Emma Roberts is an XR artist based on Wathaurong country (kayjup/Linton) in Australia, and head of XR production studio Pernickety Split. She is a passionate storyteller and community builder with a drive to champion underrepresented perspectives.
Often collaborating with artist Ben Joseph Andrews, Roberts’ work integrates interactive technology within public-facing installations to create collective experiences that instil a sense of wonder to our world. She has produced some of the largest location-based works in Australia, including GONDWANA (2022), which premiered at Sundance 2022 before showing at SXSW, Sheffield Doc/Fest, DocAviv, MIT Open Doc Lab, ACMI, Science Gallery Michigan, and CPH:DOX among others. Gondwana has been one of the most critically and commercially successful XR works made in Australia, winning Best Interactive/Immersive at the 2022 Australian Directors Guild Awards and the Australian International Documentary Festival awards; it continues to tour as a travelling installation with bookings secured until 2025.
In 2023 she won the Ones to Watch prize from Australia’s screen producers guild, awarded to an outstanding emerging screen producer. Collaboration, strong relationships and industry building are key to Roberts’ philosophy as a creator. She has worked as a mentor and facilitator for the interactive development lab CPH:LAB (2022 and 2023) as well as for the South Australian Film Commission’s week-long Indigenous Creators Lab (2022). She has has presented talks for NYU Tisch School of Art, MIT Open Doc Lab, Sundance New Frontier, ACMI, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Melbourne Knowledge Week, Electric Dreams XR Conference, and Melbourne Festival.
Her most recent project, TURBULENCE, won the DocLab Immersive prize and Best Pitch at IDFA 2023.