Charged Objects of Performance: Amplifying Materiality, Movement, and Interaction through XR

Project partners: University of the Arts London (UAL), Nissen Richards Studio, The Horniman Museum, Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival

A new project from UAL is exploring the use of eXtended Reality technologies to affect public understanding and knowledge of marginalised cultures.

In collaboration with Nissen Richards Studio, The Horniman Museum and Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival, researchers will use Virtual Production technologies to expose meaning and knowledge from cultural objects through immersive storytelling.

Using live projection mapping and digital modelling, the project team will work with artists of origin cultures to create new experiences focused on the performance practices of marginalised and colonised communities. The experiences will present the objects and all that they represent in an authentic context, highlighting non-Westernised perspectives, values and knowledge. 

Whilst artists from marginalised cultures have been performing in museums in Europe for many years, their impact can be limited to the length of their residency. The collaboration will produce compelling digital assets that can be used as part of interpretive storytelling around cultural knowledge and values with or without the physical presence of the artist. 

With a long-term aim to engage multiple objects and collections in collaboration with museums in the UK and Europe, the project aims to embed ethical purpose in the application of VP technologies.

The collaboration is one of seven initiatives supported by the XR Network+ Prototyping, Impact and Acceleration (PIA) funding call, with grants of up to £10,000 awarded to researchers at UK universities to develop new ideas and complete existing research related to VP. 

Categories: Arts, Performance, Research, Technology