Curio Quarterly: Spring 2022

The first three months of 2022 have flown by! We’ve delivered 12 projects and have plenty more in development.

Some of our projects are top secret until they’ve officially launched but here’s what we can share…

• At the end of 2021 we were delighted to hear we’d won a Digital Innovation funding bid through UWE which we’re using to further develop our AR/VR binoculars. We’ve been updating our hardware and experimenting with new software, working closely with our friends over at Amalgam. Watch this space!
• In January we updated and relaunched our award winning Hidden Florence 3D app, adding a second AR church and four new locations. This includes one AR experience at the V&A Museum, necessitating a few train trips to test the AR onsite.
• Our next major project was designing a location-based exploratory trail that uses 3D models, 180 degree videos, 360 photos, and green screen videos to explore Bath Spa University and inspire prospective students. It introduces freshers to the campus buildings, shows equipment inside the Media and TV studio, includes clips of current students at work, and opens up the University’s offer in an accessible and playful way. Read the press release here.
• We also created six new social media filters for Upfest which bring the Six Sisters in Bedminster to life. Working with the six artists, we cut out and animated elements of their digital mural designs, lifting the graffiti art off the wall into a full scale experience. Find out more here.
• At the start of February we launched our AR heritage trail ‘In Gravesham Footsteps’ in collaboration with Visit Gravesend and the Welcome Back Fund. The trail circles Gravesend Town Centre, offering insights into Gravesend history through fourteen AR experiences. Launched through a microsite, the experiences all work through Instagram and Facebook making them easy to use and quick to share. Have a go yourself through this link.

• In February we won a tender to recreate the experience of 19th century Irish immigrants from London Derry to New York in VR for an Irish museum, and have been building a 3D model of the ship.
• We also created a demo VR video hub for an international film festival and designed an underworld VR experience which lets you explore giant sculptures by an international artist.
• On Valentines Day we captured 360 videos of Bristol techno, noise and hardcore supremos SCALPING for their new single Remain in Statis ft. Grove. Watch it here!
• We jet-setted off to Athens at the end of February to work on 3D models of the Acropolis site.
• We’ve also been working on our Making a Scene app for the Theatre Collection and Bristol Old Vic. We’ve incorporated 15 photogrammetry models and over 80 2D designs to make an AR experience that gives users a taste of backstage theatre careers. Mid-March we joined workshop facilitators from Bristol Old Vic and the Theatre Collection in running two demo sessions, one with year 9s at a Bristol secondary school for Careers week and another with University of Bristol Drama students, and are incorporating their feedback. Read more about the project here.  
• We continued working with our friend artist Alex Hirtzel on a new AR art piece, Unblocked Pastoralist, which is on display in Brussels as part of the UN World Flower Day on 12th March.
• To celebrate International Women’s Day we launched our AR audio installation ‘Unlocking the Cage’ at Exeter Library. Written by author Kim Sherwood and with an original score composed by John Matthias and Jay Auborn the experience explores women writers who feature in the Special Collections. Watch our trailer and find out more about the experience here.
• At the end of March we shipped one of our AR binocular units off to the biennale art exhibition in Venice to share a filmic piece by artist Dominik Lejman.
• We’ve also been prepping for our stand and masterclass at the Museums and Heritage Show in May. Come and visit us at Stand H1 to find out how you can use AR or VR to help your visitors better connect with arts and heritage content and to have a play with our new binocular units.

So you could say it’s been a busy start to the year! We’ve got lots of new projects and plans bubbling away so keep your eyes peeled for the next Curio Quarterly at the start of July.

Wishing you well,

Amy – Curio Project Manager