Closing the Storytrails UK tour with our final residency at the fantastic BFI iMAX by Waterloo in London. 23 Sept to 2nd October. Free to enter come in and meet the team and you experience the AR trail, VR installations and of course our imeersive cinema. We’ve created a ‘megamix;’ of some of our favourite sequences fro the 15 films and all the interactive 3D dioramaas – over 400 stories – will be accessible on iPads. Next up is the films going live on the BFI Player, a new legacy web platform and a VR version supported by our partners at Meta.

Now open – the spectacular new exhibition at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, home of the Lovell Space Telescope.

We worked closely with exhibition designers Casson Mann, the First Light Exhibition will bring to life the Jodrell Bank story.

Unearth inspirational stories of Jodrell Bank’s pioneering scientists in our new permanent exhibition and explore the depths of space in an immersive planetarium experience. Audiences are able to see fascinating archive materials brought together for the first time including audio, film, diaries, letters, plans and photographs, in innovative digitial displays and projections.

The exhibition fabric is made from the skin of the Lovell Telescope, bringing visitors into direct contact with the authentic metal dish which has ‘listened’ to the heavens and been touched by cosmic rays and ‘space dust.’

Sat November 13th 5pm – 10pm.

The Glasgow premiere of ‘SUBSCAN’ – the Unique Lidar 3D Scanned Film of the @subclub87 we created, soundtracked by JG Wilkes ( @optimoespacio ) commissioned by the @vadundee as part of the ‘Night Fever : Designing Club Culture’ exhibition.

Presented at the Sub Club’s open rooftop party space at the Old Schoolhouse in partnership with Ballantines. DM us for tickets.

MSP Ivan McKee, Scottish Minister for Trade, Investment & Innovation visited our R&D department ISO*Labs this morning, and, along with Professor Nick Higgins from University of the West of Scotland, we shared our experience being part of the Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme (KTP), how it has enabled us to explore cutting edge immersive technologies and create innovative prototypes. Minister McKee announced that record breaking amounts are being spent on research and development in Scotland (£2.5bn), driven by strong growth in business investment in R&D.

The Minister also had a chance to see Kristalpallast, a VR piece developed by our KTP Associate Verena Henn which premiered at Glasgow Short Film Festival earlier this month, DIGITAL LAOCOÖN, the immersive VR documentary we created in partnership with GSA and AHRC, and hear about a brand new research led project we’re undertaking in collaboration with Glasgow Life and The Royal Conservatiore of Scotland which explores Gaelic’s place in contemporary Scottish culture through digital immersive experiences, produced by ISO’s own Gaelic speaker Lauren Glasgow.

We were at the University of the West of Scotland’s Creative Media Academy today for a UWS Immersive symposium on Virtual Reality and its uses in higher education. BAFTA award winning producer Catherine Allen of Limina Immersive was the keynote speaker who spoke about learning through immersion.

There were also a number of interesting panel discussions from areas of psychology, healthcare, computing, heritage and design. Our KTP associate Verena Henn joined one of the panels to present her latest research into prototyping immersive experiences for the Cultural Sector.

Back in January ISO and The Glasgow School of Art answered a research call from the AHRC & EPSRC to explore the future of immersive experiences in the context of three central concepts – Memory, Place and Performance. 

We are in York today at the #ImmersiveExperiences Showcase sharing the fruits of this research – DIGITAL LAOCOÖN; a VR experience and accompanying AR app which tell the intriguing story of the Laocoön statue that once sat in the historic Mackintosh School. Our research explored how VR’s unique transportive and immersive qualities can bring new and exciting ways of interacting and engaging with historic objects.

As part of Festival 2018 and Glasgow’s linking to Berlin for the European Championships, we invited Berlin-based audio/visual artist Tom Scholefield (aka Konx-on-Pax) to host a retrospective exhibition. The show featured record sleeve designs, graphic prints, posters, 3D visuals and video work from 2005 – 2018, showcasing Tom’s unique and immediately identifiable vibrant aesthetic. For the Preview weekend, Tom was also joined by Glasgow DJs Sofay and Ribeka for an exclusive live set in the ISO screening room before playing an exclusive live AV set in George Square with Mogwai’s Barry Burns and his band SUMS.

Tom has had his directorial work shown in different publications and festivals all over the world and is known for his psychedelic 3D live visuals for artists such as Lone and his own performances. In more recent years, he has worked with labels such as Warp Records, Brainfeeder, Hyperdub and LuckyMe and he continues to release his own electronic music on Planet Mu.

As part of Festival 18 and The Merchant City Festival, we are hosting the first gallery exhibition of Ex-ISO studio member and Berlin-based audio/visual artist Tom Scholefield and a screening of Run Lola Run in in our Merchant City studio.

Tom, better known as Konx-Om-Pax takes classic 80s sci-fi and modernist cues to create a vivid aesthetic that has shaped the looks of musicians such as Hudson Mohawke, Oneohtrix Point Never and Keudo. Run Lola Run is a critically acclaimed tense thriller which was filmed in and around Berlin in 1998.

View the festival programme.

ISO designer Robert Duncan ventured off to Berlin in May to attend the Pictoplasma conference and festival. The event is a hub for those looking to immerse themselves in contemporary character design and art.

Robert had kept the festival on his radar for a long time and this year decided to take the plunge and submit his work. The artists at the events were hugely inspiring and the level of talent and success they exuded on stage was something he’s keen to emulate.

The GIF attached is Robert’s submission – Amaxius, 5th Level Wizard!

ISO was a hub for this year’s Global Game Jam. The worldwide three-day event was open to all who wanted to challenge themselves and develop an interactive game within 48 hours with only a theme to work on. This year’s theme was ‘Transmission’.

Our team of 8, formed of ISO staff, colleagues and friends, quickly set to work creating a message collecting game, titled ‘RE-EARTH’, which was a fun, short narrative experience.

More information on the Global Game Jam can be found here:- https://globalgamejam.org/about