Spatial Shift Sessions — XR & Society (Session 1)
A monthly forum on the ethical, societal, and perceptual dimensions of XR. Talks · Discussion · Pizza.
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Spatial Shift Sessions is a monthly forum in Berlin examining how Extended Reality (XR) — AR, VR, and MR — is reshaping perception, attention, interaction, and the social systems built around them.
Rather than treating XR as a standalone technology, the series frames it as a socio-technical environment that mediates what people see, ignore, understand, and decide. Each evening brings together researchers, practitioners, and designers to examine XR through the lenses of ethics, perception, and societal consequence.
This Session's Speaker:
Lucas Martinic — Co-Founder of Present Futures
Lucas Martinic builds mixed-reality prototypes at Present Futures, each starting from a "what if?". What if time were in your hands, what if your touch could grow life, what if you could rewind what you see? This talk runs through that series as it turns from playful to unsettling, tracing the one thread running underneath all of them: the capabilities that make spatial computing feel seamless are the same ones that make your world legible to a machine. To rewind what you saw, something first had to record it.
How the evening runs:
Talk (30 min) — the speaker frames XR, perception, and societal impact
Break (20 min) — informal exchange
Breakout discussions (30 min) — structured small-group reflection on guided prompts
Wrap-up (10 min) — synthesis of group insights
Pizza & open discussion (20–40 min) — informal closing
Who this is for
Researchers, designers, engineers, and interdisciplinary thinkers shaping XR's future — including XR and HCI researchers, spatial computing practitioners, digital ethics and STS researchers, and AI, robotics, and simulation folks.
Details
Date: 26 June 2025
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Æthos Space, CIC Berlin, Lohmühlenstraße 65, 12435 Berlin, Germany
Entrance fee (pay what you can)
We encourage participants to contribute a 7 Euros entrance fee if they can afford it, it helps us cover the pizza, and donate to the space upkeep, keeping the series going. That said, no one will be turned away for cost reasons: if the fee would be a barrier to your participation, it is fully waived, no questions asked.
Organized by MixedForm, Æthos Berlin, and the IEEE SRH Student Branch.
Questions? Write to [email protected]