One of the most pressing questions being bandied about in Hollywood circles will be the focal point of a special event featuring two big thinkers presented by Nicolas Berggruen’s Studio B.
Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once co-director Daniel Kwan will join virtual reality pioneer, technology futurist, writer and musician Jaron Lanier for a conversation — headlined with the question “Can human storytelling survive the algorithm?” — at a private location in West Hollywood, Calif., on July 25.
The night will mark the end of the third edition of Vaster Than Empires (VTE), a speculative storytelling retreat hosted by Berggruen’s Studio B and its Future Humans program. The retreat welcomes a roster of 10 emerging screenwriters (selected through an open call) to meet with leaders from the fields of science, tech and philosophy as they explore another existential question: What will life become? The summer retreat followed last year’s installment held in Rome, Italy.
The immersive program features visits to NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory, synthetic biology labs and private sessions with biotech, consciousness, film technology and AI insiders as a way to foster “bold, world-building stories at the intersection of science and fiction that imagine the futures we may one day inhabit,” per Studio B.
Berggruen himself had something to say about why his team designs such a program and dabbles in the space at this critical juncture. “Our goal with Studio B is to build a bridge between the creative imagination of Hollywood and the frontier thinking of the Berggruen Institute. We believe storytelling has a critical role to play in shaping how societies imagine and build the future,” offered Berggruen in a statement. (On Instagram, a thoughtful Berggruen also tackles big topics like evolution, humanity, ideas, climate and geopolitics in easily digestible clips.)
Studio B — the in-house media arm of the Berggruen Institute, founded by the philanthropist and investor who has been referred to as the “homeless billionaire” and a “philosopher king” per the New York Times — is led by founders Alex Gardels and Nathalia Ramos An, with Nick Goddard serving as producer and head of development. The division has backed similar thought conversations in a salon series that has paired Eric Schmidt with Ashton Kutcher, Reid Hoffman with J.J. Abrams, and Yuval Noah Harari with Joseph Gordon-Levitt about the human implications of advanced technology. Studio B also has an ongoing partnership with the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to explore tech, philosophical, and cultural transformations in film and produces the Berggruen Institute’s podcast, Futurology.
More information about the division can be found here.