Since 2018, together with Japan’s largest public broadcaster NHK, the Ars Electronica Futurelab has been pursuing questions about the future of the next generation of 8K ultra-high definition TV technology. As early as 2016, NHK began producing 8K material, developing recording and playback technology, and launched the first 8K single channel, making it one of the pioneers of this new technology. At the Ars Electronica Festival 2018, some of these 8K contents were already presented in the Deep Space 8K to provide insights into the collaboration under the title “Beyond the Frame”.

This collaboration focuses on several key scenarios that explore the framing and application of 8K television content, based on questions of image composition, new content and forms of staging. What possibilities are there for new formats, interaction methods or situations that 8K can integrate into everyday media use? The reflection on 8K’s position in everyday media aims to help NHK overcome the biggest challenges for widespread use of high-definition content in public broadcasting. The attempt will also be made to renegotiate the meaning and context of TV as an entertainment and information medium and to connect it to changed cultural structures.

Three approaches were developed and tested as “Beyond the Frame – Future Projects” in selected scenarios. MediaxPlatz focused on the collective experience of 8K media in public space. A public screening, workshops and a meeting place for emergencies are to test mobile formats of the new TV technology in social contexts. In order to imagine 8K technology as ambient media, a simulation was first designed and then tested for technical difficulties and hurdles in implementation. A virtually extended table at which people can spend time together over any distance served as an exemplary application. True Scale TV was used to investigate how the life-size representation of classic media content changes reception attitudes, starting with the environment of the Deep Space 8K.

Beyond the Frame at MediaXPlatz
Credit: Ars Electronica Futurelab

Beyond the Frame: 8K Future Project / NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, JP), Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)
Credit: Magdalena Sick-Leitner

Beyond the Frame: 8K Future Project / NHK (JP), Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)
Credit: Vanessa Graf

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Results of the True Scale TV concept were also presented at the Ars Electronica Festival 2019. NHK and the Ars Electronica Futurelab have selected several prototypes to communicate their joint efforts, including a livescale weather forecast and an edutainment program for children, which uses life-size animations to bring life and animal relations closer to its viewers.

Read more in the Interview with Roland Haring and Nicolas Naveau on the Ars Electronica Blog:

Beyond the Frame: The future of broadcasting?

With "Beyond the Frame: Future Project", the Ars Electronica Futurelab and NHK are exploring a future for broadcasting that goes beyond the traditional framework - in the truest sense of the word. In this interview, we found out what we can see of it at the 2019 Ars Electronica Festival (September 5-9) and which possibilities the research is pointing to.