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Isolation and Loneliness

Isolation and Loneliness AR Cards

The Pandemic has brought the issue of loneliness to those dealing with national lockdowns or having to

isolate. This has become an issue for lots of young people who are so used to being with friends outside, being stuck inside not having physical interaction is an unpleasant experience that young people shouldn't have to experience.

Igneous worked with Youth Focus South West to create an interactive and appealing AR experience for LGBTQ+ young people, to give them tips and support on dealing with various issues that come with isolation. Issues such as health, online safety and hobbies are discussed to help young people to take on activities and seek out further advised on better coping with isolation.

Each issue has been made into cards that can be viewed below, in conjunction with the Igneous Experiences app to bring out an interactive UI and a character to give advice to users.

Union Street Mural

Igneous collaborated with Nudge and the Plymouth Art weekender for 2020's Union Street Party, we secured funding to create and install something for the community of Union Street. We decided this was an opportunity to get create another AR experience like Frederick Street, but with our own mural this time.

We wanted to create an art piece that features different characters from minority and vulnerable groups, but with the input from those communities on how they would like to see themselves represented in our stylisation. We created a character for transgender and non-binary people, for the elderly community, for people with disabilities, and three for the culturally diverse community.

 

Each character has been animated in 2D, each with their own little charm when revealed on screen. The mural was painted by local street artist Jon Lilly, who we previously worked with in Frederick Street for our first AR experience ever. The character work for the culturally diverse was thanks to Animation Graduate, Char Wolf.

The outdoor event took place on the 13th of September, we had a great reception from people willing to download our app for the experience, we also by stand with a tablet for those having issues. People of all ages enjoyed seeing the mural come to life and wanted to see more content like this around Plymouth.

Demonstration with Evelyn

Creative Jam

Creative Jam - Clay Factory

In Early November we attended an AYCH Creative Jam which took place at the Clay Factory in Ivybridge as expert consultants on virtual and augmented reality.

We had people became interested in using VR painting for their prototypes and in their pitches. One group painted a “Sensory Couch” that allows people to escape into a therapeutic environment while waiting for appointments. Another group painted a futurist green park, that could also be viewed in AR as an overlay onto its map.

It was a fantastic experience to watch young people explore their ideas and offer them the tools to create them. We’ll be offering the same services for the AYCH Creative Jam in Santo Tirso in March 2020.

Virtual Reality Painting Workshops

Virtual Reality Painting Workshops

After learning the potential that Virtual Reality Painting has as an immersive therapy experience, we were given the opportunity to run the same style of workshop at the Maker’s Market event held at ocean studios within royal william yard.


This time however, we marketed the workshops as a space to use Tilt Brush as an alternative arts medium.

Participants were able to pay and book a slot for an hour a go in advance or pay on the day through unbooked slots. We had a mixture of artists and kids with parents coming to our sessions.

Shift
AR Workshops

The Shift Project

Shift was a collaborative and innovative partnership project funded by the European Regional Development Fund and The National Lottery Community Fund. Using Virtual Reality art tools to create a safe, and immersive, environment for young people to create, in real time, a 3D expression of their state of mind, something unique to each individual that is often difficult to verbally express, and which constantly 'shifts'. The project aimed to reach out to LGBTQ+ people who were 16 to 30 years of age.


Igneous had the opportunity to volunteer with the Shift project under the supervision with Karen Ingham, who ran similar sessions for 16 to 24 year olds in Swansea. We had the experience of learning the VR tools, it’s benefits for mental health and how to safely guide users in how to use the tools. We intend to make the equipment more accessible in Plymouth for those who feel being in the VR environment can help their mental health.

Here are some snapshots of the participant’s creations.

AR workshops - Summer Mix

Our AR app made Plymouth City Council happy enough to suggest we teach some of our knowledge to young people. During summer time Plymouth runs events for young people to attend to, such as workshops and events around plymouth during the school holidays, the Summer Mix.


Our workshops educated young people on the creation of AR targets, by drawing their own, photographing and converting them to be usable for the AR software Vuforia.


The photo editing and animation software Krita was used to tweak their targets and to create some very basic frame by frame animation that would be content for their AR project.


They were taught some of the raw basics of Unity, how impliment AR with Unity and how to export from Unity to their android devices for them to take home.

Frederick St

The Frederick St AR Mural

The youth centre at Frederick Sthad a previously rather bland wall in their garden, so they decided to get the amazing street artist Jon Lily to help spice it up. He worked with the young people who attended the youth centre, to get their vision on their wall. But Ali Feek, one of the youth workers wanted to give the wall an interactive touch, to make it more engaging for the young people.

 

She came to us, Claire Higgins an Animation Graduate and Salina Rawles a Game Arts Graduate on the possibility of adding Augmented Reality to the wall, to help bring it to life.

 

We worked with the young people who also worked with Jon for suggestions on what they would like to see on the app. We then got working for the app during our own time, eventually producing our first app that got released to the Google Play Store.

 

If you would like to try out the app for yourself then go to the link below and install the app to your phone. Use the still of the mural below and see if you can find the hidden animations! For the best experience, look up this website on a laptop or a desktop, then full screen the image below.

Frederick Mural
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