Applications are now open for an exciting paid MyWorld Micro-Residency for up to eight people to spend approximately four days over three months in residence with the Pervasive Media Studio, a part of WECIL’s strategic partners the Watershed. It is part of a project where you will collaborate on researching and designing accessibility in location-based Virtual Reality (VR) experiences.
Location-based VR means experiencing visual content and other stimuli with a VR headset in a designated space, like a purposely kitted out room in a venue, that is not your own home. Participants can interact with each other and the environment around them — unlike home-based virtual reality. It intends to give participants the space to move, engage, and sometimes affect the content they are experiencing.
VR technology and experiences have mostly been designed without the input and collaboration of Disabled people and we recognise the technology in its current form is inaccessible to many by design. This residency is for those who identify as Disabled (including D/deaf and neurodivergent). No prior experience or knowledge about VR is required.
These Micro-Residencies are part of a collaborative research project called STREAM, which is a partnership between UWE, Marshmallow Laser Feast and All Seeing Eye. The aim is to investigate and navigate what accessible location-based VR could look like.
We will award up to eight people £1,000 for a series of critical co-creation workshops working with VR demos, spread over three months. You will work with a Research Fellow Clarice Hilton and an Access Producer- Imogen Fox- and have access to the Pervasive Media Studio and its facilities in the Watershed.
To find out more and apply, visit the opportunity page here.
