Online Platform Developed to Exploring Black Culture Collaboration Between Africa and Diaspora

Belfast-based multi-media production company Bounce Culture drew on Future Screens NI R&D funding to develop the creation of a digital space specifically defined by Black culture, history prototype exploring the functionality of a portal prototype exploring the functionality of a portal enabling artists from Africa and the diaspora to Connect, Create and Collaborate through an online platform Solab Access. The project is user testing to inform how they enable artists to Connect, Create and Collaborate. Feedback will further develop Solab Access as a doorway to the full Solab offer.

Solab Access researched and developed the creation of a digital space specifically defined by Black culture, history, and the lived experience is viable. The result, a prototype exploring the functionality of a portal enabling artists from Africa and the diaspora to Connect, Create and Collaborate through an online platform.

User testing will inform how we enable artists to Connect, Create and Collaborate. We have asked Artists/Producers across the continent to create audio loop packages with the aim of building a bank of resources for future activity. Feedback will further develop Solab Access as a doorway to the full Solab offer.

The unique product development will evolve through the exploration of interface design and functionality, resulting in a new digital environment, enabling artists to Connect, Create and Collaborate and audience access to that space, informed and shaped by Black cultures.

Existing creative platforms focus on a single output and use templates or pre-programmed content (e.g., Garage Band) geared towards pop or rock music compositions. There are attempts to include Audio/Midi presets via loops or instrumentation to reflect ‘urban culture,’ but Solab Access would consult and work with Black musicians and producers based on the continent of Africa, working out into the diaspora, to create a varied and authentic palette of sounds and imagery truly reflecting black cultures.

ReNeuro Provides Fun Virtual Reality Physiotherapy-based Games for Stroke Survivors

Belfast-based eXRt Intelligent Healthcare drew on Ulster University research and Future Screens NI R&D funding to develop connected-health virtual reality physiotherapist software platform allowing stroke survivors to use fun physiotherapy-based games to increase engagement and adherence to their physiotherapy program in their own home.

Stroke is the 2nd leading cause of disability worldwide, with 15 million new strokes a year and 80 million stroke survivors. Globally, most healthcare organisations are categorised as having minimal healthcare services by WHO. These under-resourced healthcare organisations are struggling to provide enough high-quality rehabilitation support when patients are released home.

On average stroke survivors who need physiotherapy only perform 2min of physiotherapy per day at home nowhere near the recommended 45 minutes a day by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The current cost of physiotherapy to the NHS for stroke survivors alone is currently £878 million a year with an additional £234 million over 5 years if the stroke survivors fail to recover their motor skills due to the lack of physiotherapy. With more people having new strokes the cost is set to rise 59% so it is important something is done now rather than later.

eXRt Intelligent Healthcare’s solution, ReNeuro is a connected-health virtual reality physiotherapist software platform that allows stroke survivors to use fun physiotherapy-based games to increase engagement and adherence to their physiotherapy program in their own homes. What makes our product and innovation different, is the decades of research we conducted to create a unique artificial intelligence (AI) that tailors the physiotherapist games to each patient’s movement skills creating a balanced rehabilitation program essential for remote home rehabilitation. They have developed a cloud-enabled web app so physiotherapists can remotely monitor and manage all their patients’ progress. We increase the amount of support to patients by using video chat/ messaging and even virtual physiotherapy appointments.

NI Theatre Company Develops Post-conflict Interviews into VR & Multi-media Experience

The Portstewart-based, site specific/immersive games and participatory community project provider professional theatre producer Big Telly Theatre Company, have partnered with The Commission for Victims and Survivors and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to develop an arts and technology driven project The House. Developed by Katy Radford and Zoe Seaton to raise awareness of the legacy of The Troubles/Conflict using the arts and digital technology to represent the Commission’s research. All the quotations in the performance and exhibition are drawn from research conducted by or for the Commission for Victims and Survivors.

THE HOUSE, a curated installation and theatrical performance by Big Telly includes quotations and dialogue drawn from research carried out by and on behalf of the Commission and which uses the words of Victims and Survivors of the Northern Ireland Troubles/Conflict. The House (Virtual Reality), funded by Future Screens NI’s Narrative Futures funding stream, was developed to extend the site-specific nature of the experience and for a wider audience in other contexts. The original cast and crew were augmented by collaborators in a Virtual Reality team directed by Gavin Peden and included work by Circo Rum Ba Ba and RETìníZE.

VR short film developed exploring game engine tech for animation

Michael O’Callaghan of the University of Ulster has developed a VR experience and short film, created from a single pipeline, exploring the possibilities of VR and game engine technology for animation studios. The Future Screens NI R&D-funded project looks at the different considerations, benefits and downsides of the joint approach in the case of a small film and a small studio. As a film, Shell hopes to explore themes of grief and bereavement through a surrealist lens as a dark dream like journey into a stricken mind.

Shell is a story written by O’Callaghan (previously of Oaken Studios) and produced both as a short animated film and as a Virtual Reality narrative experience. The project delves into the various benefits, downsides, costs and considerations of implementing game engine technology into an animated film pipeline (Unreal Engine in this case). Beyond this, the project sought to understand the process of developing VR narrative and consider how easily this can be done alongside the production of an animated film to potentially create two products from a shared pipeline.

As a film, Shell explores themes of grief and bereavement in a surrealist manner by delving into a dark nightmarish visualisation of the mind of a recently bereaved character. Here O’Callaghan and his team explored how the grief has punctured a hole in the characters mind and see the darkness that resides there. Rich with metaphor and subjective meaning, Shell illustrates the internal damage and change suffered by the bereaved and examines how this impacts their manner and how it may affect those around them. By exploring this kind of world and subject in VR, the project hopes to determine if VR as a medium can help to truly better immerse viewers in its narratives and incite a greater emotional response relative to the film equivalent.

Tessa’s Journey seeks to normalize and celebrate breastfeeding in everyday life.

Belfast-based Breastival is a unique, award-winning festival which aims to support, normalise and celebrate breastfeeding as part of everyday life. Using Future Screens NI R&D funding Breastival produced a program that could be used across Health Trusts (and around the world) to provide high quality training in an innovative and user focused manner. Four 1-minute animations were created that showed lived experiences of four Northern Ireland breastfeeding mothers. These animations were launched at Breastival, the online festival with an audience of breastfeeding mothers, breastfeeding supporters, media, health care professionals and politicians.