Barna Szász is a new media artist and educator who explores how augmented reality can be used for meaningful documentary purposes. He has been teaching at Stanford University since 2019, where he founded Stanford's first AR storytelling course. His current main project, If These Streets Could Talk, tells the history of Budapest's Jewish quarter and ghetto through "storyliving" — an immersive narrative methodology grounded in Stanford AR research.
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Education
2007–2010: University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest – BA Motion Picture 2017–2019: Stanford University – MFA Documentary Film
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Barna Szász is a new media artist and educator who investigates how augmented reality can be used for documentary purposes. He has been teaching at Stanford University since 2019, where he founded Stanford's first AR storytelling course. His current main project, If These Streets Could Talk, tells the history of Budapest's Jewish quarter and ghetto through "storyliving" — an immersive narrative methodology grounded in Stanford AR research. (Producers: Noémi Szakonyi and Máté Vincze)
After graduating from the University of Theatre and Film Arts, he worked as a video journalist and later head of the video section at Index.hu. He completed his MFA in Documentary Film at Stanford University in 2019, with a focus on XR media alongside filmmaking. His work has appeared in The Guardian, as a Vimeo Staff Pick, and at DOC NYC, DOK Leipzig, IDFA DocLab, goEast Film Festival (Merck XR Special Award), NewImages Paris, and Geneva IFF, among others.
As an educator, he previously taught video journalism at MOME and 360° video and VR storytelling at Stanford. In 2022 he founded Stanford's first AR storytelling course, where he and his students explore how AR can be used in a value-driven way — drawing on documentary, fine art, and public art traditions.