Cultural engagement

Through collaborating with cultural organisations, we recognise that there is a revolution taking place within museums and galleries. The public need a range of ways to engage with cultural objects and collections. We’re investigating how immersive technologies can enrich and deepen our cultural understanding.

In partnership with our Cultural Institute, we're engaging with schools, museums, artists and businesses to develop new approaches to cultural engagement. We’re working with museums to create engaging collections which combine real objects with interactive hands-on displays. Our research programmes include:

• Using immersive technologies to give people access to the nation’s cultural and heritage resources which are not open to the public.
• Using 360 degree photography, filmmaking and immersive sound recording to enhance understanding of issues within hard-to-reach communities.
• Working with museums, curators and archivists to create multisensory virtual archives. We are helping the public virtually access materials not on display and preserve entire exhibitions.
• Investigating the role of virtual reality in documentary making and journalism. Our researchers are looking at the moral implications of this technology and how spectators can be linked to real life events.

The Centre for Immersive Technologies is an ideal environment to explore, test and evaluate this area. We play an important role in helping to understand the benefits and limitations of using immersive technologies to support cultural engagement. This will enable us to set standards for the responsible adoption of technology and user experience.