019Alessandro, one of the founders of the Hovertone digital agency<\/a>, which specialises in phygital interaction design. \u2018Today, I have been invited to take part in a panel on the role of immersion, interactivity and new technologies in exhibitions and public spaces. The aim is to show how you can get people onboard, how to affect them emotionally with these new technologies in order to get messages across. To do so, I am taking them to MUMONS<\/em><\/a>, where they will be able to see one of our productions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This production is a video-projection onto the very walls of the cellars<\/a> of the University of Mons\u2019 museum, which was once a convent. The experience gives the floor to two spectral nuns, who come back to life for long enough to tell the visitors their stories, as well as the history of the premises.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be able to directly show one of his flagship experiences to so many people is a priceless opportunity for the founder of Hovertone. \u2018Yes, it\u2019s important. Something like this was necessary to be able to bring together so many people here, in Wallonia. And what I find really valuable about the wake! Tour is that it enables the professions and the know-how to be demonstrated directly. There are, of course, many theoretical things which you have to know, but our industry is also and above all know-how, and that is passed on thanks to events such as this, by contagion, as I like to say.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A little further on, it is another entrepreneur active in the digital creative industry who is grabbing the attention of the visitors. Chadi Abou\u00a0Sariya is the founder of MiamMiam Creative Lab<\/a>, a Brussels startup whose exhibit has caught the eye (or rather the ears) of many of the people present. \u2018My creation is called Spherix 360. It is designed to rethink and offer a new dynamic to 360 degree spatialised sound. In short, it serves to eliminate the digital automations we today have on the sounds of video games and films, for example. It is they which normally decide how the sound is distributed on these media: from which side it comes, according to what intensity, etc. What I am doing here is, I code. I recode everything, I create an audio rendering engine, controllable, I decide everything. And that is how it works.\u2019
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And it is an understatement to say that his concept is attracting attention, as he emphasises with a smile. \u2018Apparently, there is a big buzz around it, and I\u2019m delighted by it. And what\u2019s more, I feel there is goodwill here, I sense a coming together. If you look at it on a macro scale, to be able to be here at an event like wake! Tour, which is part of KIKK<\/a>, it\u2019s a massive plus. For my part it means I no longer have to be a nutcase, isolated in my basement to work on these concepts. It allows me to share my creations and find the right people to show them to and discuss them with.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One banner to bring them all<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But to get a good grasp of the dynamic of wake! Tour, it is first and foremost necessary to understand the wake! concept. And who better to talk about it than the project coordinator, Delphine Jenart:\u00a0\u2018wake! brings together the digital creativity actors\u2019 ecosystem in Wallonia. It owes its creation to the fact that KIKK has been mandated by the Walloon government to become the key go-to actor of the cultural and creative industries (CCA) at the heart of the Digital Wallonia strategy. Amongst KIKK\u2019s activities are in particular the creation and distribution of 3D animations, immersive experiences in cultural sites or at major events, be they in VR, XR or AR, videomapping or in video games.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to its influential profile and its pivotal role as a promotor of creative and digital know-how in Wallonia, KIKK will fully play its \u2018sherpa\u2019 role in guiding political leaders in their understanding of the sector, so they will be able to aid and support the sector\u2019s project owners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But little by little, a self-evident truth will dawn on the various actors involved in this project. Amongst them is S\u00e9bastien Nahon, founder and director of the Media Innovation & Intelligibility Lab at the UCLouvain and coordinator of the international strand of the HiTT strategic initiative (for Human interactions technology transfer) dedicated to immersive technologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I will give you the most classic example we keep on returning to. When the time comes round for South by Southwest<\/a> <\/em>(we for that matter had the good fortune to discover it)<\/a>, the American festival which is THE unmissable event in our sector, we, the Belgians, turn up there completely dispersed. And we do so whilst all the other countries are very centralised whilst they have a very distinct brand image. We, we don\u2019t have either a brand, or a logo, or anything which would enable this Belgian Touch we represent to be showcased.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This lack of a global standard-bearer, in his opinion, means there is no way of attracting the world\u2019s attention: \u2018we have this surrealist creative aspect, we are the little minnows who don\u2019t have many resources, but who despite everything manage to be on a par in terms of creativity with other much bigger countries. And it is for that reason that the creation of wake!, whose mission is to bring together all of our talents, is very important.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An assessment shared by Thierry Dutoit: \u2018It is a little like electrons whose spins align to go in the same direction. It is also important for us because we know very well that the cultural and creative industries have not been supported enough by the Walloon government. They are considered as an industrial sector which is a little bit behind the five Walloon priority sectors (of the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3)). So it is important that we mobilise and put ourselves forward in this way.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year to reflect and act<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The issues having been identified, a working group was established at the beginning of January, 2024. Its role: to get to work in terms of coordinating and uniting the ecosystem around this mandate. The first mission: to bring around the same table the actors and institutions the most concerned and the most capable of developing solutions, as Delphine Jenart explains: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018we have brought together both investment funds such as NOSHAQ<\/a>, <\/em>Start-invest<\/a>, Wallimage, universities such as the UCL<\/a>, the UNAMUR<\/a>, the UMONS<\/a>, research centres, as well as digital creativity spaces. Here we have the TRAKK<\/a>, <\/em>the Grand Poste<\/a>, Le CLICK. We have also tried to ensure a certain representativeness of the territories and the operators which drive and boost the ecosystem, rather like events such as KIKK, Meet and Build (we were there as well)<\/a>, but also initiatives which are underway in Brussels, such as Stereopsia.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large number of public actors, therefore, to which are added private actors such as Dreamwall<\/a>, Motion Sense<\/a>, Davanac<\/a> and Amplo for all the human resources sector of the CCI. They share their observations, their feedback, as well as their solutions to further raise the profile of the Walloon digital creative industry. Together they are creating a standard-bearer, a label<\/a> hosted by the Digital Wallonia environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These discussions and reflections led, in July of the same year, to the creation of a white paper<\/a> weighing in at over a hundred pages, written with the political leaders in mind. A means of establishing the theoretical foundation of the wake! ecosystem.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A showcase in which to sparkle<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But while the theory is all well and good, nothing is better than putting the concept into practice. And that is where the wake! Tour springs into action. And as there is not one single specific Walloon hub but several, this tour has been conceived as a roadshow throughout the region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three routes are available for the visitors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n