FULLDOME UK supports the development and exhibition of ‘Fulldome art’, an emergent art form that embraces digital technologies and powerful immersive environments to push the boundaries of artistic practice. It exhibits ‘Fulldome’ productions byUK and International artists and facilitate a global network, connecting, supporting, developing and promoting Fulldome artists, programmers and researchers nationally and internationally.
Fulldome art works are multifarious consisting of linear and non-linear, produced or generative, interactive and performative experiences projected onto the ‘full’ domed surface traditionally found in planetaria to provide a unique and highly immersive audience experience that challenges established models of cinema and gallery spaces.
FULLDOME UK is produced in partnership with GaiaNova, The Computer Arts Society (CAS) and the National Space Centre (NSC) through NSC Creative.
FULLDOME UK is a not-for-profit association supporting artists and researchers working within Fulldome immersive environments.
It organise events with the goal to promote Fulldome as an artistic medium in its own right, and as a platform for research into data visualisation, group collaboration and the effects of immersive environments on our perceptual and cognitive processes.
FULLDOME UK 2014 took place at the National Space Centre in Leicester on the 7th & 8th November 2014.
FULLDOME UK 2012, took place at the National Space Centre in Leicester on the 16th & 17th November 2012.
FULLDOME UK 2011, took place at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum on the 12th & 13th March 2011
FULLDOME UK 2010, took place at i-DAT, Immersive Vision Theatre in Plymouth on the 10th & 11th July 2010
Open to Plymouth University staff, students, researchers and IBM staff with an interest in the Smart Agenda / Internet of Things, this conference will stimulate discussion and an exchange of ideas around specific themes including: art and audience, culture and heritage, digital cities / digital civic, environment and sustainability. You can find further details and a registration link here.
Visitors to a pioneering, participatory classical music installation touring the South West were registered and monitored using i-DAT technologies.
We advised on the technology involved, then built 3 digital card readers with stands, and another two hand-held readers for visitors and participants in the iOrchestra – a project developed by The Philharmonia Orchestra and partners that allows audience members to experience an orchestra and its instruments interactively. The NFC tracking technologies used are an extension of the Qualia engine.
We also helped the iOrchestra collect and analyse the audience/user data.
iOrchestra is essential a major piece of ‘action research’ exploring how the Philharmonia Orchestra can engage disadvantaged and under-represented audiences with orchestral music using digital technology, but also how they can use orchestral music to make a difference.
iOrchestra toured Plymouth, Torbay and Cornwall in Spring 2014 and is due to do the same in 2015.
i-DAT created the FLUX Festival app with Elixel for the Festival which launched in Liverpool in July 2014. The app is powered by i-DAT’s on-going open source Qualia project – which aims to revolutionize the way audience experiences at arts and culture events are evaluated.
This Festival is “A pioneering arts festival engineered by young people”, featuring multi-arts performances and events online and across the city, incorporating gaming, visual arts, literature, film and music.
We built an app for Festival-goers that enabled young people to navigate the festival, whilst also collecting and analysing data in real-time from the festival.
The app’s technical development has included insights and suggestions gathered after a workshop with young ambassadors for the event and explores how you incentivise a younger audience to download and engage with an app of this nature.
The Flux app: everything you need to know about Flux Liverpool in the palm of your hand – and it’s free! This app is your interactive portal to the Flux Festival, allowing you to view the festival calendar bursting full of events and build your own bespoke ‘Schedule’.
Most excitingly we’ve developed a series of Flux Missions – should you choose to accept. Collect FluxBux for completing fun activities and if you manage to secure the highest number of FluxBux, you win the jackpot. This year’s jackpot is our highly coveted Flux Bundle bursting with all the tools you need to enhance your creative powers.
i-DAT are the UK partners in an international collaboration awarded € 400k by the EU Culture Programme. Strand 1.3.5, Cultural Cooperation Projects with Third Countries.
EMDL – European Mobile Dome Lab for Artistic Research. E / M / D / L is a recently-established partnership of European and Canadian cultural organizations who have joined to develop immersive audio-visual environments. The project has received strong encouragement from the European Union with a substantial initial EU Culture Program grant. EMDL will foster an international community of artists/researchers dedicated to exploring the full-dome environment as a platform for creative innovation.
The term “full-dome” refers to a rapidly-evolving form of 360º video projections and surround-sound environments. Although full-dome technology is well supported for scientific visualisation, an analysis of the form’s communicative impact and the experimental application of this new instrument for digital, media, and performing arts is still lacking.
E / M / D / L will build an international network for the exchange of artistic and technological expertise, with the goal of researching and documenting a language and grammar unique to the full-dome medium. Bringing together four European and three Canadian institutions and cultural partners, all leaders in this field, the project aims to share and expand skills, methodologies, strategies and content within this promising creative vehicle. Between February 2014 and September 2015, the participants will take part in eight residencies and public presentations offered in five countries, where a mobile domic architectural structure equipped with cutting-edge technologies will be set up. Finally, EMDL will end with a series of performances at the world’s most sophisticated virtual theatre, the Satosphere in Montreal, Canada.
The Third Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference at the intersections of art, science and culture seeks papers that explore the theme of the cloud and molecular aesthetics. Clouding occurs when information becomes veiled, foggy, fuzzy, obscure or secretive, or when it condenses, blooms and accretes into atmospheres of chaotic turbulence and pressure vectors, into tidal flows and storms. The cloud also is a new formation of data as a global and seemingly immaterial distribution of storage and means of retrieval…
How do you feel about art and culture? You might know, but how can you transmit your feelings to arts and culture organisations accurately?
Qualia can help measure your mood after seeing a show, exhibition, installation or movie and is set to revolutionise the way in which feedback data is collected.
Evaluating audience feedback is a vital task for culture organisations, giving them important information that can support funding applications or direct future programming. Usually this is done with feedback forms that present culture fans with paperwork just after they’ve experienced a show or a performance.
Organisations may miss out on important data about how the event went down with audiences, because visitors didn’t complete their post-event ‘homework’.
Enter Qualia (stage right). This is i-DAT’s ground-breaking digital technology and research project, which measures the mood of arts and culture audiences using a user-friendly interface that ‘gamifies’ the evaluation process.
Qualia enables users to gain tangible rewards for taking part – such as discounts and exclusive offers – making data collection easy, fun and beneficial.
Meanwhile, venues, organisations and the arts and culture sector generally benefit by receiving accurate feedback that can only improve culture experiences.
Qualia ingredients include:
Web-Engine: Data capture and processing…
App: Personal scheduling and feedback mechanism…
Probes: Interactive information kiosks…
Realtime: festival management and audience flow…
Sentiment: Natural language processing to calculate mood and emotion…
Smile: Smile detection for live video feeds…
The analytics engine in Qualia has been collaboratively developed by i-DAT (Mike Phillips, B Aga, Chris Hunt, Dawn Melville) at Plymouth University with the audience evaluation researcher Eric Jensen of the University of Warwick, with designer Nathan Gale from Intercity and with Cheltenham Festivals 2013. The Qualia App was developed by Elixel.co.uk
It received funding from the prestigious Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, which is run by Nesta in partnership with Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Qualia is to be released as an Open Source platform, enabling the widest take-up and development of the technology.
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]”Traditional” approaches to assessing the impact of cultural events have focused on those metrics that are easy to measure, such as financial expenditure and business benefits. Qualia provides a more holistic approach to capturing the intangible impacts of cultural events, such as mood and engagement. It also provides a framework for a real-time responsive management of events.[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]The Qualia research and production approach has provoked new thinking about the provision of appropriate, sustainable and useful technological support for the cultural sector. Qualia provides a more negotiable business model that looks to recover closed outdated systems and provide access to more open and sustainable solutions for the sector.[/panel]
[panel background=”#028deb” color=”#ffffff” border=”1px none #cccccc” shadow=”0px 0px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia Website:[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]As Qualia evolves and Quorum emerges we anticipate the http://qualia.org.uk/ website will have a limited lifespan. This is what it looked like:[/panel]
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QUALIA
INTRODUCING QUALIA
ABOUT QUALIA
Qualia is a ground-breaking digital technology and research project, which aims to revolutionize the way audience experiences at arts and culture events are evaluated. Incorporating mobile phone apps, information pods and online analytical tools Qualia can significantly enhance your audience evaluation techniques and improve engagement.
WHO NEEDS IT?
Take a journey through the Qualia system to diagnose your needs. Whether you run a festival, manage a museum or curate a gallery, Qualia’s open digital tools offer a sustainable model for capturing audience feedback and improving participation and engagement.
Qualia has been made available to the cultural sector through the GitHub hosting service and will be continued to developed and tailored in response to the communities needs.
WEB ENGINE
The Qualia Web Engine provides a secure environment for capturing and processing audience data. With the addition of the Qualia mobile phone app. Social networking analysis and other hardware and software installations the Web Engine can provide real time feed back on your audiences experience.
APP
The Qualia App is available for Android and iOS mobile phone users and allows visitors to schedule events and give feedback through tailored questions. Combined with additional Qualia audience tracing hardware and software Qualia tools can help map your venue and generate a real-time picture of the ‘mood’ of your audience.
SERVICES
The Qualia development team recognise that Open Source software can be a little tricky to install and support. We offer a range of services to help organisation tailor Qualia to meet their individual needs. Standard services for the culture sector non-profit organisations can be tailored and scaled for commercial organisations.
The Qualia Web Engine is a sophisticated platform with an open API that can plug into a range of platforms, such as social media (Facebook and Twitter), ticketing (Eventbrite and Tessitura), geolocation (Google Maps). It can also scrape data from existing websites for easy access to scheduling data. The web engine provides:
Individual tailoring for arts organisations
Storage of all Qualia data
Real-time data processing
Analytics
Infographics
Social Media Sentiment Analysis
APP
The Qualia App for Android and iOS smart phones allows your audience to act as human sensors, feeding back real-time responses to your events and mapping the audience movement through your venue. The app provides:
Personalised event scheduling
Pre and post event feedback
Mood reporting
Social media feeds and individual posting
User demographics
Shared GPS mapping
ONSITE
Qualia also provides kiosk style ‘probe’ options. This touch screen facility includes:
larger screen presentation of schedules and events.
audience feedback through onscreen questionnaires.
audio monitoring around the probes.
Smile recognition software for capturing audience mood.
QR code and NFC ticket registration and tracking
Developed using Chrome apps Qualia Probes are highly adaptable and portable browser based additions which can be incorporated into tablets and desktop computers.
How long is a piece of string? Traditional approaches to assessing the impact of cultural events have focused on those metrics that are more easily measurable such as financial expenditure and business benefits. Qualia provides a more holistic approach to capturing the intangible impacts of cultural events such as mood, feelings and engagement. It provides a mechanism for capturing and displaying complex data and audience feedback.
Qualia ‘harvests’ audience data from a range of sources, such as Social Networking API’s (such as Facebook and Twitter), venue ‘hotspots’ (audio monitoring, smile recognition and GPS tracking). Qualia captures qualitative metrics that provide feedback on how an audience ‘feels’.
Qualia will develop a greater understanding of the application of social media as a source of empirical data to inform the measurement of cultural impact.
Research findings will help to develop a greater understanding of the sometimes less tangible impacts of the arts on society. Alongside the technical development, the conceptual and methodological frameworks for measuring arts impacts using existing digital data will be developed. This project will generate a momentum that will help other arts organisations to deal with the challenges and opportunities of digitally interacting with their audiences.
QUESTIONS
Any analytical system is only as good as its data. Developing valid evaluation and feedback questions has been an essential aspect of the Qualia project. The Qualia platform incorporates carefully designed questions based on the state of the art in survey methodology.
In order to ensure that Qualia-generated evaluation data can be used with the most powerful statistical tests, Likert scale questions are used with a seven-point scale. Dr Eric Jensen has led the development of the evaluation questions and methodology. Jensen lectures on survey methodology and statistics at the University of Warwick
INFOGRAPHICS
Qualia was developed in collaboration with Nathan Gale at Intercity Studio. Commissioned to design the visual language underpinning the Qualia platform Nathan’s graphic protocols and colour coding run through all the Qualia tools and infographics.
Start a conversation with the Qualia Team by emailing us at: contact@i-dat.org
SERVICES
The Qualia development team recognise that Open Source software can be a little tricky to install and support. We offer a range of services to help organisation tailor Qualia to meet their individual needs.
Standard services for the culture sector non-profit organisations can be tailored and scaled for commercial organisations.
OPEN SOURCE
Qualia is available as an Open Source building blocks of code allowing organisations to install, modify and build on the code to construct their own systems (in accordance with the GNU GPL license.)
Qualia has been made available to the cultural sector through the GitHub hosting service and will be continued to developed and tailored in response to the communities needs.
PARTNERSHIP
Qualia is a ground-breaking new digital technology and research project, which aims to revolutionize the way audience experiences at arts and culture events are evaluated. The project will help us develop a greater understanding of the less tangible impacts of public engagement with arts and culture.
With funding from the prestigious Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, Qualia is developing new technology to enable the collection of audience profile information, live evaluation and feedback, and real-time measurement of impact indicators at arts and cultural events.
Cheltenham Festivals have hosted the development of the new Qualia app, which is being created by experts at Plymouth and Warwick universities. This project provides an opportunity for one of the foremost Festival organisations in the country to join forces with leading digital technology experts at Plymouth and evaluation and impact researchers from Warwick to look at how new technological developments can help us serve our audiences better. The ultimate aim is to create a transferable evaluation tool that allows arts and culture organisations to programme cultural events and on-going activities based on robust, real-time knowledge about audience responses, thereby enhancing the sector’s economic, cultural and social impact.
The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts is run by Nesta in partnership with Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. More details of the Fund and other projects in the scheme can be found here.
CHELTENHAM FESTIVALS
Cheltenham Festivals is a National Portfolio Organisation. Each year we create four nationally significant festivals Jazz, Science, Music &Literature as well as delivering a year round education programme. Over the course of the year we engage with approximately 1,200 speakers, writers, artists and musicians and attract over 200,000 people to events.
i-DAT
i-DAT is a lab for creative research, experimentation and innovation across the fields of digital Art, Science and Technology, generating social, economic and cultural benefit. Located within the Faculty of Arts at Plymouth University, it has been delivering high quality and experimental national and international arts and cultural activities since 1998.
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
The University of Warwick is consistently rated as one of the top UK universities, with sociology ranked 3rd by the Guardian for 2013, Within the sociology department, key research priorities include: Culture, Media and Representation and Public Engagement.
INTERCITY STUDIO
Qualia was developed in collaboration with Nathan Gale at Intercity Studio. Commissioned to design the visual language underpinning the Qualia platform Nathan’s graphic protocols and colour coding run through all the Qualia tools and infographics.
ELIXEL
The Qualia App was developed and published in collaboration with Elixel. Qualia and Elixel have an agreement to further develop and tailor the Qualia App for a variety of applications.
[/panel]
[panel background=”#028deb” color=”#ffffff” border=”1px none #cccccc” shadow=”0px 0px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]GITHUB:[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia code is available on GITHUB: https://github.com/i-dat-qualia[/panel]
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[panel background=”#028deb” color=”#ffffff” border=”1px none #cccccc” shadow=”0px 0px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia App:[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]The Qualia App was available through Google Play and the Apple Store:[/panel]
Qualia Probes are sensing ‘pods’ placed strategically around the event site. The Qualia Probes provide a focus for public interaction, providing feedback to visitors through dynamic visualisations, information.
[/panel]
Capturing real-time information the probes add another layer of mood sensing to the Qualia landscape. The Probes are fitted with a touch screen to provide easy access to festival information and to record audio and images for the Qualia system. During the Cheltenham Festivals they were installed in Montpellier Gardens, Gloucester Cathedral, Parabola Arts Centre, and Pittville Pump Room. Each Probe is equipped with:
Information: The probe provides access to the Qualia Web engine that provides visitor information and allows annotations and blog submissions.
Eye: The Qualia Eye acts as a visitor counter, measuring the flow of people and mood through the integration of a smile recognition counter and image capture. Users can record and annotate images of their experiences at the festival
Ear: The Qualia Ear allows visitors to record their feedback on the event. It also measures audio levels to understand the ambient hum of the event.
Qualia Visualizer: The visualizer displays the rich dynamic data visualisations from the Qualia System on the Probe screen.
Social Network Harvesting: The probe provides live feeds of the harvesting of data (comments and news) from social networking generated around the festival.
Push notifications: Information from event organisers can be pushed to the probes to provide up-to-date information.
[panel background=”#028deb” color=”#ffffff” border=”1px none #cccccc” shadow=”0px 0px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia Smile:[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]“Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.”
W. C. Fields[/panel]
‘Qualia Smile’ is a playful smile counter that encourages the audience to participate in measuring the collective happiness of the Jazz Festival. Qualia Smile gamifies the collection of qualitative data, generating a benevolent feedback loop – smile and the festival smiles with you. The harvested smiles generate an aggregated visualisation of the mood of the festival – that Jazz feeling.
Qualia Smile incorporates image analysis techniques found in most common cameras and phones. These open software libraries are used to create a playful and participatory measure of happiness at the Jazz Festival. If this were a Blues Festival, would we have to turn the camera upside down?
Qualia Smile works within one meter of the display screen and requires direct participation. The system only records instances of smiles and not individual faces. The smile harvesting takes place in real time and is layered over the live video. Just like a mirror, the screen clearly shows who is looking at it and encourages the viewer to pull appropriate faces (commonly called ‘smiles’). The dynamic data graphics visualise that Jazz feeling.
Variables: Qualia Smile recognised variables in smile shape between a more or less horizontal line of the mouth to a range of an upward curve (smile). It did not measure negative curves (frowns). When smiles were detected the modified OpenCV software gave a value of intensity for that smile (a generic value created by the openCV software for comparative analysis, based around the size of the detected smile and the certainty it is a smile). When the intensity value exceeded a small threshold for a few seconds, this was logged as a smile instance with a timestamp.
[NB: This is not a ‘face recognition’ system, it captures shapes, it is digital pareidolia:-)]
[panel background=”#028deb” color=”#ffffff” border=”1px none #cccccc” shadow=”0px 0px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia Workshops:[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia is built on a set of relationships with partners, stakeholders and audiences, these include:[/panel]
Qualia Design Workshop:
i-DAT: 12/8/2013. The purpose of this workshop is to reflect on the Qualia NESTA proposal and deliverables, share, critique and assess recent activities and provide a critical framework for the design delivery for the Literature Festival in October. Participants: Cheltenham Festivals / i-DAT/ Warwick University / Nathan Gale (Intercity) Elixel / Researchers from i-DAT and Plymouth community.
Using Digital Technology for Evaluation: the Qualia Project:
The Conservatory at the Queen’s Hotel, Cheltenham. 10/10/2014.Cheltenham Literature Festival. We are running a workshop for practitioners during the Literature Festival to talk about the Qualia project and its findings to date, offering a first look at this new technology before it launches publicly. The aim is to release the technologies in the future as open source and provide a comprehensive set of open tools to measure impact and engagement.
AHRC Creative Economy Showcase. 12/03/2014. King’s Place Conference Centre, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG. The UK’s Creative Economy – embracing the creative industries and the cultural sector – is a dynamic and vital part of our economy…. Complex, rich in its diversity and characterised by great differences of scale, the sector ranges from major corporations to small and micro enterprises…
[panel background=”#028deb” color=”#ffffff” border=”1px none #cccccc” shadow=”0px 0px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia System Diagrams:[/panel]
[panel background=”#ffffff” color=”#000000″ border=”2px solid #cccccc” shadow=”0px 2px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”4″ text_align=”left” target=”blank”]Qualia is a complex network of hardware, software, people and organisations, which looks a bit like these:[/panel]
A new type of adventure. You join the hunt. You take the risks. You become the hero.
Plymouth underwent a digital transformation in September, as hundreds of adventurers took part in the city’s first location-based live game. Resurgam: The Lost Pearl of Plymouth saw gamers using mobile technology to navigate their way around the City’s maritime heritage.
In addition to exploring the incredible history of Plymouth, participants experienced reality merging with storytelling as live immersive theatre brings the game to life in all sorts of unexpected ways.
Resurgam- Pearl of Plymouth (Teaser) from mutant labs.
Resurgam is your own supernatural action-adventure movie with you at the heart of the story. A new way to play: History, digital technology and theatre are integrated to create an original game experience that immerses players in a citywide hunt to find the magical Pearl of Plymouth.
Travel back in time: Sea-soaked characters and stories from Plymouth’s nautical past will help you unravel the mystery of the lost Pearl, if you can find them.
Explore hidden corners of the city: The adventure starts at sundown when you will find yourself in a city swarming with sea demons and on the cusp of being lost under water. Those who can help you are already dead.Your task: To search the city and raise ghosts from the Order of the Pearl who can guide you to The Pearl’s hiding place. When you find it, you must return it to its place inside an ancient armillary sphere and restore the balance between land and sea.
Immersive action: You will face three hours of adrenaline pumping action as you use your mobile phone and interactions with game characters to navigate to various locations around the city uncovering secrets, making choices and running for your life to escape capture by sea demons roaming the streets and standing between you and your goal to find the Pearl of Plymouth.
Player interaction: The interactions you have and choices you make will determine whether or not you can solve the mystery of The Pearl, save the city from sea demons and board the Resurgam ghost ship for a final performance and live music.
Are you up to the challenge?: Fortune favours the bold. All you need is the Resurgam mobile application for Android or iOS and a spirit of discovery.Fair winds and following seas, friends. See you on the ghost ship.
‘To the souls who find this pearl Falls custody ancient power – the balance twixt land and sea, the battle twixt light and dark. Beware forces unsettlin’ the axis, protect her and ye’ll prosper.’
These words appear on a seaworn scroll found inside a chest on the southernmost island of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago by Sir Francis Drake. Elizabeth Island has since been destroyed by earthquakes but the teak chest and its contents were claimed by Drake on his voyage of circumnavigation (1577-80) and brought back to Britain to gift to Queen Elizabeth I. It took Drake nearly two years of his voyage to work out the right combination of turns to crack the ship’s wheel lock on the chest but when he did it revealed something very special.
Inside lay an armillary sphere, as bright and clean as when it was first forged. Drake knew this was no ordinary sphere, for in its central chamber, in place of a globe and map of the world, was a pearl so luminous it cast a glow on the faces of all who looked upon it. The pearl was celestial and something of the kind Drake had never seen before. Lightbulbs were yet to be invented and this was more akin to a light bulb than a gem. It was the size of a crystal ball and both translucent and iridescent, refracting and reflecting subtle colour variations according to the angle you looked at it. Drake carefully lifted it out of the chest and stood it on the desk in his cabin. There the pearl and sphere came to life, the pearl slowly rotating on an invisible axis and the wooden and golden rings encasing it appearing to duck and dive over and under each other with a gentle mechanical whirr.
Drake considered the Pearl the greatest treasure he ever found and gifted it to the Queen when he returned home. But the pearl dimmed the further it was from the sea and the Queen, sensing it didn’t belong in London, asked Drake to guard it in Plymouth, the maritime hub of her kingdom. It was then that Drake founded the Order of the Pearl, a secret society charged with the task of protecting the pearl. Initiation to the Order wasn’t easy, each member was required to prove his or her worth. For generations the pearl, which came to be known as The Pearl of Plymouth, was safeguarded and Order members used it as a talisman on voyages of discovery and adventure believing it brought them luck and protection at sea.
That was until the Second World War when The Pearl mysteriously disappeared leaving an empty armillary sphere. Many speculated it had been destroyed in The Blitz or stolen by Hitler as a holy relic, but there are others who believe it was hidden somewhere in Plymouth for safekeeping. One of those people is Cara Jones, lecturer in Marine Science at Plymouth University and expert on the Pearl. Cara inherited the ancient armillary sphere from her Grandma Betsy in 2001 and since then has been determined to find The Pearl.
Cara’s research has revealed that the Pearl originated from the ancient lost continent of Atlantis, the legend of which is well known. Many believe Atlanteans were an advanced civilisation, magicians of sorts, able to harness immense renewable energy fields. The continent was ruled by the Sea God Poseidon and his temple, on a central island framed by 18 alternating rings of water, housed a series of giant energy crystals. These crystals were suspended in a circle in the temple’s Grand Hall and were the source of power for all the ships, aircraft and technological artifacts Atlanteans had invented. The Pearl operated alongside those crystals and when active was able to maintain the balance between land and sea. Now The Pearl is separated from the sphere the balance between land and sea has been disrupted. Cara has been documenting signs of that imbalance evident in rising sea levels and the spread of a strange waterborne infection linked to Mergor, a dark beast of the ocean feared by centuries of seafarers. Cara’s research leaves her in no doubt that if The Pearl isn’t found Plymouth will be lost under sea like Atlantis…
Can you help her find the Pearl and save the city?
PARTNERS
Resurgam: The Lost Pearl of Plymouth is an indie production, written by Hannah Wood, created and produced by the Institute of Digital Arts and Technology (i-DAT), Mutant Labs and Story Juice, with Rogue Theatre, and supported by Plymouth University and Arts Council England.
i-DAT, a National portfolio Organisation of the Arts Council England which is located within the Faculty of Arts, Plymouth University, is a catalyst for playful experimentation with data.
Story Juice is a storytelling agency making interactive and immersive fact and fiction projects. Run by writer Hannah Wood, it specialises in multiplatform productions and works across mobile, digital, print, game, performance, audio, TV and film platforms.
Rogue Theatre creates daring high quality theatre, events and immersive experiences that are widely accessible and deeply engaging. Their work mixes rich atmosphere and a highly visual style with instinct, energy and a passion for wild places.
This event has been made possible by:
SPONSORS
Resurgam would not be possible without the support of our sponsors.
EXTRAS
This is your chance to take part
You can be an extra in Plymouth’s first location-based digital adventure where reality and fiction entwine in an immersive, live action experience.
Resurgam is an adventure quest fraught with peril and designed to get hearts pounding and minds whirring. We need your help to make the experience as visceral and cinematic as possible so players feel like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft at the heart of their own supernatural action-adventure movie.
Resurgam players will feel alert and on edge, sometimes terrified by strange ghosts and other times epic and heroic for solving a task or escaping ambush by a gang of sea monsters. We need extras to play sea monsters, marshall performance zones and act as production assistants. You will dress up, be provided with professional make-up, performance training and equipment and be an important part of bringing this incredible citywide adventure to life.
If you are interested in having an awesome time working on this new type of entertainment that merges technology, theatre, gaming and history, then you are the person we’ve been looking for. You must be over 18 and available September 13-15 for rehearsals with Rogue Theatre and September 21-22 for the live event. Please send an email to: info@resurgamthegame.co.uk with a brief paragraph on why you are interested in taking part.
COMMISSIONS
Performers
We are offering a number of small commissions for emerging performers to appear in the live event in September. We’re looking for peculiar, flamboyant, exciting, mind-blowing, captivating and enchanting acts that fit with Resurgam’s edgy, dark and supernatural action-adventure ghost story where players are thrown in the deep end and become centre of the narrative. Keep in mind that the atmosphere of the game has all the creaks and groans of an old wooden ghost ship where anything can happen…
If you think you can produce something creative within the nautical theme and you’re available September 19-22, then please send an email to: info@resurgamthegame.co.uk. Please include a brief paragraph on why you are interested and what type of performance or act you propose.
Artists
There are also opportunities for emerging graphic designers, illustrators and filmmakers who want to produce something experimental within the Resurgam story world. We’re looking for innovative, daring and entertaining responses to the ‘lost Pearl of Plymouth’ story and theme. Your work will appear online before and after the event. Please email info@resurgamthegame.co.uk if you are interested in finding out more. Include a brief paragraph on the kind of activity you propose and why you are interested.
All artists and performers will get the opportunity to be mentored by the professional artists, writers and actors creating Resurgam. We look forward to hearing from and working with you!
FAQ
How do I get tickets?
You buy them here on our website under the tickets section. The cost covers the game experience, mobile app to play and entry to a final performance and spectacle on a ghost ship with live bands. Whadda deal!
You can pay with debit or credit cards. We send out e-tickets by email only. Make sure you bring your ticket to registration.
Please note this is a ticket-only event.
Where does the live game start and end?
The game takes place in Plymouth and is woven into the city’s incredible maritime history. Game registration is in the atrium of the Sherwell Centre, Plymouth’s University’s city centre campus. This is a hunt for a hidden pearl so game locations will only be revealed as you play. However, so you can consider parking, taxis and bike racks, we can tell you that you’ll end up boarding a ghost ship at a secret location somewhere in the vicinity of the Royal William Yard..
The time on your ticket is your start time. Please try to arrive at registration about 10 minutes before the start time. The start times are to help reduce queueing but there may be some queues.
Is this theatre or a street game?
It’s both, and more too. Actors from Rogue Theatre will be providing wild entertainment at locations around the city and on the ghost ship. The game itself is a fusion of immersive theatre, digital technology and street game and a new way to celebrate the history of Plymouth. The difference here is that you are a central character in the narrative. Finding the Pearl depends on you.
It sounds a bit like a treasure hunt?
You’re right. In simple terms it is an old skool treasure hunt using the tools of modern technology.
What will I have to do?
There are a series of ghosts hidden in locations around the city. You must find your way to them using the Resurgam mobile app and without being caught by sea demons prowling the city. We’ll give you the first location at registration and then you are on your own. You will have to use your app to unlock the next locations and collect members of the ghost ship crew who can lead you to the Pearl. If you find the Pearl you will be able to board the Resurgam ghost ship for a sailors and pirates party, final spectacle, performance and live music. Technology, theatre and history are completely integrated throughout the experience. It will feel like being in your own supernatural action-adventure movie.
Is the story being released before the live game?
Yes. If you want to delve into the Resurgam story world before the game then get in touch with Dr Cara Jones (Nb. You may recognise her from the Halo series, True Blood or Dam 999). Cara’s a lecturer in Marine Science at Plymouth University and the world’s leading expert on the Pearl of Plymouth. Her staff profile is here and her research blog on the Pearl here, she’s also on Twitter and Facebook. She inherited an ancient armillary sphere from her Grandma Betsy and has been researching its connection to Plymouth and the Pearl ever since. She has made some interesting findings that will give you an enriched experience of the game.
This sounds so cool, can I/my company become a sponsor?
We’d love to hear from you! Check out the ‘Sponsors’ section on our website and email info@resurgamthegame.co.uk for a sponsor pack.
Is there a minimum age to play?
Yep, you have to be 18. Sorry 🙁
Can I play with my friends?
Of course! Get a group of intrepid adventurers together, it’ll be fun to play with your mates. No more than eight in a group though and make sure at least one of you has a mobile device with the app downloaded.
What if I come alone?
No problem. We can team you up with a crew at registration and you can still sail alone as you play. Just make sure you’ve downloaded the app to your mobile.
What devices are compatible with the Resurgam app?
It’s iOS and Android compatible. We suggest downloading it before the game to get a feel for how to use it.
I’m rubbish with technology, can I still play?
Yes, of course. Just make sure someone in your team has the Resurgam app downloaded to his or her mobile. Technology is integrated into the game but you can still feel like the star of your own adventure movie without it. There will be plenty of ghosts and sea demons to keep you entertained.
We should add that the technology is integrated to be a seamless part of the game experience and provide an extra layer of depth. It is simple to use and an important part of what’s innovative about Resurgam.
What happens if I’m caught by a sea demon?
Remember playing tag at school? This is a bit like it. If you’re caught, play fair and let the demons give you the ‘dark mark,’ it will have interesting consequences at the ghost ship party. Getting caught doesn’t mean you’ve lost the game, keep on playing, you can still find the Pearl.
How long will the game last?
This is hard to pinpoint specifically, me ‘earties, since this is the game premiere. We estimate about three hours with a big ol’ ghost ship party to top the night off. The ghost ship will set sail again at 11pm so everyone must disembark by then.
I want to volunteer to be a part of the game itself, either as a sea demon or marshall. I want to make some Resurgam art too, is that ok?
Great! And yes! Check out the ‘Get Involved’ section of our website and email info@resurgamthegame.co.uk
Can I dress up?
Yeah! Come as anything you want – a pirate, adventurer, sailor, buccaneer or whatever else takes your fancy. Or you can just come as yourself.. We don’t mind, we’re sure you’re heroic enough.
Can I bring weapons or props?
Er, no. This is a LARP of sorts but no swords, cutlasses, bats, nerf guns, lightsabers, lassos, canons, latex axes. You get the picture. If you bring anything that could be construed as a weapon by the police we’ll have to confiscate it at the start.
Will I be running?
Yes. The game is pretty physical in places. We’re not expecting you to be Indiana Jones or Lara Croft but a bit of survival training will help you out there on the high seas. Having said that there are moments of calm when stealth, cunning and quietness will serve you better than running.
What should I wear?
Think about it this way, what would Indy wear? We recommend comfortable clothing appropriate for the weather and with safe places to store your personal treasures (phone, wallet, phone, etc.). You need to feel confident that you can outrun a sea demon and should wear shoes you’re happy running in. We’re seen running in heels on Saturday night before, and may have done a bit of it ourselves, but don’t recommend it at all. You can’t climb the riggin’ in heels, can yee? Costumes are welcome too!
What happens if I get lost or separated from my friends?
Don’t worry. There is a game helpline you can text or call and there are also game staff around the route who can help you if you get into difficulties.
Do I have to pay extra for the ghost ship party?
No way – it’s all included in the ticket price. There is an epic finale here, brilliant live bands, performances, food and a bar. When else will you get an opportunity to board a real life ghost ship? Don’t miss it!
Can I bring beer?
Don’t bring alcohol to consume en route, we won’t be able to let you play. Plus, there’s so much going on in the game you won’t get a chance to take even a swig. You don’t want your reaction times impaired when trying to escape slippery sea demons either. We have grog supplies aplenty available at the ghost ship finale at the end of the game. It’ll be enough to do any sailor proud.
Do I need money?
Not to play the game, your ticket covers all those costs. There will be a paying bar and food on the ghost ship so we recommend bringing doubloons for that.
This statement covers the services provided by the Resurgam website:
The purpose of this statement is to inform users of this web site, about the information that is collected from them when they visit this site, how this information is used, if it is disclosed and the ways in which we protect users’ privacy.
Data Protection Act 1998:
The Data Protection Act 1998 establishes rights for individuals who disclose their personal information – where personal information is widely defined – to any organisation for any purposes involving processing of that information. Any organisation which processes information about living individuals is a data controller for the purposes of the Act; that is a person who determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed. A data controller is required by the Act to ensure that the data subject has, is provided with, or has made readily available to her/him certain specified information, including the data controller’s identity, the identity of any other person to whom she/he may disclose the information, and the purpose or purposes for which the data are intended to be processed. The data controller in relation to this website is Mutant Labs. The purposes for which the data are intended to be processed are as follows:
1. Signing up to the Resurgam game mailing list: If you register on this site, your personal details will be used only for the purpose of keeping you informed about Resurgam game related activities. Mutant Labs and the Resurgam partners i-DAT and Story Juice will respect the privacy of your personal information and undertakes to comply with all applicable Data Protection legislation currently in force.
In relation to the personal information provided by you on registration, you agree that we may use such information in accordance with the purposes for which we have obtained your permission upon registration. We do not give, share, sell or transfer any personal information collected by us to third parties. Unless otherwise required by statute, we do not identify publicly who signs up on the Resurgam web site.
This privacy statement relates only to the Resurgam website. The website may contain links to other sites where information practices may be different to ours. You should consult the other sites’ privacy notices as we are not responsible for and have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, third party Web sites.
Qualia is a ground-breaking new digital technology and research project, which aims to revolutionize the way audience experiences at arts and culture events are evaluated. The project will help us develop a greater understanding of the less tangible impacts of public engagement with arts and culture. The workshop for practitioners to talk about the Qualia project and its findings to date, offering a first look at this new technology before it launches publicly. The aim is to release the technologies in the future as open source and provide a comprehensive set of open tools to measure impact and engagement.
The Digital R&D Fund is run by NESTA in partnership with Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. More details of the Fund and other projects in the scheme can be found here: http://native.artsdigitalrnd.org.uk/projects/
i-DAT are the UK partners in an international collaboration awarded € 400k by the EU Culture Programme. Strand 1.3.5, Cultural Cooperation Projects with Third Countries.
Web-Engine: Data capture and processing…
App: Personal scheduling and feedback mechanism…
Probes: Interactive information kiosks…
Realtime: festival management and audience flow…
Sentiment: Natural language processing to calculate mood and emotion…
Smile: Smile detection for live video feeds…
Qualia is available as an Open Source building blocks of code allowing organisations to install, modify and build on the code to construct their own systems (in accordance with the GNU GPL license.)
![Qualia [Workshop]](https://i0.wp.com/i-dat.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/28/files/2013/11/qualia-logo.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1 "Qualia [Workshop]"){kind=logo}
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