Curio are showcasing at Bath Digital Festival 2024 on 15th May!
Last year we had a fabulous week at Bath Digital Festival, celebrating the wonderful XR work happening in Bath and beyond. From showcasing our XR binoculars with the MyWorld team to demoing some of our recent AR and VR projects to the public at TechSPARK’s Immersive Technology Showcase at Newark Works.
Our week ended with the ever-exciting SPARKies award show where we won Best Use of Immersive Tech and were shortlisted for Best Cyber Firm and The Hardware Award.
This year we’re back with a new Cities-themed showcase, AR workshops, and a panel discussion about digital heritage interpretation.
Read on to find out more, and come along to meet us and discover more about our work.
The Cities Showcase at BRLSI
Wednesday 15th May is all about the theme of cities. As Bath is one of the oldest and best-known cities in the UK we’ll be exploring how the latest advances in AR, VR and XR can help to preserve heritage and share the story of ancient cities with communities.
We’ll be showcasing a series of our augmented reality projects related to the themes of cities and heritage at the Bath Literary & Scientific Institution from 0930-1130.
Come and see how the ancient Acropolis of Athens looked centuries ago; play with some quirky AR trails that celebrate historic buildings and town centres; peruse some street art at a virtual festival; and step back in time with our time-travelling AR apps.
If you can’t make the showcase, check out our award-winning virtual reality experience for the Tower Museum, or our VR time travel piece showing how Derry city developed through years of migration.
If you’d like to attend you can find out more here.
Lunchtime MR Workshops testing the Future Places Toolkit in Queen Square
At lunchtime we’ll be taking a break from demos to run two 30 minute workshops out in Queen Square.
Developed with partners Uninvited Guests, the Future Places Toolkit is an AR Toolkit for use in participatory architectural design and creative consultation which can be applied at several stages of the planning process.
The Toolkit enables live AR drawings, 3D models, and plans to be seen overlaid onto existing buildings, allowing discussions with communities and stakeholders to take place in situ/where a development is proposed. Using AR, guided conversations, immersive audio, and live 2D and 3D sketching, people see their ideas and improvements to the plans visualised immediately around them.
This mixed reality workshop is accessible to all and engages young and older people with consultation. It takes place outside, lasts for approximately 30 minutes and is for 12 people at a time. All the equipment is provided and does not require participants to have any existing familiarity with technology.
Discussions are recorded and each session is documented visually in the form of an annotated illustration or panorama.
If you’re intrigued and would like to give our Toolkit a try, find out more here.
Bridging Time and Technology Panel Discussion at the Guildhall
Our final event of the day is a panel discussion with Bath Preservation Trust. We’ll be tackling some complex questions about the relationship between technology and history.
Through innovative approaches like 3D scanning and digital interpretation, we can capture the essence of ancient structures with remarkable precision, ensuring that every detail is preserved against the ravages of time and environmental threats.
Beyond preservation, technology opens up new vistas for education and accessibility. Virtual reality and online platforms bring the wealth of the world’s historical cities right into our homes and classrooms, making history accessible to everyone, regardless of physical or geographical limitations. This inclusivity not only broadens educational horizons but also ignites a global interest in our cultural legacies, connecting people from all walks of life with the stories and achievements of past civilisations.
On the other hand, the digitalisation of history raises questions about the authenticity of experiences and the potential loss of tangible connections to our past.
Want to ask us some tricky questions, or sit back and enjoy hearing some new perspectives? Find out more here.
