Immersive Arts Lab 6 - 3 day rapid prototyping event for an immersive arts project

Immersive Arts Lab 6

Friday 17th , Saturday 18th, Sunday 19th May 2019

Immersive Arts Laboratory 6th Edition – takes place across three
days at Manchester Metropolitan University at the Chester Street
site, in Manchester – in the Innovation Shed. 

The project is being produced by Mark Ashmore FRSA at Future Artists with the support of
the School of Digital Arts at MMU (SODA) – the lab is now recognised as an immersive arts industry leading event.

Immersive

/ɪˈmɜːsɪv/

adjective (of a computer display or system) generating a three-dimensional image which appears to surround the user.

Five previous labs have been ran over the past 2 years, and the immersive
arts laboratory is at the cutting edge and the market leader in
collaboration and creation in the Immersive arts space.

Edition 6 will take the format of a 3 day 'hack' style challenge utilising a
range of technologies and techniques from across the immersive arts
spectrum, from Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, across theatre,
film, gaming and design, working in small groups, across the weekend
to solve a problem, set by the lab producers, which is informed by
the wider Industry.

The lab will suit both beginners and intermediate's learning about the
immersive arts of Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and Augmented
Reality – and is suitable for experts and professionals looking for
CPD.

Lab 6 has been influenced by the findings from the international
convergence industry conference South by Southwest (SXSW) which the
producers have recently attended, and have been inspired by.

In this lab we will challenge groups to create a rapid prototype of an
Immersive arts project (Future of Cinema, Future of Theatre
Performance, Convergence Culture with Game and Location based
technology, Future of Exhibitions and Live etc) which could be
showcased at festivals, exhibitions and public venues and other
places yet thought of!

FAQ----

The lab is aimed at professional and student creatives looking to
develop in the arts and creative fields, this could be in any of the
visual arts, creative design and the fashion industries,
entertainment and product design and film, theatre and CGI – and
beyond.

Have a read about the format of the labs and the background to their
development below, and if you have any questions about the
suitability, then please e-mail info@futureartists.co.uk
with any questions.

We will also supply VR equipment, but we do ask, if you do own a headset
and a VR ready computer laptop or workstation, or any creative
software, tools or gadgets which will help you and maybe inform
others, then please bring them in – kit can also be left overnight
at our space, safe and secure.

Who are we?

The Immersive Arts Laboratory was founded in 2017 by Mark Ashmore at
Future Artists, as a shared creative space for people wanting to
learn more about Virtual Reality and the arts and for the past two
years has been at the forefront of understanding what the immersive
arts are, can be, and how we can push the boundaries of creativity in
this new field – the mission statement of the Future Artists art
collective best sums up their involvement with this emerging art form
and practice, in the words of Frank Zappa ' Without deviation from
the norm, progress is not possible'....

The labs are aimed at professionals and students looking to apply their
current creative tool set, to a new exciting and emerging art form
and become leaders in this new industry.

A common mis-conception surrounding VR and AR is that you need to be
some kind of coding genius to get involved in it – this could not
be further from the truth, the lab aims to dispel this myth and many
more and unleash your creativity within an immersive world.

What are we doing over 3 days.

Participants must join us for the full 3 days due to the group process of the
laboratory – please note that places are limited to 25 people and
we will have 3 production groups.

The laboratory summary looks like this..

3 day rapid prototype sprint to create an immersive arts project aimed
at public consumption.

Day to day breakdown.

Day
1 Friday – Presented By Mark Ashmore (Future Artists) and Rob Scott
(VR Manchester)

Session starts at 10am : doors open from 9.30am session ends around 6pm

Mark Ashmore will introduce the 6th Edition of the Immersive
Arts Laboratory and outline the current industry and what happened at
SXSW 2019– including his work with Oculus as part of their Oculus
Boot camp and Warner Brothers with Ready Player One.

And then.. Our prototyping lab...

Rob Scott is a User Experience Architect, with experience across the web,
mobile apps and smart TVs. Through his involvement organising the VR
Manchester Community Meetup, he is taking design thinking into
Three-dimensional digital spaces  At his day job (At a well
known broadcaster), he facilitates workshops to uncover creative
solutions to complex problems, also leading sessions at conferences
such as EuroIA and Thinking Digital Manchester. 

What & Why:

A fast-paced session of rapid ideation and development, designed to
bring your ideas out of the safe space inside your mind and into the
real world where they can be appraised, pulled apart, and stuck back
together again. We’ll use techniques employed by Google as part of
their Design Sprint methodology, as well as others
picked up from his professional practice. Everything we do will be
through lo-fi sketches, which will ensure we iron out the biggest
flaws in our ideas before we even look at a screen. 

By the end of the day – groups will have a project ready to build over
the next two days.

Day 2 and Day 3 (Sat/Sun)

Build and create a rapid prototype of the project – with help from
various industry professionals – ready for a sharing at 4pm on
Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday Session will see the lab open at 9am until 7pm daily.

There will be a social drinks event on the Sunday during the sharing
(estimated finish 7pm)

Pleas join our dedicated facebook group and interact with fellow Lab
participants.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1537457282955910/

Any questions, please message us via the facebook group above.