Ulster Touring Opera begin Future Screens NI funded new technology recording trials to facilitate immersive performance experience.

The pioneering Ulster Touring Opera (UTO) have begun Volumetric filming tests in Belfast as part of the Depthkit Studio Pilot. Depthkit Studio is a Research and Development software developed by Scatter which allows portable volumetric capture for full-body 3D video. Artistic Director of UTO Dafydd Hall Williams notes that “Ulster Touring Opera is the first organisation on the island of Ireland, and the first opera company in the world, to take part in the pilot.” Following the volumetric filming tests, the UTO intend to record a multi-camera volumetric capture of an opera singer in early September.

Ulster Touring Opera is a cross-border, not-for-profit innovative opera company based in Belfast committed to provide live opera across the nine counties of Ulster and beyond. Working with renowned conductors, designers and directors, UTO provides international-quality performances of the world’s greatest operas cast with the best singers of Britain and Ireland.

For further information on Ulster Touring Opera visit: https://ulstertouringopera.com

For more information on Depthkit visit: https://www.depthkit.tv

The project has been funded by the Future Screens NI Future Creatives award.

An evening with Extended Reality innovator Deepa Mann-Kler at Breastival on Thurs 5th of Aug at 7pm.

Future Screens NI is pleased to present an evening with Deepa Mann-Kler on Thursday 5th of August at 7:00 PM hosted by Nuala Toman of Future Screens NI.

Deepa Mann-Kler is a ground breaking innovator working in new and emerging technology and CEO of Neon. She has pioneered significant innovations in health, wellbeing and parenting. Deepa is also a visual artist specialising in neon and visual installations. For the event, she will discuss recent Extended Reality (XR) projects, including:

BreatheVR an immersive experience that helps pain sufferers decrease their pain levels. Using a phone and Virtual Reality headset, users look at a beautiful 360-degree garden with floating leaves and islands. The leaves ascend and descend as you breathe deeply. The repeating sequence encourages the user to get into a pattern of diaphragmatic breathing.

Talking Sense an Augmented Reality conversation training tool that uses artificial intelligence technology to enable dynamic machine learning conversation processes with the aim of supporting parents to better understand the behaviour of their children with autism and better enable coping strategies and appropriate interventions.

Find out more about Deepa, her innovations and her company NEON here: https://www.discoverneon.com/

 The event will be chaired by Nuala Toman, Project Manager of Future Screens NI. Nuala formerly held the position of Acting Head of Research Development at Ulster University and is the former Director of Operational Policy within Sinn Féin. She was Project Leader of the £1.2mn AUL@W Project funded by the Scottish Funded Council. As Principal Investigator on significant HE projects Nuala developed theoretical approaches towards understanding the massification of Higher Education and the implications of increased diversity and stratification within the HE system. Nuala has pioneered innovative technological solutions which have been applied within Higher Education. She is a Disability Tutor, an Associate of the Higher Education Academy, and Chair of the Breastival, Vice Chair of Thrive, a Board Member of the NIMC, a Council Member of CCMS, a Covid-19 volunteer, a qualified breastfeeding peer supporter and former Board Member of the Education Authority.

Future Screens NI are delighted to sponsor Breastival which is a unique multi-award winning festival which celebrates, supports and normalises breastfeeding as part of everyday life.

Check out the full Breastival Programme here: https://breastival.co.uk/2021-programme/

Don’t Miss this opportunity for an Evening with Deepa Mann-Kler hosted by Nuala Toman. Register for tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/breastival-2021-tickets-161749014657?keep_tld=1

Announcing the Puttnam Scholars Programme Awardees for 2021.

The Puttnam Scholars Programme for 2021 has begun with eight participants starting their masterclasses. In its second year, the Puttnam Scholars Programme began in 2020 to give emerging creative talent the opportunity to learn from Lord David Puttnam, the Oscar-winning producer of such films as Midnight Express, Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields. This year, Future Screens NI, Northern Ireland Screen, and Screen Ireland teamed up with Atticus Education to offer four Northern Ireland residents and four Republic of Ireland residents the opportunity to attend 6 two hour online master classes with Lord Puttnam.

Join us in congratulating these recent Puttnam Scholars:

Isabella Djali Devine – Director / Producer selected by Future Screens NI

Aidan Largey – Writer/Director selected by Future Screens NI

Laura Robinson – Writer/Director/Producer selected by Future Screens NI

Helen Rollins –Writer/Director selected by Future Screens NI

Luke Morgan – Writer/Director nominated by GMIT

Ali Doyle – Producer nominated by TU Dublin

Niamh O’Connor –Writer nominated by IADT

James Skerritt – Director/Director of Photography nominated by LIT

The participants receive access to live online masterclasses exploring the following themes: 

The Power of Identity

The Evolution of Creativity

Fact or Fiction

Builders and Brokers

Music and Meaning

Interpreting the Future

The participants receive tuition as wells as a scholarship from Atticus Education, supported by Accenture in Ireland, to the value of €1.5k for use in furthering their career development.

Neon and partners launch a new app ARt aka AR Street Art featuring an Augmented Reality Belfast Street Art Experience with funding from Future Screens NI’s Rewriting the Narrative Award.

ARt offers a fusion of physical street art and digital 360 AR for iOS and Android addressing issues raised by Covid-19 restrictions on street art tourism and offering enhanced street art experience moving forward. 

Following the impact of Covid-19 on art tourism to Belfast city centre and the opportunity for arts and creatives to produce new socially distanced engagements with the public, project lead Deepa Mann-Kler, CEO of Neon and her team researched and developed a new app to facilitate tourist facing projects. Neon in partnership with Aura Digital Studios, Italic Pig and Yellow Design developed, with funding from Future Screens NI’s Rewriting the Narrative award a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) creating an AR experience for one piece of street art, “Deep Love” by ADW Art on Dunbar Street in the Cathedral Quarter. The Belfast city centre project introduced a model for future implementations in Belfast and beyond. Once tourism starts again, ARt will encourage visitors to extend the length of time spent with and enhance visitor experience of the street art itself with potential to expand in scale across the city and beyond. The project facilitates future projects and apps using new digital content for tourism marketing promotional purposes to encourage virtual and online visitors to find and encounter new experiences.

App link: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/deep-love-art/id1559787151

Partnerships:

Aura Digital Studios is an independent, interdisciplinary animation studio based in Belfast. https://www.auradigitalstudios.com

Italic Pig are award-winning indie game and animation developers based in Holywood, Northern Ireland. One recent production is Paleo Pines, a dinosaur themed ranching game developed by in partnership with Irregular Corporation and NI Screen. https://www.italicpig.com/

Neon is a creative immersive technologies company creating experiences in virtual, augmented and mixed realities. Recent awards include the Royal Television Society Finalist RETNE “Interactive Entertainment” 2017 and WinTech Series Finalist “Tech Start Up Of the Year” 2018. https://www.discoverneon.com

Yellow Design is a design firm based in Belfast and Dublin, experienced in Augmented Visualisation and tooling as well as immersive Virtual Environments. Recent Belfast projects include Titanic: Back in Belfast. https://www.yellowdesign.tv

Future Tuesdays presents Prisons Memory Archive with Dr Conor McCafferty 29th of June 2021

On the 29th June 2021, Future Tuesdays welcomed Dr Conor McCafferty, Project Manager of the Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) presented the recently launched website hosting oral histories and documentation from their project developed over a number of years.

The website, launched in 2020, houses the PMA’s collection of walk-and-talk recordings with people who had a connection with the Maze and Long Kesh and Armagh Gaol during the conflict in Northern Ireland / the North of Ireland. The full collection of PMA recordings is now housed in the Public Record Office (PRONI). The new website, co-produced by staff at Queen's University and PMA participants, and produced with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, aimed to improve accessibility and introduce new audiences to the PMA. 

In the talk, Dr Conor McCafferty, Project Manager of the Prisons Memory Archive at the time and now a member of the PMA's Advisory Group, discussed the development of the website as part of the broader public engagement aims of the project - and the importance of the PMA's ethical framework in guiding the original recordings and subsequent public engagement work.

The Prisons Memory Archive website can be found here:

https://www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com/