Francesca Panetta is an industry leader in the the word of immersive and experimental storytelling. As an immersive artist and journalist she uses emerging technologies to innovate new forms that have social impact. She has pioneered news forms of documentary and journalism leading teams in newsrooms and universities and winning awards for her innovative, richly layered and thoughtful work.
She currently works as Creative Director in the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality where she makes flagship pieces. Her most recent work concentrates on deepfakes and misinformation.
Previous to MIT, she worked at the Guardian for over a decade where she pioneered new forms of journalism including interactive features, location-based augmented reality, and virtual reality leading the Guardian’s inhouse VR studio as Executive Editor.
Originally hailing from a music and radio production background, she started her career making experimental features. Her work is recognised as highly crafted, layered and through-composed and inventive in form.
In 2011, she built a series of locative GPS audio guides with Lucy Greenwell for their company Phantom Productions. She’s interested in the way sound changes your perception of the real world.
Panetta’s works have won critical acclaim – receiving awards around the world, and touring the White House, Tribeca, Cannes, Sundance, and more. She was a 2019 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.