Public Funding for Limbik Limited

"The future is digital: how would audiences like technology to integrate with theatre? _Fatherland XR_ brings together live theatre performance with cutting-edge digital technology - blurring the barrier between reality and virtual reality. For the first time, in a theatre setting, a whole audience can enjoy a virtual reality experience at the same time - without the need for everyone to wear a headset. Headsets are problematic, they are a barrier for many, and a significant number of theatregoers are reluctant to engage with them. By putting the audience at the heart of the design, we now want to continue to push the boundaries of technology - asking what our audience would like next, and how we can design the experience to best suit them. Our approach uses the same technology that creates animated avatars in films. Using motion capture, we create characters, scenes and imagery in a virtual reality headset, live onstage. An actor onstage wears trackers on their body, so they can be projected into the virtual reality. Audience volunteers wear a headset and interact simultaneously with the onstage actor and with their character portrayed in virtual reality. The rest of the audience sees the volunteers' experience projected on to giant screens. The audience thus see double: both the reality of what is unfolding onstage between the actor and the headset-wearing volunteer, and how that action takes shape in virtual reality. At different stages of the performance, other volunteers are asked to take part and engage in the development of the story. By putting the audience at the heart of the design, we can test a number of different technological and theatrical possibilities to understand which are preferable to the audience. _Fatherland_, in its original concept, provided a revolutionary way for theatregoers to experience VR without the need to use a headset. This next step allows us to do feasibility and audience testing to ensure that future advancements are developed with the audience's needs and priorities at the heart of the design. This allows us to focus not on what the technology could -- or should -- do, but what our audience want it to do. Through this process of discovery, we will add definition to this newly emerging technology. The project will develop performance with audience's needs centrally in mind, allowing us to deliver exciting innovative theatre to delight those it was designed for - it's audience."