Develop your project with professional support

For the eighth consecutive year, TOPO offered a training and coaching program in multiplatform production. This bootcamp aims to support the development of creative projects by offering a context for exchange and learning with a variety of specialists in the field of digital project design, direction and production. The bootcamp includes four Saturdays of professional meetings and three hours of mentoring with one or other of the guest speakers.

The 2023 edition of the bootcamp was held face-to-face, in TOPO's studio, but the organization remained open to the participation of two virtual artists in order to make the training accessible outside Montreal. The program included a variety of meetings and collaborative workshops with a range of specialists in interactive creation, including several newcomers. Topics covered included immersive storytelling, children's literature, augmented reality, scripting narrative projects, marketing, creation and production methodologies, virtual reality, documentary pathways, interactive installation and more.

The pre-meeting 5 à 7 on Wednesday February 1 featured a live experiment with an original creative device, with Alfonso Hernandez, of the studio Atypic Lab The bootcamp welcomed a number of key figures from recent years, including Diego Bricenno, Stéphanie Lagueux and Marc Roberge, Isabelle Gagné, as well as new recruits, including author Lora Boisvert, from éditions Applit, Guillaume Lamothe, of biscornus, who proposed a new interactive poster concept, and Johann Baron-Lanteignean artist deeply immersed in virtual creation and the speculative world of NFT. The organization also highlighted the participation of a number of bootcamp alumni, including Martine Asselin and Annick Daigneault, creators of virtual reality experiences  since 2016, and Jean-Sébastien Veilleux, an artist-photographer involved in the creation of installations and site-specific itineraries.

Detailed Program

Wednesday, February 1 - 5 to 7 p.m.

Preparatory meeting of bootcamp artists at TOPO

→ Brief presentation of each artist and their projects + live video creation experiment with a webcam and Bluetooth controller device created Alfonso Hernandez (Atypic Labs). It will be possible to attend this meeting online, on request and without the possibility of interacting and playing with the device.

Saturday, February 4 - 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Brainstorming and collaborative exchange sessions

With Diego Briceno, director and interactive designer.
With Stéphanie Lagueux, digital artist, mediator and cultural worker (at Ada X).

Sharing experience - Children's publishing and augmented reality

With Lora Boisvert, author, editor and digital creation teacher.
→ Presentation of AppLit (Children's literature and augmented reality) and their achievements: Bandits des mers – Le message secret de la buse.

Saturday, February 11 - 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Creating digital experiences for events, museology and entertainment

With Alfonso Hernandez, interactive designer and entrepreneur (Atypic Labs)
→ Imagining the interactive experience and implementing it through different strategies and technologies. This is what Atypic Labs imagines through a variety of projects.

Interactive scriptwriting and direction

With Marc Roberge, scriptwriter, storyteller and interactive director.
→ Overview of 25 years' experience in teaching and interactive creation, including the Tentaconte project, an immersive storytelling experience under a dome.

Sharing experience - In situ photo trails and augmented reality

With Jean-Sébastien Veilleux, photographer and digital artist.
→ Presentation of some engaged art photographic projects incorporating an interactive media dimension:
- Augmented reality photographic journey in web AR - Sur les traces des créatures de grève
- Photo installation, poetry and video mapping - augmented reality in web AR - Passerelles
- AR experience installed in the naval part of the Musée maritime du Québec in L'Islet, ESPACEment

Saturday, February 18 - 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Processus cocréatifs d’idéation et production en réalité virtuelle

With Martine Asselin / Annick Daigneault
→ Martine Asselin and Annick Daigneault form the collective Les pieds en haut and create virtual reality experiences to raise awareness of the reality of autism. Their most recent project, LOU, has been available for broadcast since fall 2022. With TOPO, in 2017-2018, they led a collective virtual reality project with some twenty young people with autism.

Methodology: structuring content for interactive production

With Isabelle Gagné (Miss Pixels) - Digital artist and graphic designer
→ Founder of Mouvement Art mobile with artist Sven, now part of the Bleu Diode collective, she recently created the website CYMX.ca, with the support of TOPO. She has worked on several interactive publishing projects, notably with TOPO, artist Sven, writer Ugo Monticone, Le Laboratoire NT2 and others.

Sharing experience - New interactive poster concept

With Guillaume Lamothe
→ Éditions Biscornus, a publishing start-up based in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, is launching a new interactive poster concept. A doorway to the discovery of our artists in the digital age. The presentation will focus on this experience and address the challenges of discoverability through alternative means to the dominant platforms.

Saturday, March 11 - 1 to 5 p.m.

Final pitch session