As part of the Uni to Unicorns initiative, Dimension and the National Theatre (NT) present  All Kinds of Limbo, running three times an hour at Tate Exchange. This original immersive musical production features volumetric video and uses cutting edge VR technology for a multi-user experience which was especially commissioned in response to the NT’s production of Small Island. Visit Tate Exchange 12-5pm from 3-8 March 2020.

Wimbledon students will showcase cutting edge technology for performance at Tate Modern next week, at Uni to Unicorns, a Tate Exchange event running from 3-8 March with the Digital Maker Collective.

Students from across the performance courses will be resident at Tate for the week-long event in an open immersive production studio where the public can experience and learn more about their experimentation with cutting edge technology including volumetric video, a technique that captures a three-dimensional space, such as a location or performance.

Since November 2019, academics, technical staff and 27 second year students from BA Production Arts for Screen in both the Set Design for Screen and Technical Arts and Special Effects pathways have worked on a pilot collaboration to explore this technology with Dimension, a world-leading volumetric and 3D capture studio, based in Wimbledon, London.

Using two texts from Shakespeare's The Tempest and an interpretation of a performance script by writer Sibusiso Mamba entitled Tom's List, the students developed concept designs, sketches, concept art, character designs, Sketchup models and miniatures, producing prototypes for immersive experiences using VR and volumetric video capture. 

Esther Armstrong, Programme Director, Performance and Design Technologies and her team have been working with the groups. “So far we've seen everything from Elizabethan artefacts, costumes and idealised Venetian rooms to experiences of storms, fantasy islands, Greek Muses and murder-mystery style graphic novels. It's been amazing to see how quickly and professionally the students have responded to the challenges set by the Dimension staff and have been inspired by the range of the company's work such as Britannia VR for Sky and virtual Vikings for Ridley Scott Creative Group, and how the students have really engaged with this new way of working through experiencing the Dimension team's professional processes.”

Uni to Unicorns runs from 3-8 March at Tate Exchange, Tate Modern

Steve, who worked with Wimbledon students, continued, “It’s a great experience for our staff to teach at such an outstanding institution and it gives us real hope that the skills gap identified in our industry by Immerse UK can be addressed in such a short amount of time. It just needs companies like us to engage!”

For the Tate Exchange event, students will be ‘artists in residence’ in a mini-studio, making and workshopping their ideas on site as well as demonstrating their current designs. Esther Armstrong explained: “the idea is to show how productive and exciting the art of physical making and design operates, and how it then translates to a 3D digital, immersive experience. It's a good example of how an arts institution, like Wimbledon College of Arts and UAL, can embrace production techniques of real studios, and how quickly the students were able to embrace the new best practice of studios. That's what makes this Tate Exchange week so exciting to be involved in.”