The Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow (PAM CUT) has acquired the Tomorrow Theater in South East Portland, and is curating 25 unique events a month and over 250 unique events a year. Most of the experiences are grounded within the cinematic tradition, but there are usually ways that they are adding more levels of participation, community-building, and immersion. Portland Art Museum will be expanding in November to add even more immersive art and immersive storytelling programming as a part of their Plus Plus month-long festival, and the Tomorrow Theater is serving to onboard Portland audiences into the beginning steps of more immersive, experiential, participatory, and social types of entertainment. I had a chance to speak with director Amy Dotson to get a lot more context of how PAM CUT came about, and their vision for where they want to take it in the future.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So here in Portland, Oregon, the Portland Art Museum has the Center for an Untold Tomorrow, led by Amy Dotson, who I'll be talking to today. And she started to bring in some immersive art and immersive storytelling experiences. And back in November 3rd of 2023, they opened up the Tomorrow Theater, which is in a different part of town. It's like a satellite location. And they've started to do these plus plus experiences, which is kind of like they're showing films, but they're also doing different speaking events, podcast recordings. Basically, every night is a different performance. They do 25 unique events a month and 250 unique events a year. And so the Portland Art Museum in November is also going to be having an expansion where they're going to be having more and more immersive art, immersive storytelling type of experiences. And so the Tomorrow Theory is kind of serving the function of onboarding the community into experiences that are taking things beyond just the normal structures and forms of the cinematic tradition and storytelling. adding elements of theater, but also social dynamics and participation. There's community art nights where people may be watching a movie and doing crochet. They'll have a host that comes in and do a bingo night while you're watching a film. They're starting to have crowds coming and start to dress up and do world building and Just take these little steps towards adding more interactive, participatory, and immersive qualities to the cinematic experience. And going beyond just the cinematic tradition and having like a whole seven-hour video game performance where it was a narrative video game, a single player. One person would go up and play in front of everybody else, but there would be dialogue choices where the audience would yell out what choices they wanted. And so you have these like emergent social dynamics that are happening within the context of a movie theater, but it's using the video game to be able to structure like a theatrical performance. So there's kind of all these interesting blends of these different existing media and the tomorrow theater is doing all these different events over the course of the year. leading up to what they'll eventually have, which is more immersive programming. In November, they'll have a whole Plus Plus Festival where they're going to be doing lots of different unique experiences that are going to be all throughout their different locations around Portland. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Amy Dotson happened on May 20th, 2025. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:43.931] Amy Dotson: So hi, I'm Amy Dodson, and I'm the director of PAMCUT, which stands for the Center for an Untold Tomorrow. It's part of the Portland Art Museum, and we have a space on Portland's east side called the Tomorrow Theater. We also have a downtown space here in Portland that we do a lot of classes and workshops and artists and residency. And then I'm also lucky enough to in addition to being the director of the Tomorrow Theater space, to be a curator of film and new media at the Portland Art Museum. So we have all sorts of punk and prismatic things happening over there, especially when it opens next November with a big expansion, including a lot more space for new media and immersive art.
[00:03:22.587] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:03:27.000] Amy Dotson: Oh, goodness. I was born in 1976. But truly, I think the biggest influence on where I am and what I get to do is Pee Wee's Playhouse. So I was obsessed as a kid and a teenager and now as an adult with Pee Wee's Playhouse and this whole idea of world building and characters and bringing people disparate artists together to do everything from building puppet lands to tiny miniature fruits to costumes to rocket ships to the lands of Zizi Baluba. So in a roundabout way, I trained as a sculptor and a welder. And so putting things that shouldn't necessarily fit together together is kind of my jam. And I did a long stint in New York City at a place called IFP. And IFP was what a lot of countries have as their regional film bodies or national film bodies. This was a place in a space where artists that had work primarily in cinema could come and develop their project, finance their project, work on post-production. And then a lot of the work was strategy. And we had artists from the US, but we had artists from all over that were doing that for many years. And then about halfway through my tenure there, we opened something called the Maine New York Media Center by IFP, where there was an idea that if we had an incubator and working space where journalists were sitting next to people making work in VR, or television, or dance, and they were all in the same space together, some pretty amazing ideas could collide. And then from that, the Portland Art Museum came a-callin' and said that they were looking for somebody who could think about cinematic storytelling in all its forms differently. And lo and behold, I ended up in Portland building this new organization on the bedrock of a great organization that had been here for many years called the Northwest Film Center. And we modernized this particular chapter of the Portland Art Museum by making sure that anything that was cinematic, anything that had cinematic storytelling involved, whether that was immersive in the sense that you go see Point Break and everybody has a Patrick Swayze mask on all the way through something as complex as Symbiosis, which was a full body haptic suit, five cents storytelling experience with a VR headset and a Michelin star meal. And everything in between. So when we say cinematic and when we say immersive, we use those terms incredibly loosely to get the most excitement from our very diverse audiences here in Portland and beyond.
[00:05:58.390] Kent Bye: Yeah. And as I was going through some of the history, I noticed that there was the cinema Unbound at some point that came in right around the pandemic, but also there seemed to be a moment where you started to personally get a little bit more interested in things beyond just linear storytelling and starting to look at how to tell stories across multiple formats. And so maybe you could trace back to like, where did this begin for you in terms of like pushing the edge of the different types of immersive and interactive storytelling?
[00:06:26.173] Amy Dotson: I think you know I was lucky enough in New York and beyond to work with a lot of artists who always felt like there was like a path that they were supposed to be on and they just hadn't found the path yet or there was like a type of work that they wanted to make and they were real stuck they were like I'm gonna make this as a film and I don't care if it takes me seven years and all my time energy resources and money to do so like I'm making a film and And at a certain point, it just kind of stopped me in my track because all these creative people were working, but they weren't actually meeting other people. They weren't honing their craft. They weren't using their sketchbook. They just couldn't wait to do this magnum opus. And so I think this whole idea of something that's cinematic that maybe doesn't actually make itself to a screen started there, that seed of an idea. that dancers can be cinematic. I would go to performances all over the place. I'm originally from Oklahoma, so I would go to gallery openings for folks like the Flaming Lips, and it would be an entire room filled with balloons. By the time you got out, you realized it was a giant balloon vagina. It's like, okay, am I just seeing balloons or am I seeing the whole balloon vagina? I think It's a little bit of a digression, but I think when we look at things more cinematically and you kind of use that term broader, you can start to see both the kind of like hands-on DIY punk, I know they're just balloons, but I can make them into something else. But you also have all of these amazing technologies at your fingertips where... People are doing things in VR, in AR, in immersive, in theater, and they're bringing all these disparate parts of storytelling together. And I think being unbound to me means that. It's like whether you have $3 and some duct tape and balloons, or whether you have all the tools in the toolbox and collaborators and audiences, and you're doing something at very heightened technological scale, At the end of the day, it's about being memorable and it's about in the scrum of everything that's ever been created, let alone cinema, but every story that's ever been told is at the fingertips of all of us now. How do you make it memorable? And I think some of that happens in a headset and some of that happens by just like sheer force of will and creativity.
[00:08:31.292] Kent Bye: Yeah. And it seems like as you were coming into this job at Portland, it was right around the pandemic. And so coming into this brand new job and then the pandemic, everything shuts down. But there's also like the international film festivals where a lot of these new media immersive storytelling places that were happening, there's Venice Immersive that also had to do like a satellite showing. And so the Portland Art Museum actually became one of those satellite exhibition centers for the whole program that was being shown virtually for the Venice Immersive back in 2020, 2021. And so- Maybe you could just take me back to coming into this job and what the pandemic meant in terms of trying to find new ways of engaging audiences, specifically trying to take into consideration all of the ways that people actually weren't going to co-located events all that much in 2020, 2021.
[00:09:17.691] Amy Dotson: Sure. So Portland knows how to show a lady a good time. I moved here in late 2019. I didn't know anybody when I moved here, maybe two people. I'd been to Portland for the interviews, but really it was a clean slate and it was a chance to try some new things. And with the pandemic, we had to start thinking of things differently immediately. And so kind of talking about the high and the low, the first idea we came up with was there's gotta be a gravel pit somewhere. And what I mean by that is there's gotta be a gravel pit somewhere that we can then build our own future. So we had a blow up giant screen. We got the band together and I got a bunch of folks together to try and like figure out ways to get people to drive safely into this gravel pit. And we showed 24 movies and made enough money to do it again the next year and keep the boat afloat. We also, obviously, like everybody, started talking to friends and started talking to artists and saying, how can we help? And so we partnered with our friends at the Venice Biennale. I have been lucky enough to be employee number one for their Venice Biennale's college cinema program and worked on the XR side as well when that was first starting out. And we said, how can we help? And we ended up coming up with a way where in Paris, Australia, and in Japan, and here in Portland, we had the immersive program with these headsets. And many, many, many people at that point had not really experienced XR storytelling. They might have put on a headset, but they really hadn't kind of seen the breadth. And it was fascinating to me as somebody new to Portland, seeing somebody who was four years old, having their mind blown, along with I think our oldest couple were 88. And they were all just like, whoa, this is more than just a game. This is more than just something that my grandkids do. Like this is a fully formed art form in and of itself. We also worked with the Phi Center and they had this amazing program called VR2Go, which is a little bit like Blockbuster for pre-packaged VR. So we co-curated some packages with them where people could come and if a drive-in felt unsafe for whatever reason or maybe coming to the museum they still weren't ready, they could take this art home and have a date night or be with their family and feel safe. And learning all that together was pretty amazing. And it really, I think, opened up a world of possibilities and audiences here in Portland. And it made us realize very, very quickly that there is a real hunger here for immersive storytelling in all its forms. And we kind of built our business model on that from that point forward.
[00:11:47.938] Kent Bye: And at what point did you start the Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow? Was that a part of what was created when you joined or is that, what was the first manifestation of PAMCUT?
[00:11:58.419] Amy Dotson: Sure. It was in the interview. When I was making a big life change, I described kind of what we wanted to do. And our amazing director at the museum, Brian Ferriso, took a risk and said, yes, I think this is something we should do for a couple of reasons. One is it would invite new audiences to the museum. And I think we've been open now at the Tomorrow Theater for about 18 months, and 99% of the folks that walk through our doors are not Portland Art Museum members, which is kind of I mean, it's shocking. I knew there would be some folks, but I didn't know that there was going to be that broad swath. We then developed it over kind of the first year and a half once we got our sea legs and got quite frankly, our money belt under our money belt to be able to facilitate everybody. We started the process with our friends at Skylight Collective here in Portland, and it was a renaming and a rebranding and really just a A bringing together of all the ideas into something that then as we started to hire staff, as we started to go out into the community, as we started to work with artists, we had a very clear idea of a structure and a vision that then they could contribute to because that's the neat thing about PAMCUT is it's not one size fits all. It's not for folks that want to compartmentalize things, label things, and put them in boxes. It's a loose structure by which artists can be supported in their multifacetedness. But also audiences can be cultural snackers. You don't have to just like jazz. You can like jazz and liquor. You can like liquor and gaming. You can combine all three of those and have quite a night. So I think that's the idea is this fluidity rather than this rigidity. and making sure that our branding and our name and everything reflects that.
[00:13:43.069] Kent Bye: Well, I think one of the first events that came at PAMCUT was Symbiosis, which premiered at IFA DocLab back like 2021. And so at what point did you start to go to some of these immersive film festivals and try to start to see what other types of immersive storytelling projects that you could start to bring into this satellite location of PAMCUT, which is really right kind of next door to Portland Art Museum, just down the street on Salmon Street here. But It seems like this was the first step, was at least bringing in some of these immersive storytelling projects here to this location before you opened the Tomorrow Theater. But when did you start going out to the film festival circuit to start to curate what was happening on the broader movement of immersive storytelling?
[00:14:23.582] Amy Dotson: sounds very goofball island to say it this way but the first person i met in the immersive scene was lance weiler and i was his pa and intern when he took his film the last broadcast to can because i'm a dinosaur and for those who don't know the film itself was the first time can made the exception to beam a film into can and not lug in a 35 millimeter print And so Lance obviously has then gone on to be a pioneer in the immersive space and done a number of amazing works. And so he and I have remained friends for 25 plus years. And so he was kind of my first foray into all of it a million years ago. But I think, honestly, I've been excited about immersive storytelling for a very, very, very long time. And I think just because of technology, life, circumstances, there's always been kind of a playfulness to the things that I'm very interested in and a sense of wonder. And I think that as I'm looking for work over the last 10 years, I'm meeting people that are similar. And that's not to say that things that are serious in nature or kind of defining more historical or more cultural movements is not interesting. But as a curator, but also as a human being, I'm always looking for something I've never seen or experienced before. And that's kind of the litmus. So it's been something where also when you start a new company or a new business or in our case, a new nonprofit, we really wanted to stand out. And I think for us, that kind of joyfulness has been a through line. And so something like a symbiosis or something like you mentioned earlier, I think asses and masses, which is a seven hour live video game about donkeys, but it's about so much more. Those are the kind of things that I'm out looking for. I'm really excited that we will have an immersive festival here in Portland that starts in November called Plus Plus. It'll be kind of like the next manifestation of really bringing together a number of immersive storytellers and artists and projects that people can really be participatory and active in. But I feel like in some ways, I've been doing this for a very long time. In other ways, I feel like it's just beginning.
[00:16:32.478] Kent Bye: And take me to the decision to go search for a theater here in Portland and open up a satellite theater, because there is a theater at the Portland Art Museum that could have been used, but talk through the decision to create something that's completely separate satellite location in Southeast Portland, rather than here in the Southwest where the art museum is. And so, yeah, what was the decision-making process to find something like the Tomorrow Theater?
[00:16:57.674] Amy Dotson: Sure. So, you know, as part of when I moved here, Brian and I spoke about a couple of things. And one of the things was really thinking about audiences and meeting them where they're at. So I know it was of great interest for the Portland Art Museum to think about a space outside the museum. And I think they were thinking also around the museum, around this kind of area down in the southwest. But I think two things. One was that we were doing construction on our new Rothko Pavilion project. So that's the new part of the museum that will open this coming November. And I'm very happy that the museum will allow Pam Cutt to also have two locations now. So it will have the Witzel Auditorium within the museum space, which will be doing its own unique programming, and then this tomorrow theater. Most of our audience is Eastside audience. So I think that's really exciting because we're getting all sorts of new folks that for whatever reason, maybe Didn't cross the river, didn't go into the museum before, but I think now we have this bridge that's really great. And I think I can say this, but it was the last live sex club in Portland before it was the Tomorrow Theater. So it was a double scrub situation. And we love that it had some life because before then it was a vaudeville house. It was a Spanish language theater. It was a church. It was an X-rated theater. But I love this idea of being in a space that's 100 years old with so much life and so many stories, and then also now putting our own unique spin on it. And I think that that kind of building culture from scratch and inviting community and people from the artist community to little kids coming in and helping us build that place is really special. And I think That speaks to both PAMCUT and to the Portland Art Museum's desire, I think, to be really community driven at the end of the day. We're kind of nothing without human beings. So whether it's some amazing immersive experience or whether it's something that is very campy and kitschy and we're all painting the bathrooms, we need other people to not only be there and take part, but to be active participants, which I think has been the most thrilling thing for me to watch is people do not treat it like other theaters. It's great.
[00:19:03.154] Kent Bye: Well, one of the unique things about the Tomorrow Theater is that it's got a pretty bespoke schedule in terms of like 25 unique events a month and like 250 unique events a year, which as an immersive journalist, it can be difficult to cover what's happening if it's just happening for one moment. You know, I'm already going to the film festival and covering these experiences that people experience. may only get a chance to see at this one particular location. And so it is a little bit more like covering theater. But over the last couple of months, I've had a chance to go to around 10 different events just to get a sampling of what's happening there. But in terms of the broader media ecosystem, it can be difficult to even describe what's happening at a place like this. And so talk around the decision to make it so that there were like 25 unique events every month. You didn't make it easy on yourself for scheduling. So but... It is something that is unique, but also a marketing challenge because then you have to essentially try to find a way to tell the story of each of these unique events and build up the audience that is aware that this is a thing for them to check into that. So yeah, just maybe talk through that process of what that's been like.
[00:20:13.775] Amy Dotson: Yeah, I mean, I think if the goal was to build audience, we're doing that. And what I mean by that is if you have different audiences that are colliding each night, what I ask every night that I'm at the theater is for people to raise their hand and say, have you been here before? And I would say 70, 80% of the room have not. And we've been doing this now for many, many months. And so I think there's something really joyful about not being in marketing speak land, that we're a welcoming space, but really truly making programming for all sorts of different folks to come and see themselves and enjoy it and experiment. So I think there's that. But I think from the very beginning, we've embraced this idea again of unboundedness. If I ask three people in the street what they think Pam Cut is or what Pam Cut does, they're going to give three different answers. And that's how we like it. It is a marketing challenge, but it also isn't in this kind of like we describe it as cultural snackery. And so when people understand that it's this plus this or it's I went and saw a movie one night, but then I went to this incredible like youth punk show. there is a kind of underlying spirit that we try to make sure it comes across in our spaces, but also in our marketing and the way that we are a little bit punk and like in the DIY sense of just like we are making things happen and we're making things happen for and with artists, both of our community and beyond, who are just pushing boundaries. And so I think the biggest compliment that I love is when people are like, I had no idea what to expect when I went in. I'm not even sure what I just experienced, but I loved it. And like that to me is kind of the essence of that like idea of unboundedness.
[00:21:52.813] Kent Bye: Well, each of the events, there's a description of what might be on screen because it's essentially a movie theater in terms of its architecture. But there is a little stage. Sometimes there's an onstage component, but there's sometimes other components, whether it's a host that's coming in or like asses masses, like a seven hour video game. And so there's ways for audience to get up and participate. But I'd say the center of gravity is still mostly like a theater. And so I'm curious if you start to break down like what makes a Pam cut event when you try to differentiate, say, just showing a normal movie versus trying to add something else, something extra.
[00:22:29.522] Amy Dotson: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I mean, we talk a lot about immersive on your podcast, and I think that the goal with any event that is happening, whether it's a little more normcore with a movie on the screen or whether it is multifaceted, is that we want you to go away with your kind of five senses fully engaged. And so very specifically, we have a full bar and restaurant in there that we theme the food and the drink to. We also have curated playlists, and sometimes those are curated by people folks like Julio Torres or David Byrne or whoever's in the space. Sometimes it's, again, the children's dance troupe before got to pick the music, so there's that. There's also a sense of community. I often say that when I'm there, I have to tell people to sit down, Like it's not something where it's like film church where people come in and they find their seat and they put their popcorn in their crotch and are like just silent. Like they're really like moving around the space, talking to people. Sometimes there's things for sale up front, whether that is Jane Austen themed yarn, which we had this weekend all the way to merch and bingo boards and different things that help people to engage during. these experiences and then lastly there's a certain amount of irreverence I think in the space too there's you were at the seven hour video game I also mentioned things like when we have point break nights people are singing we're not telling them to sing they're coming fully dressed like like the characters from the movie we're not telling them to do that so I think that there's this like kind of inspiration to the space that's allowing people to come and And be artists themselves and really like be an active rather than a passive part of the show. And I think different people take that different ways, right? Like we're just as cozy with people coming in and they're like regular street clothes and just enjoying it for what it is. But for those who want to kind of take their love of something deeper, there is an opportunity to do that. And I think we would love to do more immersive shows. In the space, but I think we're using again for now immersive incredibly broadly, knowing that we have a big, beautiful new museum that's opening in the fall, a festival that's coming in the fall, and that will have shows here at our downtown PAMCUT headquarters, as well as across the street.
[00:24:47.526] Kent Bye: Yeah, I wanted to ask around moving forward to have other exhibition potentials, because part of my experience of going into a movie theater is that I'm almost trained by the cultural norms to not participate. So it's trying to overcome that inertia of the context of the space. And so I just noticed that coming up a number of times of that. having an invitation to participate, but even feeling my own voice being muffled at certain times, because it's like, I'm in a theater and this is not what you're supposed to do in a theater. And so you're, you're kind of having to fight against that inertia. And so, so when the Pam cut first originally opened, I was like, I'm a little bit disappointed that it's not more of a pure immersive space. Like what I see in the film festival circuit, which essentially ends up being like more of an open space that then each of the pieces have to create their own installation and magic circle to have people feel But again, the throughput on those is much more like a handful of people rather than something that has hundreds of people that are coming through it, which in some ways a theater is much more comfortable for that. So in some ways, I feel like the Tomorrow Theater is like this transition space to get people a little taste of the immersive, but yet to maybe eventually drive towards like a much more fully interactive and participatory context with the new space, perhaps that may be more designed for that type of audience. So I'd love to hear some of your reflections on that.
[00:26:06.920] Amy Dotson: Well, you're hired. That's exactly right. You can see behind the curtain. And I think, you know, it's new to Portland, right? All this immersive storytelling, but what we've seen time and time again is when we do 32 Sounds, which is a beautiful piece by Sam Green, we did two showings of that and had over 900 people come. I mean, we really, I think there is a hunger in Portland audiences, but I think there's a larger hunger It's just about access. And so a lot of what we're doing at The Tomorrow is also building a business model. And I know that in nonprofits, people don't talk about that enough. It's like we're building a base business model so that not only can we do more immersive storytelling experiences, but that there's then access for people to be able to come because whether you have a festival pass that's X amount of dollars or it's a serious beautiful work and it's $65 to go and participate, that doesn't really open the door more than a crack. I think the long-term strategy is, We want to have spaces here at this downtown location, but also within the museum where people feel not intimidated by the work, but also that they can come and do it. And I think that lack of intimidation, because you were referencing it for being in a movie theater, I think there is kind of like a barrier of entry for, but I've never done it before. And is it scary? And Will I get nauseous? All these very honest questions, but it's important to us to make sure that we are taking it step-by-step and building the audience, building the trust. For lack of a better way to put it, having this wonderful JV squad at the tomorrow where people are able to dip their toe or get into the shallow end of the pool, feel like they're a part of it, and then go to that next level and next level and next level. I think it's all for the record art with a capital A. And I think that that has also been a really beautiful mind shift change for both the museum and for PAMCUT of just like, hey, this is all art. It's not big A, little a. It's storytelling in all of its forms. And it's important in all of its forms, whether it's in a gorgeous, brand new, perfectly lit gallery or whether it's in our janky former gallery. live sex club that's now dead sexy and doing things differently and so ultimately I think you know if there was a tagline it's like we're trying to do things differently and train audiences to do things differently and be brave and be bold and support the artists that are doing these things and I'll go back to Lance Weiler. I love working with Lance because sometimes Lance brings you a final project, but most of the time Lance is still tinkering. And I had a friend that complimented, they were like, I've never been to a show where the artist actually admitted that they're still working on things and tested things with the audience and asked questions and like asked about the audience's experiences. So maybe that might help. fuel the next step for their project so I do think that there's this fluidity as well that like for every project that you think it's a movie I've seen that movie a million times we're trying to say yes you have but not like this and yes you have and you haven't been today years old when you experienced it simultaneously we have a beautiful exhibition with Marco Bramble of it's going to open the new space and that's really the epitome of it for me where people will sit and they'll play where's Waldo if they want to and go oh my God, look, there's Leonardo DiCaprio. Do you remember Fifth Element? I love Fifth Element. Oh, look, it's the sound of music, right? They can do that. And it's gorgeous. But the piece is really about Dante's Inferno and using Hollywood as this idea of like, you're told all these stories, you take in all these characters, you see all these worlds. And that's like the part that we find meaning from. But are we questioning it enough? Are we questioning the stereotypes? Are we questioning the stories we're being told? Are we experiencing, let's say, the sound of music the same way we did at six that we did at 16 that we did at 60? And I think that what he's working with is fascinating and part of this immersive experience for me because for somebody who is doing such beautiful fast-moving kaleidoscopic gorgeous immersive work what he's really doing is stopping time and asking people to sit and think and process and see things differently
[00:30:26.121] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, I'd love to go through a little bit of the different types of categories or genres that you see are emerging in terms of what's working. So it seemed like some of the very first events that you had back in November of 2023 was having David Byrne and so inviting these well-known celebrities to come in and either give an introduction or a conversation beforehand or select a film and to curate a whole series. And so maybe you could just start with what were some of the different types of genres that you figure out or a good formula in terms of getting the attention of people that want to decide to come out and check out Pam Cut for the first time?
[00:31:04.355] Amy Dotson: Sure. So to answer the first part of your question, we do something called carte blanche, which has been wildly successful, where we offer space to well-known polymaths, people that are multi-talented, multifaceted, and very experimental in their thinking. True carte blanche. And true carte blanche is when you ask David Byrne to come and he says, well, great, right now I'm really into affordable housing. And you're like, great, we're going to do a night with David Byrne about affordable housing. Like you have to stick to your guns. We did a beautiful night recently with the actress Stephanie Hsu. And her idea was a garden party. And she asked everybody to come. and bring some kind of nature object and lay them at her feet. She read some poetry, then she handed the mic over at two points. One was for people to come up and talk about the object they brought and their significance, and the other was like a full blown 15 minute debate on whether rocks are alive or not, right? So she wasn't coming to plug her film, she wasn't coming to talk necessarily about her work, but it was really like, what did she wanna do and talk about that gave the audience a sense of who she is as a person, what she's passionate about as an actress. And it was interactive, maybe not immersive, but interactive. And then at the end, she invited everybody to come back up and take something home with them that was not their object. And I thought that was like the epitome of kind of like what that program could be. Because like for Carte Blanche, I think the reason we're getting some of these household names is because when they actually get past the agents and the managers and they talk to us and they're like, you mean really anything we want? Like Miranda July wanted to change clothes with audience members. And I was like, hey, if they're up for it, be my guest, right? We had Titus Kafar, who I absolutely am obsessed with. And he arrived in Portland with a full PowerPoint and was ready to get up at a museum podium and like talk about his work. Threw it all out the window and talked about forgiveness for an hour and a half and met with audience members and then afterwards wanted to go up and down Division, which is the street that we're on, and meet people and continue to talk to them about grief and forgiveness and loneliness. And this is still like midnight, by the way. So I think that's part of it is just helping, again, defy those expectations of what those kind of talks where the audience is dead quiet and listening intently and the person that's fancy and famous spewing out the same six soundbites and PR things that they need to and really building this into a space where it's human beings talking to each other. The other thing we did when we opened the space was talk to a lot of people. I mean, it's our space in the sense that we're running it, we're doing the finances, we're doing the marketing, but really we talked to a lot of artists, community members, people like you, people like our colleagues at festivals and said, what are some of the things that you're seeing and what are some of the things that Portland doesn't necessarily have? have right now. So we're doing a lot with Northwest artists. We try and employ as many Northwest artists as we possibly can, both for their own programming, but almost every night, we might have live embroidery, we might have a dance troupe, we might have a comedian, we might have a poet, and those folks all get paid. There's no barter system here. And the second is we really looked at what Portland's strengths were. So food and music and a love of documentary and nonfiction as an art form. We do a lot with live podcasts. And then what I call wildcard, which is just like, I don't know what it is. I don't know what a twist on Twister is. You're telling me you're going to dress up as a tornado and blow my hair up with a leaf blower? I'm in, right? And so I think there's just this nice mix of things that can get semi-categorized so that people understand what they're basically walking into. And then there's the other end of the pendulum, which is like, hey, I just want to be wowed. Like, I just want to get off my couch. I want to get out of my house and go be wowed.
[00:34:49.653] Kent Bye: Yeah, one of those that I think probably fits into the not knowing what exactly to expect was like the yelling choir as well as the asses masses having like a theatrical performance of a video game and having the dialogue choices be a deliberative shouting match debate amongst the audience of how are you going to collectively make decisions as we go through this seven hour journey. But also the yelling choir, where they gave a performance of the yelling, it felt a very immersive experience in the sense that they were walking through the audience. And so they were breaking down the proscenium and doing these different types of yells, but also doing a whole yelling workshop and teaching us how to do these different types of yells. Yeah, I feel like that there's this kind of interesting sweet spot where you're having some of these events where you are asking the audience to be a little bit more active or participate in some sort of experience or workshop. And so, yeah, I'd love to hear any other types of things that you feel like you're going beyond just the normal cinematic tradition and trying to pull in these other things. higher agency aspects, dealing with collective agency or dealing with people being able to interact in some ways. I know with Lance Weiler, when he came and showed Where Is Smoke, he had a lot of people turning to their neighbor and having questions that they're asking, if you were in a fire, then what objects would you take? really reflecting on more of a one-on-one types of questions and group facilitation, but also these opportunities for people to either ask questions or contribute to a group discussion. There was like a salon after the after sun that was discussing aspects of the film where people could kind of really give their thoughts on the more ambiguous aspects of the film. But I'd love to hear some of your reflections on what you have found is that kind of sweet spot where people can participate in a movie theater. Yeah.
[00:36:38.903] Amy Dotson: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to be very direct, we don't think of ourselves as a movie theater. It's really important to us that it's something else. And again, I don't think we've defined what that something else is yet. I think that our community and the programming that we're doing as a collective team here is kind of doing that for us. But to your point, I think any time that people can do anything as little as fill out a Mad Lib form before or play bingo along with their favorite movie or television show, like that's kind of like level one. It's like, cool, I'm coming. I'm having something fruity to drink. I've got my bingo dauber. I'm laughing with somebody next to me because there's something great, but I'm also like active in my hands. I think something that would be kind of like the next level up from that would be our friends at Smartphone Orchestra. So they came last spring and did a couple of their different kind of like games and experiences. And these are folks from the Netherlands who I think have been on your podcast many times. But they came and really worked with everybody around music. all sorts of things from making music together to really understanding, which I think is kind of at the core of all of their different pieces that they do, that like, we're all one tiny little group of people. If you actually step back and think about it, like it doesn't matter where you're from, what your background is, like we're all interconnected. And so it's, people just use their cell phones for that. And it was as silly as like, I have something red on my phone, and you have something red. And so I have to come over and talk to you about my favorite soup before the performance and the conversation as a group continues. I think that that kind of like breaking down formality is really important in this piece. And then I would say, Third, having things that like bring people together in general. What I think I mentioned earlier was that unlike places, I think in big cities where you're like, great, we're going to do a dress up night or great. If you are passionate about Pokemon, bring your Pokemon cards. Like there's a real difference here in Portland in that, like if you actually tell people to do something right, couple people will do it but if you actually kind of like write the copy talk to folks spread the word that this is happening in a more like kind of organic social but also organic grassroots way with partners the entire place is teaming and so it was funny of all the events we did some of which were very high end and fancy and some of which were really campy. The one that was voted by Portland Mercury as one of the best events for the year was Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. We literally were playing that on a Sunday night just because people came in costume, sang the whole time, brought props, decorated the front of house without us even asking. It was just this kind of like When you knew you knew and you whispered it to a friend and the place was beautiful. with people who were obsessed with this obscure movie and i would say what they were really obsessed with was the world building right like that movie is banana cakes and it's got so many people and scenes and weirdness in it that is like kind of unquantifiable and you're like how did this ever get made but people embrace the world and embrace these characters and kind of then recreated it in our space and i think that's that spontaneity and that kind of like If we all are excited about this and we all bring pieces of ourselves and maybe a proper or something weird, like there was a spontaneity to that that I call like level three where it's like there's not as much of a hand in it from Pam Cut. It really is like kind of taking a life of its own. And that's the kind of stuff that I'm just like, oh, yes, like I want more of that. How do we figure all that out?
[00:40:26.647] Kent Bye: That seems like that could be a whole new category. A whole new category. The world building of like, you know, build out this world and really kind of embody it. And I mean, I guess in terms of like the Rocky Horror Picture Show type of thing where it ends up being like a cult classic or has its life of its own, but there may be other, I guess, in the digital age, not as many physical context for some of this culture to be really developed over time because there hasn't been these public screenings or like... Most of the movie theaters these days are more in the blockbusters and showing sequels upon sequels. And here you're like digging into the archives of stuff that may have bombed when it first got released. But now we have like, you know, like Josie and the Pussycats is something that just with Violet X doing a whole bingo night, which I went to the other night and had a lot of fun doing that because it was... someone who was a really amazing host, Violet Hex, who really introduced the film, set the context. We had the ability to watch the film, and when there were certain scenes, fill out our own bingo cards, and so we could win these different prizes. But it was just a really amazing experience. And the other thing to note about that was that Violet would chime in and give her editorial comments on different plot points, saying, you know, this man really wasn't required in this. Why is he here? And Kind of just like digging on certain aspects of the narrative. And the film is kind of satirical in its own right, but just to have the way that the film has reached this kind of cult status and have people that are kind of dressing up or, yeah, just repeating lines or having that ability to have the cultural aspect of the cult classics that may not really have many other contexts for them to have that.
[00:42:06.050] Amy Dotson: Mm-hmm. And I think it's beautiful. I have it in front of me, but for every one of the bingo nights, our friend Violet makes unique cards. So they're beautiful. We have them as like artistic artifacts. And I think that the kind of like mystery science 3000-esque, but through a queer lens, through a femme lens, like looking at some of these things, like everything we do might seem completely bananas and goofball island and fun, but there is an underpinning of understanding and kind of like cultural anthropology and a little bit of curation to all of it that like there is the foundation of seriousness and a foundation that we take Violet and her curatorial lens and that's the things that she's interested in dead serious right like even though it can't be for everybody else like she's very deliberate about what she's doing and very deliberate about what she's picking and she's picking and doing all of this we're just providing the forum and the format for it
[00:43:03.188] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's quite a large crowd that was coming out. So it seems like there's these partnerships that you've been able to make that have their own communities and that there's even like a crochet night or knitting where you, I think it was on April 20th where it was Dazed and Confused. And, you know, we're watching a movie and it's kind of like people are also chatting, which I think is also going against like the normal routine. cultural norms for like not speaking during a theater but then lights are not fully down and you're kind of encouraging people to have more of a social experience because it's a film that is old enough for people to have already likely have seen it I hadn't seen it so it was my first time watching it so I found myself in this kind of dual position of like wanting to hear aspects but also like it is this larger community experience of people with their friends kind of chatting about and creating this other third space where it's beyond just watching it in their home, but having it as a group coming together to make some art while they're watching a movie.
[00:44:02.156] Amy Dotson: Absolutely. And I think my favorite experience that I had this month was something from a group here called Gosh Darn Delightful. And they are a dance troupe, but they also were formerly in the advertising world. And they came up with this thing called Twist on Twister. And so when you came in, everybody gets a goodie bag full of crap. And I do mean crap, and I'll get back to that. And then it's Twister, right? So like everybody who wants to stay home and fart into the couch cushions and watch Twister and have a ball, like they can do that. But this had an immersive display where you could go and you could hold different livestock on sticks and they would blow a blow dryer at you and you could like make faces and they would, you know, that was your start. And then you got to the seat and you had your bag and they basically like walk you through and they're like, okay, when this happens, we'll yell out. hail and then you start throwing cotton balls and then when toby the dog gets rescued go deep into your bag and get toby the toblerone and pop it in your mouth and cheer yay toby and then by the middle of it it was of course a you know level four tornado and so they all come out as giant tornadoes and they're blowing the audience with leaf blowers like there's just something to all this that I just feel like, you know, as much as and I do feel like I love doing things with symbiosis. I love doing things with kind of like the titans of the immersive space. But I think what maybe makes us a little unique is we love that and we'll do that. But we also want to do it with a level of consistency that in order to afford it, we would be broke, right? Like we would just be broke as a nonprofit and as a museum. So what we can do is keep people satiated, right? And so maybe it is Josie and the Pussycats or gosh darn delightful for a while. And maybe when they can save up and we can save up, we have like the five course meal that is symbiosis. But I think it's really important to all of us here at PAMCUT, half of which I think are amazing and from Portland, half of which I think are amazing and have been brought in from bigger cities and bigger communities. That we're building something that at any day of the week, at any level, if you are a six year old or like somebody like can't buy, you can come and you can find something that is at least interesting, but also it might be mind blowing.
[00:46:26.511] Kent Bye: Let's talk a bit about the Cinema Unbound Awards, because we've been talking around different ways that you're unbinding the normal ways that people experience cinema. But there's also creators that are filmmakers or within the cinema filmmaking industry or storytellers that are working outside of that in some ways. And so maybe just give a bit more context as to the origins of the Cinema Unbound Awards and, you know, what's coming up here within a few weeks.
[00:46:50.928] Amy Dotson: Sure, I think this year's theme is punk and prismatic, and punk is less nose ring and more just the making something that didn't exist before, just by sheer force of will, by sheer force of creativity, making something happen. And then the prismatic is maybe it looks really sexy and shiny, but once you shine a light through it, it goes a million different directions. So that's the thematics behind it. And I think, especially in this moment where arts funding is getting slashed, the world is on fire, There's more sad songs to sing right now than there are happy songs that we need to look to artists who are not just afraid of being bold, but are ready to try things wildly differently and are encouraging people and inspiring people to do the same. And I think when I think of that, I think of Sarah Sherman, which most folks know her from Saturday Night Live. She's kind of a breakout artist. comedian and storyteller and writer on that show. But for her more underground work that she does during the summer, she's known as Sarah Squirm. And I will say, kind of like you are in the immersive space, I've seen some live-in on the comedy circuit from previous lives and previous careers. And it's my favorite comedy show I've ever been to. It is squirmy. It is wild. It is disgusting. It is unhinged. She is brilliant. And I think that she is playing with social norms, cultural norms, ways things should be, ways women should be in a way that's just super brilliant. And so we're super excited to have her here with us. And, you know, she's been in film and she's been in TV. But I think from a core perspective, she's somebody that is just punk, punk, punk. We have Marco Brambola, who we just talked about. So Marco is an artist that... His latest show was just at the Venice Biennale Architecture. He will have his show here with us in November opening called Heaven's Gate. And it's from a series called Megaplex, where he recontextualizes and kind of kaleidoscopically recreates different scenes from Hollywood films and really does so in kind of a 14th century style that reminisces of Dante's Inferno or kind of like early Amsterdam painters and it's just the wildest thing because from a distance you really do feel like you're looking at a 14th century painting and then you come and it's all of our pop culture reference from our childhood. And he is just somebody that is, again, just blowing up like, what is a film? Like, what is a film? I don't know. He doesn't call it a film. He doesn't call it video art either. He kind of defines it as something different. And he really believes that his art, while it's flat on a screen, is immersive. And I would challenge anybody to watch that for 45 minutes and say differently. Because there's something about the way that he's capturing it, folding it, that has this like prismatic origami-like style that you can look at it just 2D and surface. But once you keep sitting there, it's a little bit like the clock and some other things that are out there right now that some people love it. Some people are kind of confused by it. Some people hate it. But there's something new right now about what I would call like 2D artistic high-end digital renderings that are helping people to kind of like see things a little differently. Last but not least, we have Carson Ellis and Colin Malloy are our hometown folks this year. And you may know Colin from being the lead singer of the Decemberist. You may know Carson from all of her amazing artwork. She's an illustrator for everything from New Yorker magazine to kind of find art but it's this really beautiful style and both of them in their own right are amazing but together they have created this amazing world of books and it's a young adult series called Wildwood and it's the Wildwood Chronicles it's like nothing else out there and it's getting ready to be a major motion picture by Leica and I think you know going back to world building and immersive Pre-Pee Wee, I always had my head in a book, right? And I'm sure a lot of folks are that way where it's like growing up, whether that was picture books or paperback books, you could just sit somewhere for a minute and be in a whole different world. And I think the two of them and their talents together with writing and with very cinematic imagery, they're conjuring up a world that I think is going to be quite amazing for seeing how that translates to the bigger screen. But for now, we're super excited by the energy that they're bringing in. and again it looks at portland in a very different way it's all set here in portland in our forests in our world and it feels both of this place but also wildly otherworldly and it sounds like that the cinema unbound awards first came around like march of 2020 and can you give a bit more context for like how this came about and what you were really trying to feature Sure. I mean, the first year we did it, we actually had two amazing immersive artists. We had Michel Ayak, who is the co-head of the Venice Biennale's XR program, and he is an artist in his own right in that XR space. And then we also had Rose Bond, who is a multimedia artist here in Portland, who had her latest work actually at the Venice Biennale XR program called Earths to Come. And she's done a lot of beautiful pieces, whether that is projection mapping, whether that is in concert with folks like the symphony or here at the museum. But I think that first year was really about just like folks that were moving things forward. And boy, did we not know what that was going to be at the time. We just I was four months in and we just said, hey, let's celebrate some amazing people here. in film, in museums, in the XR space, kind of in the multimedia space. And also we had somebody that's local here that is an amazing costume designer. And it was like, let's just blow this notion of cinema open for people to know that cinema is just a giant, like, face that accountants can be in and designers can be in and musicians can be in like lots and lots of people can participate in cinema and be excited about cinema without having to be cinephiles or filmmakers and so that was kind of like the first match that was being lit second year we had to have the program in aforementioned gravel pit And we did. And then we thought of that as a more immersive experience of like we had the regimented syncopated drummers come through the space. We dressed in crazy goofy costumes and served everybody ice cream on roller skates. We built a giant tent where people could be trapeze artists and different things. So like as you drove through, you had an immersive. It was kind of like we made do with what we had. We had a lot of fun doing that, but we're really glad to be back in the space for the third, fourth and fifth year. And that was exciting in that I think we were really starting to hone what it was. We finally had the means, we finally had the building, and we finally could be together again. And I think what we were trying to do there was really find artists in our community and in our world who were no longer content to be contained. They already were thinking outside of the box, as cliche as that sounds, but I think in a post-COVID new world, they were some of the folks that were really out there saying, you know what, we don't have to go back to the same way we were doing things. We can forge new paths and also invite new people along. And I think that was really exciting to see anybody from Guillermo del Toro, who was one of the best guests, one of the most fun guests. We gave him a little tour of the museum and fed him a cookie. And we were backstage and he finished his cookie and went on stage 15 minutes before we were supposed to start. So I just remember like trying to put my lav mic on. My lav mic fell into my pants. pulling my lav mic out, everybody like in the audience kind of like looking around, freaking out that Guillermo was on stage. And I was just like, hi, everybody. And we just launched it, right? So when I say Unbound, it was like that kind of Unbound too, where it was like, All right, we're going for it. We're doing it. And you just have to be flexible. To folks like last year, we had Mickalene Thomas. And Mickalene was amazing because obviously she makes video work. She makes amazing paintings. She's everywhere. She was one of Time's 100 most important people this year. But the neat thing that, again, as a human being, she got her start at the Portland Art Museum. she was a barista here in portland and was living on thomas lauderdale's couch and went to the portland art museum one day and saw a bunch of beautiful photographs and she said you know what i don't want to be a barista i want to be an artist and so i think that was kind of the final iteration before this year which is I think we're focusing as much as possible on people and their stories. We love their work. That's obviously why they're there. That's why people buy tickets to attend. That's why they get inspired. But to get the opportunity to know somebody, especially an artist as a person, even if that's for 10 minutes or 45 minutes. I think is really at the core of that cinema unbound. So we're kind of taking those expectations even further. But like, if you come, you're going to have a rubber chicken dinner. If you come, somebody is going to polite golf clap and be up at a podium and say the same thing that you probably could hear them on any award show or whatever. This is really about like who they are, why they do what they do. why they're unbound, why they encourage others to be unbound. And so that's, I think, where we're going for this year's edition is even more that direction of just like, how do we help make these super amazing, talented, fancy people human? And how do we help our audiences connect to them in ways that feel real and not forced either, right?
[00:56:21.815] Kent Bye: Awesome. Yeah, I'm looking forward to coming out and checking it out and seeing all these people that are being featured. As we start to wrap up, I did want to start to look towards the future as you are doing this expansion. It very much reminds me of Miriam Ashard of FI, which used to be the FI Contemporary, which was more the art museum side, and then the FI Center, which is more the immersive side. They are now rebranding and combining with just now FI, which is all those two worlds coming together. It does seem like the Portland Art Museum and Portland Art Museum with the Center for Untold Tomorrows are still two separate entities. So it's maybe not as far as like combining them, but you will have a lot of this under the same roof moving forward. And I'd love to just hear a little bit more around the vision for what is going to be made possible with this new space. What kind of like locations, what kind of like programming are you expecting as you move forward?
[00:57:10.936] Amy Dotson: Yeah, well, first and foremost, Miriam and the Phi Center are just amazing. Miriam's one of my heroes, and I used to live two doors down from the Phi Center, so I loved watching it change and morph and grow. It's had a big influence on what we do here at PAMCOT. I think with this new building, you know, it's almost 100,000 square feet, and so it's What I'm most excited about, I don't come from the museum world. This is my first time ever working in a museum space and I'm really enjoying it. But I think this idea of de-siloing and not necessarily thinking of things as like this room only shows that or this person only does this kind of art and really thinking about More and more how we can figure out curatorial or education and curatorial or community and curatorial kind of Venn diagrams where things are coming together in spaces and places is really exciting to me. I think it's really wonderful that we're going to have a dedicated space for new media. So that means it's consistent. We're going to have Marco show up for a year, but there might be other things that are for two nights or a one night only experience. And the new media gallery sits right in front of the Witzel Auditorium and So I think there's going to be an interplay as well between things that maybe happen in a more theater space as well as like a kind of like open space with great light and great all sorts of flexibility. I think, you know, one of the things that I love about being here is, again, that Venn diagram of Portland Art Museum and Pam Cutt, our one organization, and yet we have our own branding, we have our own fundraising, we have our own team, we have our own mission, right? And so where we can be helpful to the Portland Art Museum, we are, and vice versa. And I think one of the things that this new building is going to really offer us is that it expands the notion of what art is and what it can be. And I think having this connectivity between the spaces, quite literally, we're building a new building in between two buildings, that's also clear. It is glass, it is clear. People can look in, they can come in and look out. There's more of a fluidity that I think really brings us as an organization, but also as a meta-organization into the future. I think that's really the best part for me. I also don't love being in one place for very long and so I love the idea that there's multiple locations that we can be like as a team like at different times same times so that we're hitting different audiences and that depending on the work that we have options for people to say hey I have this crazy show where I want to have 50 people or I have this amazing immersive experience that I want to run throughout the entire museum. So I think it goes back to just the like motto of ours, which is like, we are not one size fits all. What we do this year may not be the same thing that we do next year. And the Tomorrow Theater is a perfect example of that because it's something that every day you walk in and there's something new. We haven't really talked about it, but we have artists in residence and a lab here for artists that do just that. And I think that's incredibly inspiring too, is working with these folks that like thought they were a doctor and now they're a lawyer or they were immersive artists, but now they really want to go into podcasts or dance. And it's like, great. Like there's nobody stopping you, but you, how do we help you to get from point A to point B? Yeah. And,
[01:00:32.714] Kent Bye: Another thing we didn't talk about too much is around the camps and other events. There's some events that are happening over multiple days. And so what are the other kind of events that maybe not happening at the Tomorrow Theater, but are on other places of bringing the community together on certain topics?
[01:00:46.590] Amy Dotson: Sure. So we do have a great youth program here, which we're super excited about. And again, we built it asking kids what they want, which is, I know it sounds kind of funny, but like, I don't think enough people ask kids what they want, because if they're going to spend a week here or a summer here, we want to know what excites them. And so It comes back to that plus plus model. All of our camps, all of our long-term workshops, our family workshops, our date nights, are at least two art forms combined. And so one of our popular classes here is people build a communal video game from scratch. And so some of the kids are really great at coding and building. Some of the kids are really great at making the creatures and the worlds. And some of the kids are really great at making the music and they get a chance to do all of it. But we build a video game, claymation video game from scratch in less than a week. And it's a real video game. It's not like a cutesy eight year old like, oh, look, I made a video game. It really works. People can all take it home. It's fantastic. And so I think. Kids, at least that we've been hearing, we want to learn about gaming. They want to learn about AR. Like when they go see something like Monet's water lilies at the museum, I'd say half of them are thinking about characters and creatures that they would love to dance over it. And what we can do is help them figure out how to do that without damaging the beautiful Monet. And I think, you know, there's also just things that are just fun and crazy. Like we're the only place, to my knowledge, that has the rights to show the Pee Wee Herman Christmas Spectacular. And so with that, we do a number of different activities where Pee Wee themed wreath making or family heirlooms and you're making ornaments from them. Right. So I think it's just trying to kind of unleash people's creativity in any way that they want to participate. And I think, you know, some of that is very hands-on and people like to get on the floor and get messy and take chances. And I think that that is an integral part, not just for our youth programs, but for the programs that we're doing to both enhance what's at the museum, but really to enhance some of the programming that's happening at the Tomorrow.
[01:02:53.191] Kent Bye: Yeah, you mentioned Plus Plus, which is like the last November you had a lot of highlighted programs. Maybe you could describe like what's different around the Plus Plus programming that you did last November, which was sort of like the one year anniversary of the Tomorrow Theater. And then coming up here next November, you also have a lot of big plans for what's going to happen with Plus Plus. And so maybe just describe what Plus Plus is and how is it different than any other programming there?
[01:03:20.268] Amy Dotson: sure so last year was the first year that we were able to bring back any kind of festival right like we finally had our sea legs and i think i'm a big fan of perfection's the enemy of the good so i was like if we have a festival and we try some things out which is kind of what our plan is around here it's like let's throw spaghetti at a wall for a month and see what sticks talk to a bunch of people and then build we did that with plus plus last year and got us on the map and we had everybody from Titus Gaffar and Annie DeFranco to some really beautiful programming that really highlighted the things that we had done to date. And I think now that we have a new venue and we have this venue back in working order and we're fully staffed up, we get to do what we really want to do, which is plus plus this whole idea of better together. So it's really our theme and you're the first to hear this, but our theme for this year is shapeshifting. And so it's a lot of art and storytelling in all its forms that is about like how either we are shape-shifting as a people, the world is shape-shifting, or that art is shape-shifting. And I think those are kind of the tenets for this year. We will have, I don't want to like spoil the surprise, but we'll have a number of truly immersive and XR pieces this year. It will be across three locations, which is new. So the Tomorrow Theater here to downtown space, And then also colliding with the opening of the museum on November 20th, we'll have the use of the Witzel Auditorium for additional programming, as well as the opening of the Marco Brambola show. So it feels like what we kind of intended it to be, which is an immersive festival in all its forms, right? So in the same way we say that PAMCUT is a space and a place for art and storytelling in all its forms, Now we have a festival that's more for immersive storytelling in all its forms. And we've talked a lot in this last hour about what immersive means to us. So you'll be seeing everything from things like gosh darn delightful all the way to things that maybe are more in that like symbiosis headset based or technology based notion of what art can be.
[01:05:24.352] Kent Bye: And as you think about the last 18 months of Tomorrow Theater, are there any other programs that really stick out as things that you really personally enjoyed or programs that just seem to have a lot of resonance with the community here in Portland?
[01:05:37.150] Amy Dotson: I mean, I think the cheesy answer is we were the only place in the country that got to do Teyonce, which was we got to show the Taylor Swift documentary back to back with the Beyonce documentary. And I would just say as like a social anthropologist, that was the most fascinating thing I've ever seen where the Taylor Swift crew came in and danced as if Taylor was right up front. I will say the Beyonce, I'm team Beyonce. The Beyonce crew came in and we could not get them to go home. And again, we've talked about this a lot. It's like, but those were just movies. Like, those are just two interesting movies that you had back to back. What's the deal? People treated it like they were at the shows and they came and they danced and they twirled little kids and there were people that were just like... in and they were like ecstasy right like they were ecstatic and it was amazing to talk to people afterwards as they were coming out because they were on that same high as if they had seen the show and they were like wow i didn't know how much i needed that wow i brought my kid here because he's just recovered from cancer and this is what he wanted to do tonight right So while it was just a movie, that was the first example where people came out as if they were coming out of something much bigger than a movie. And then that really kind of, I think, fueled a lot of us to go, ah, even if it is just a blank, we've got to make sure whether it's through our language, our programming, our food selection, our own hospitality and ability to give back, like that we are creating a space where that can happen as much as possible and that people aren't just going off into the dark night. I'd say the other one that I really found to be incredibly special was honestly gosh darn delightful I mean I just as somebody who grew up in Oklahoma and spent summers there and had to kind of like make my own fun the idea that you watch a movie and then you throw cotton balls into the air or you have a you know 22 cent rattler that when something's coming you're doing this that brought me back to like a very beautiful childhood place and it was a great reminder that like As much as the fancy stuff and the cutting edge and the premieres and the we're the only come into play, at the end of the day, what people remember is being together, having a time and an experience that they've never had before, and feeling a certain sense of playfulness and joy that helps them to let go of all the other things just for an hour or an hour and a half. But I think that ultimately, if I'm being really sentimental about it, is that's what Pam Cutts is really all about.
[01:08:13.868] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of these new forms of immersive and interactive storytelling might be and what it might be able to enable?
[01:08:24.690] Amy Dotson: I just hope I'm able to live long to kind of see it all play out. I have a degree in media ecology. And back when the earth was cooling and dinosaurs roamed the land, I still remember getting a CD player. And that one was like, whoa, all of this on a shiny little disc. And then I look at my kids and they are so immersed in all of the games and they love putting the headset on. And I think it's one of those things where we for so long as a culture played with time, right? Like we played with like, how do I slow down time? How do I speed up time? How do I record things so that I can make sure that people ahead of me and ahead of them can like have this like thing that helps them to understand whatever it is better. But I think with these immersive technologies, especially on the technology side, we're playing with space and time. And I think that kind of like volumetric capture, and that presence that you have that like switch in your brain that tricks you over. And for a while, you're not just out doing whatever you're doing passively, like you're a part of something. I feel like that is barely like we're just scratching the surface. We're in CD days, maybe even eight track days. But the potential for that for especially young people to have access to other worlds, whether those are real or created, the possibilities are just spectacular. I mean, again, to round it out, I was just a kid watching Pee Wee's Playhouse, right? But that was the weirdest, wildest, strangest, I want to go there right now, and that's what I want to do with my life experience. And I can't imagine being a young person and putting on a headset and being there, like being present in this world, what that is going to ultimately do, not just to people that love technology, but people that want to grow up and be teachers, people that want to grow up and go and help solve some of these bigger problems. They'll have such a 180 round view of the world that we never had before. And I think that it'll also just unlock pieces of creativity in that kind of like volumetric 3D experience that I don't think we even know what's on the horizon.
[01:10:41.393] Kent Bye: Awesome. And is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to either the broader immersive community or to folks who live here in Portland who might be considering to come check out PAMCUP for the first time?
[01:10:52.116] Amy Dotson: Be brave. And I think, you know, if I'm being honest, like I have so many friends right now who are artists that need your support and need your love, you know, for especially those that maybe listen to this podcast outside of the U.S. You know, we're all we're all hanging in. But I think, you know, being able to give your time, your love, your support, a quick email telling them that they're doing doing OK and keep at it. I feel like that's something that the world needs right now. And especially with arts being under attack, whether that's filmic arts or arts in general, be brave and bold and take that and support your local favorite arts organizations. And even if that's as simple as buying a ticket to something or volunteering or coming to their free screening and telling their staff that you really appreciate what they do, I think that that is probably the best thing that you can do right now. And it might also help some of us stay sane. Maybe it's just for a minute, but it's so important right now to really be present and try and help out the artists in your community because they're really the ones that are going to save us all.
[01:11:56.627] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Amy, thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast. It was a real pleasure to do a bit of a deep dive into PAMCUT over the last couple of months to go to a number of events and try to see the wide range of different types of events that you're doing here. And I just feel really lucky to be here in Portland to have, like in my own backyard, because I go travel around the world to see kind of the bleeding edge of immersive storytelling. But there's something nice around having it in a theater that is this liminal space that allows people to already go into a different place and then the way that that's changing and evolving and growing and moving beyond just a movie theater into more of these interactive participatory forms that is a nice little transition to create a bridge into much more expansive and experimental ways of pushing agency social dynamics interaction All these things that I think that we're seeing on the festival circuit that are going to be hopefully coming into Portland to be exhibited there as well, but to cultivate a broader community here in Portland that really appreciate these new emerging forms of storytelling. So yeah, just really appreciated all that you're doing here at PAMCUT and hear a lot more about your own journey and how you're thinking about it all. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast.
[01:13:02.807] Amy Dotson: Thank you. It was a blast.
[01:13:04.525] Kent Bye: So that was Amy Dodson, and she's the director of PAMCUT, which stands for the Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow. So I have a number of different takeaways about this interview is that, first of all, well, it's just really cool that Portland has the Tomorrow Theater and is doing like these 25 unique events a month. And that in November, they're going to be opening up a whole new section of the Portland Art Museum that's going to have a lot more immersive and interactive art and storytelling and storytelling. programming with like the plus plus festival that's happening november to bring in artists from around the world to feature what's happening on the frontiers of immersive storytelling but the tomorrow theater is kind of like this bridge that is allowing people a form of a movie theater and a movie and you know like amy said it's not just a movie theater they're trying to expand out what it means to go into a movie theater and to watch a movie and then maybe have a group discussion afterwards or there's bingo night so when you're watching the film there's the hostess is like commenting on the film and the people are paying attention to different moments in the film or with like the twister where there's these kind of interactive components that are happening throughout the movie and blowing people in the face with the leaf blowers or like a seven hour video game that's kind of blending theatrical elements of performing but also having the audience negotiating how they're going to make decisions together as an audience and have this kind of deliberative process and emergent social dynamics so you have the theater but they're expanding it out into adding different types of interactive immersive participatory elements they have the concession stand which has like themed food for each of the different events there's also music that is playing before the different films and there's also like you know guided meditations that are happening sometimes they have live podcast recordings the carte blanche was one of my favorite experiences that i had a chance to do with stephanie shoe which was the garden party where you bring a plant and She would kind of just riff on things that she was thinking about, like really obsessed with gardening and read some poetry and invited Q&A, which kind of ranged different metaphysical questions about the nature of reality to like what she's working on. And so at the end, each person got to take a new plant home. But it was like a packed sold out event and just something that was very unique and different. People didn't know quite what to expect. They just knew it was Stephanie Hsu and she was going to be able to do whatever she wanted. And on the website, they're breaking out like, OK, here's what's going to be happening on the screen. But also here's part of the experience that's going to be happening on stage. Or maybe there's a workshop component or other ways that the audience can have some expectations for how they're going to be asked to engage or not. And I'd say most engagement so far has been like light engagement. It's still mostly like a center of gravity of having a cinematic experience, but there's these opportunities for people to do a little bit more. And some of the different people are taking it even more further where Amy said that rather than trying to list everything out to create these invitations to kind of spread the word organically and have people ask people to dress up or to give a little bit extra. So doing this collaboration with these different community members, they've had a really successful model of creating creating something that is something that people expect with the context of a movie theater, even though they're trying to expand out into the structures and forms of the cinematic tradition and adding all these other interactive components, participatory, you know, sometimes more immersive and experiential and sometimes like these emergent social dynamics that are happening in But yeah, it's just like a community space that is able to do these unique programs, 25 unique events every month and 250 unique events a year. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what is going to be happening with the Plus Plus Festival, which is starting to curate other pieces that have been on the festival circuit or to also bring in new artists, immersive artists, immersive experiences, etc. that is also just kind of a new opportunity to use these different spaces and to kind of onboard people into these different types of immersive experiences so anyway really quite interesting to see what they're doing there with tomorrow theater and just wanted to go check out like a dozen different experiences and then talk to amy just to hear a little bit more about the vision of pamcut to see where they're going to be taking it all here in the future So that's all I have for today, and I just want to thank you for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listen-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
