Cutting-edge of Research H2
A series of events showcasing UK work at the cutting-edge of research in the creative industries supported by the £39m Audience of the Future Programme.
Audience of the Future
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AotF Live is a programme of events representing the UK’s world-leading research and development capabilities from the UK government’s two largest investments in the creative industries, the Audience of the Future and Creative Industries Clusters Programmes.
Originally intended to be showcased at SXSW 2020, AotF Live will continue as a virtual programme of events. The original programme was planned to include the first view of 15 early-stage immersive projects in the Immersive Futures Lab.
Future showcases are planned for the latter half of 2020, register for the Audience of the Future newsletter or follow on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to get notified about the new dates.
As part of the AofF programme, four projects which, combined, represent the most advanced set of public trials of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality content anywhere in the world. Originally due to premiere across 2020 in a series of event-based launches, these projects have now been reimagined and redeveloped for audiences at home, in the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on families and children.
These projects include the world premiere of Dinosaurs and Robots, a mixed reality experience created for London’s Natural History Museum and Science Museum; a taster of Dream 2020, an immersive dining experience by the Royal Shakespeare Company; an augmented reality experience featuring Aardman Animations’ Wallace & Gromit; and WEAVR, an AI-driven, mixed reality platform that has launched a new version of its experimental platform, creating the world’s first online-only eSports tournaments..
Audience of the Future Live is supported by UK Research & Innovation.
Immersive Feature Lab H2
Brand new immersive research, originally intended to be showcased at SXSW 2020, can be experienced virtually as projects pivot following the recent pandemic. Experience a full-sized sword, live volumetric captured theatre, a cooperative VR ‘shout-em-up’ game, the virtual world of a pancreatic cell and lots more.
Demonstrator Programme H1
04 Feb 2021
Dinosaurs and Robots TARA H3
First-of-its-kind mixed reality group experiences bring dinosaurs and robots to life
04 Feb 2021
Dinosaurs and Robots TARA copy H3
First-of-its-kind mixed reality group experiences bring dinosaurs and robots to life
04 Feb 2021
Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up 123 H3
Wallace and Gromit are soon to find themselves in a spot of trouble, and they’re going to be calling on the help of the public to get them out of it
Dinosaurs and Robots H1
First-of-its-kind mixed reality group experiences bring dinosaurs and robots to life H3
Dinosaurs and Robots, a project under the co-creative direction of The Almeida and Factory 42, combines the latest mixed reality technology from Magic Leap with immersive theatre to create two separate adventure game visitor experiences exploring multi-sensory and truly interactive worlds.
The Science Museum Group and Natural History Museum have led on the creation of Dinosaurs and Robots, an innovative Augmented Reality experience that brings the future of museum experience into homes. Through a combination of storytelling and cutting-edge technology, this allows visitors to experience environments and collections like never before and encourages families to build and play games that combine STEM skills and creativity using mobile technology.
Users will play detectives roles and meet and interact with a cast of digital characters, from androids and artificial intelligences to velociraptors and fossils. Because users will be immersed within the narrative, they will be able to react to the characters and shape their own stories.
An augmented reality detective experience featuring high-resolution
3D scans of robots and other iconic objects from its collection, will
bring the latest in robotics and artificial intelligence to life.
Awe-inspiring dinosaurs from the collection at the Natural History
Museum will be brought to life and visitors will experience the
detective work of palaeontologists and share the thrill of scientific
discovery.
The project is led by Factory 42, creators of the
multi-award winning interactive virtual reality experience Hold The
World with Sir David Attenborough at the Natural History Museum, in
conjunction with Sky.
Watch the trailers for both experiences below.
Credits H4
- Factory 42
- Almeida Theatre
- Magic Leap
- Natural History Museum
- Science Museum Group
Supported by H4
- Audience of the Future
Team H4
- Sam
- Tara
- Vuk
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News
The Science Museum Group and Natural History Museum have led on the creation of Dinosaurs and Robots, an innovative Augmented Reality experience that brings the future of museum experience into homes. Through a combination of storytelling and cutting-edge technology, this allows visitors to experience environments and collections like never before and encourages families to build and play games that combine STEM skills and creativity using mobile technology.
11 Feb 2021
Figment Productions: Hyper Reality Made Real H3
Award-winning digital media production company, Figment Productions, is on a mission to create premium immersive experiences using ‘hyper reality’. To do that, the team is developing new tools and practices that can help creative teams collaborate better, wherever...
11 Feb 2021
AR360: Augmented Reality for Tourism H3
Belfast-based Yellow Design, a member of the Future Screens Northern Ireland (FSNI) creative cluster, is developing an augmented reality platform called AR360 that helps city councils share local stories with tourists via their smartphone. FSNI support for the work...
11 Feb 2021
Live Cinema UK:
360° ambition H3
Part of the XR Stories cluster, Live Cinema UK is exploring the technology and storytelling skills needed to create and stage engaging narrative content for 360° screens. Working with an initial £30k funding stream they have collaborated on a full dome audio visual and then prc
11 Feb 2021
Figment Productions:
Hyper Reality Made Real H1
Award-winning digital media production company, Figment Productions, is on a mission to create premium immersive experiences using ‘hyper reality’. To do that, the team is developing new tools and practices that can help creative teams collaborate better, wherever they are in the world. Figment owner Simon Reveley explained to us how it works.
What’s the big idea?
Figment Productions is developing tools and working practices to help create the ultimate form of virtual reality (VR), known as hyper reality. Hyper reality combines VR with a physical environment, free movement, touch and special effects – such as wind and heat – to help create multi-sensory, immersive experiences. For example, a hyper reality dinosaur attraction might enable a user to actually feel the texture of a dinosaur’s skin, as well as see it in three dimensions through a headset. Few content creation tools exist to develop these premium hyper reality experiences.
What funding did Audience of the Future provide?
The initial project budget was £1 million, of which Figment Productions was funding 20%. The Audience of the Future challenge fund awarded the project around £770,000.consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam.
Who are the partners on the project?
Figment is working with the Royal Opera House (ROH) and Royal Holloway, University of London.
Figment approached ROH seeking a creative partner that would stretch the boundaries of digital production. Together, Figment and ROH have been developing a live show, inspired by a character from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which uses a hyper reality platform to take audiences on a journey through imaginary landscapes set in six phases of the night, from twilight to dawn. The show was due to open at ROH in November 2020.
Figment has worked with Royal Holloway for a number of years and the university is also a member of the StoryFutures Creative Cluster which helped Figment apply for the Audience of the Future funding.
Speaker List
Welcoming 175 speakers, including experienced and renowned names to new voices from across the creative industries, it was a pleasure to feature the speakers below on the BEYOND 2020 programme.
Andrew Chitty H3
Challenge Director for the Audience of the Future and Creative Industries Clusters Challenge H4
UK Research and Innovation
Alex McDowell H3
Director H4
World Building Institute and the World Building Media Lab
Immersive Storytelling for Travelers H3
Immersive Storytelling for Travelers H3
Immersive Storytelling for Travelers H3
Featured speakers
Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Speaker

Hasraf Dullul
Hazfilm Ltd
Hasraf Dullul
Hazfilm Ltd
Co-Founder
Speaker Biography
Hasraf ‘HaZ’ Dulull’s career started in Visual Effects, before transitioning to directing and producing with his sci-fi indie feature film THE BEYOND, which was released by Gravitas Ventures, and premiered at #2 on the iTunes charts before trending on Netflix. His second feature film 2036: ORIGIN UNKNOWN, which starred Kate Sackhoff, earned a theatrical release in the US before landing on Netflix.
Hasraf was later hired to direct the pilot for Disney’s action comedy mini series, FAST LAYNE. Credited as creative consultant on the series, he also directed three additional episodes having wowed Disney executives with his vision for the 8 part series.
What's On
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Schedule
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Speakers
A wonderful selection of exciting speakers.
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meriko borogove
ScanLAB Projects
Advisor, ScanLAB Projects
Annette Mees
Royal Opera House
Head of Audience Labs
Simon Reveley
Figment Productions
CEO
Prof Chris Speed
Creative Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Director of Creative Informatics
Prof Andrew Chitty
UKRI
Challenge Director
Prof James Bennett
StoryFutures
Director
Poster
Modern Collectibles: Implementing Procedural and Spatial Audio in ARKit with CoreML
This study is an investigation into how immersive audio design for AR can be used to bring objects and the stories behind the ‘Modern Collectibles’ to life in the users’ hands and invoke specific emotional responses as well as greater engagement in the show’s subject and online offerings.
More Details
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The Discovery Channel partnered with StoryFutures for the ‘Modern Collectibles’ project to produce a TV pilot with an accompanying augmented reality (AR) Apple iOS application. The experience would enable users to explore retro objects from the 1980s, using augmented reality to bring the collectible items –such as a toy ATAT- to life in their own homes. Development was in collaboration with Story Things to use technology to augment the traditional space of linear television programming and execute a strategy of ‘view and do’
An innovative pipeline allowed for research and development opportunities in audio design and implementation. Unity game engine and ARKit was used for an iOS build application to leverage the latest behavioural and detection capabilities in an AR scene.
Computer vision was incorporated (CoreML) to obtain gestural data from users’ interaction with an AR object. Controls of touch, hold and velocity of a users’ hand and finger with an AR object were developed to drive sound design in real-time.
Pure Data (Pd) ‘patches’ were integrated using the embeddable library ‘libpd’. Unity C# scripts combined and communicated with CoreML values and data were parsed through the ‘libpd’ layer to Pd patches containing receiving objects. Interaction, animation and scale of the AR object parametrically drove synthesis in real-time
Early testing indicated that immersive audio design coupled with gestural control does have a positive impact on engagement in the context of AR and contributes to bringing ‘modern collectibles’ to life through invoking nostalgia.

Rich Hemming
Royal Holloway University of London
Biography
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Rich is a Doctoral Researcher in implementing procedural and spatial audio in virtual environments within the Electronic Engineering dept. His PhD focus is on assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired creating a ‘visual-auditory sensory substitution device’ to aid spatial awareness and navigation. He was Head of a Game Audio Ba/MA and is involved in audio design for immersive experiences, pursuing research and development opportunities in commercial and academic projects.
Modern Collectibles: Implementing Procedural and Spatial Audio in ARKit with CoreML
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Covid Diaries
Read about and watch this video diary series showing how the Demonstrator projects have pivoted their work due to Covid-19.