Samuel Vignola, Go-To-Market Specialist, Society for Arts and Technology (Montreal, Canada)

Samuel Vignola works at the intersection of art, technology and audience experience. As the Go-to-Market Specialist at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) in Montréal, he collaborates closely with museums and cultural institutions to explore how immersive technologies can transform the way audiences encounter art, heritage and places.

His career has moved between the cultural sector, creative innovation and artistic practices. After working with Cirque du Soleil's Creative Innovation Lab, he co-founded Vivid Memory Studios, creating immersive sound and multimedia experiences for artists, brands and cultural institutions.

Samuel is interested in what happens when technology becomes more than a tool: when it becomes a way to invite participation, create connection and elevate storytelling. For him, creative technology is ultimately in service of human expression, wherever art meets its audience.

Light Play: Building Trust Before Building Technology

In a park beside its Montréal home, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) asked a simple question: Can play create connection between people who rarely share the same space? Place de la Paix is a crossroads where neighbours, workers, visitors and people experiencing homelessness intersect. Rather than designing an installation for this community, SAT chose to begin by listening.

The result is Light Play (Jeu(x) de lumières), a series of cooperative games created with game designer Marie LeBlanc Flanagan and Dragon Fly, a social innovation agency working alongside the park’s unhoused community. Before building a prototype, the team asked what the space needed, what might invite people to participate, and what might keep them away. Their input shaped the installation, the games and the project’s guiding principles: cooperation over competition, accessibility over spectacle, and an open invitation to anyone passing through.

This session traces the project from its first conversations to its installation, sharing our learnings and challenges. It explores the tensions of creating in a shared public space, the time required to build trust, and the difference between consulting a community and genuinely creating with it.

For museums and cultural organizations, Light Play offers a transferable lesson: creative technology can open doors to engagement, but trust is what invites people to walk through them. When institutions desire to involve visitors, interactive experiences can become more than just an attraction. They can become shared places. Participants will leave with practical insights into working with community partners, engaging publics who may not see themselves reflected in cultural spaces, and using arts and technology to build bridges rather than simply showcase innovation.