VR City receives funding from CreativeXR

The technology innovation centre Digital Catapult and Arts Council England are awarding a £350,000 grant to five different creative projects in the UK, which are using these technologies to transform storytelling as part of the CreativeXR programme. VR City are delighted to announce that they are receiving a portion of this funding for Common Ground, a new VR documentary about the Aylesbury housing estate in South London.

Conceived and directed by Darren Emerson, the experience will utilise stereoscopic 360 video, photogrammetry, room-scale interaction and archive. The audience will enter the world of the estate from its birth in the 1960’s, through its decline and up to its controversial regeneration today. This multifaceted documentary will question notions of community, examine the dis-enfranchisement and demonisation of the working class, and ask whether current housing policy today is destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. Darren expands by saying “Common Ground is a multi-layered immersive journey into the history, politics and human face of the current crisis in the UK housing system. For me it is the technological and creative culmination of three years of work and development in VR; and the next step in immersive documentary storytelling. It is a work that utilises my passion for exploring social injustice, giving voice to those not usually heard, and building worlds of experience that connect us more closely to the lives of other people.”

The experience will be finished in early 2019.