Karen Palmer is the Storyteller from the Future. An Award Winning International Artist and TED Speaker. She creates immersive film experiences that watch you back using Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition, that enables participants to experience the future today! Immersing them in a near future world of Bias A.I. and surveillance. As an international speaker she highlights the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence from a social justice perspective and the necessity to Democratise AI.
Her recent commission by the BFI Consensus Gentium recently was awarded XR Experience Winner 2023 at SXSW. It is a powerful exploration into the implications of today’s AI technology. It is an interactive film that integrates cutting-edge facial detection and AI, which transports audiences on a unique quest to discover what could come about if we succumb to unchecked surveillance. Using various tests, their dissidence or compliance is calculated, by monitoring data by the devices’ front-facing camera.
There have been numerous articles and interviews in Wired Magazine, Forbes, PC Mag, CBS TV , Fast Company , Engadget, Big Think,The Guardian “ It leapfrogs over VR”..
Karen has been described as a Thought Leader in the realms of Immersive Storytelling, Futurism and Tech and featured in innumerable interviews and events. Ranging from The Future of Storytelling Festival NYC to The Big Think. She has been opening Keynote speaker at AT&T Shape Conference, L.A, Wired for Wonder Festival Australia, Sydney & Melbourne, MIT and TEDx Australia Speaker at the Sydney Opera House.
Delivered keynotes and workshops to corporate clients and Leadership Summits include Microsoft Seattle, Vertex Berlin, ThoughtWorks Toronto and Google Cultural Institute in Paris. International Film and Storytelling events the Netherlands Film Festival to the Future of Storytelling in NYC. Worked closely with prestigious organisations such as the British Councils in Canada, Western Balkans, South Africa and Peru. Invited to speak,ZKM Living Amongst Intelligent Machines AI Conference in Germany. IFA+Summit Innovative Summit Berlin, Silbersalz Festival, was keynote speaker, Future, Science & media Festival, Halle Germany, Strategic Storytelling Seminar NYC Lincoln Centre. CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival under the theme, Art, Technology & Change to name a few.
She has exhibited at The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum NYC, the V&A London, PHI Centre Montreal, Sensory Stories Exhibition, Armoury Arts Week NYC, Museum of Modern Art Peru, and Sheffield International Doc Festival etc.
2020 she received Honorary Mention for the STARTS Prize ARS Electronica for Perception iO, the future of law enforcement. This is A.I. Law enforcement training simulation which will watch you back. Perception iO will enable participants to experience how easily human bias can be intergraded into networks by humans and therefore understand the necessity for Transparency and Regulation in AI.
In 2017 her installation RIOT was acknowledged as one of the Digital Dozen Award for break throughs in storytelling. RIOT makes the player aware of their subconscious behaviour and enables them to consciously build new neurological pathways in their brain. Her work is at the intersection of Neuroscience, Behavioural Psychology and the Parkour philosophy of moving through fear.