Bradford residents are invited to take part in the UK’s largest immersive VR storytelling experience, StoryTrails, this summer.
StoryTrails will explore untold stories of the city through ground-breaking multimedia technologies as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK. It comes to Bradford with a free two-day live event taking place on July 22 and 23, as part of a tour of 15 locations around the UK over the coming months.
Centred around Bradford Library and on the streets of the city itself, it features digital experiences which will allow people to experience Bradford in a completely new way through the magic of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and immersive cinema. The Bradford leg of the tour will focus in particular on Bradford’s history as a hub for South Asian cinema.
The trail will feature an augmented reality trail through Bradford, developed by Mobile AR TrailMaker Hafsah Naib and accessed through mobile devices. The AR trail also uses footage from the BBC and British Film Institute, plus local archive materials to present a window into the past. Visitors can borrow devices from the library and follow guided augmented reality trails, as well as download the StoryTrails app on smart phones to follow the story trail route independently.
The StoryTrails app will be available to download in the Apple and Google stores until the end of the year for those who wish to take this option outside of the live events, and features an immersive virtual map of the city and 3D scans of local buildings, people, objects and areas. The 15-minute film will play on a loop throughout the day. An expanded version of the map can also be viewed on iPads inside the library.
In Bradford, the map was developed by local spatial StoryMapper, Karol Wyszynski from the stories of local people and features iconic places and local favourites such as City Park, Centenary Square and St Georges Hall.
Wyszynski and Naib are two of 50 emerging creatives around the UK to be selected to take part in the development of StoryTrails and benefit from expert training and mentoring opportunities from StoryFutures Academy: the National Centre for Immersive Storytelling, the team behind StoryTrails. StoryFutures Academy is run by Royal Holloway, University of London and the National Film and Television School (NFTS).
The library will also allow visitors to enter digitally created worlds using VR headsets. They can expect to find themselves in the shoes of a rebellious teenager as she discovers her mother’s punk past; take part in one of the many South Asian daytime raves that took place across the UK in the 1980s and 1990s; and hear what earlier generations thought life would be like today. All the stories featured on the VR headsets are available at every stop on the StoryTrails UK tour.
StoryTrails’ 15-stop UK tour runs until 18 September 2022 and culminates in a new film presented by David Olusoga that will screen in UK cinemas and BBC iPlayer. UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK is funded and supported by the four governments of the UK and is commissioned and delivered in partnership with Belfast City Council, Creative Wales and EventScotland.
