From Home was a collaboration with Chandler Dagg, set up with Moving Pictures Theatre and Language Umbrella Media for Brighton Digital Festival, with support from the Sussex University Humanities Lab.
The Experience
Visitors put on a headset and found themselves in a series of rooms scanned from real-life locations. Each room contained embedded audio pieces and videos — submissions from people all over the world on the subject of home. You could navigate through the spaces at your own pace, discovering stories as you explored.
The Feedback Loop
The project had a second layer that made it genuinely interesting. After the VR experience, visitors were invited to record their own reflections on home, filmed against a green screen. These recordings were then fed back into the virtual world, so the experience grew and evolved with each new participant. The boundary between audience and contributor dissolved.
The Launch
The launch party on November 4th brought the live element to the fore, with performers who had submitted material to the project presenting their work on stage alongside the VR installation. The event sold out — a sign that the combination of immersive tech and deeply personal storytelling had struck a chord.